Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Colin (CJ) on July 26, 2010 at 11:24am

Did the same thing a few years back. BDC were hourly with bonus paid on show up appointments and appointments that purchased. BDC were completely responsible for setting and confirming appointment. Besides selling vehicles what will the Internet Manager be responsible for?

Permalink Reply by Christine Conley on July 26, 2010 at 11:51am

From an internet manager a couple of questions for you.
1. What are the actual responsibilities of the mgr?

In addition:

2. Will they be responsible for the hiring, training and continued overseeing of the their reports?
3. Will they be working the content of your site?
4. Will they be working your social media?
5. Will they be managing the relationships with all your vendors in regards to all things IT?
6. Will they be responsible for training sales staff on your CRM and such?
7. Will they be responsible for leads that come in after hours?
8. WIll they be responsible for follow up on all completed deals to ensure sourcing is correct and auditing their teams set appointments / outbound call numbers / etc?
9. Are they writing / implementing and keeping current all your outgoing quotes and pricing?
10. Are they going to come up, design and implement your online specials, tags, presence and then manage that online reputation?


This is just a small sampling of what I have found gets attributed to the Internet Manager, yet most DP's want to pay a minimal salary ($35-$45k year) with a meager bonus plan. I have spoken with a few GM's recently just trying to gauge the market out there and they have all had 2-3 managers in place in the last year or so. When I inquire as to the pay scale I can only shake my head.

This person will be the face of your dealership online. What percentage of your "ups" will email / talk / chat with this department on a daily, weekly and monthly basis? We all know that 90% of customers shop online before they ever walk into a store... Just remember that you get what you pay for....

Permalink Reply by Michael Odierno on July 27, 2010 at 2:21pm

Everything you mentioned will be their responsibility as well as building micro sites, phone training, and designing campaignes through our CRM.

Permalink Reply by Hal Scott on July 27, 2010 at 12:26pm

Good morning. My first comment is that all pay plans suck. What will enthuse one employee will cause another to quit. With that in mind first determine the criteria that is critical the staffers jobs - what is it that tey must accomplih for this project to succeed. Once you have those critical points established you must set standards of performance - how much is enough for each success point. Next design the pay plan to reward the staffers for hitting or exceeding those standards. Pay plans should be simple, so consider including up to 50% of thier pay in salary/hourly pay, and the balance is based on hitting standards. You may wish to pay the staffers as indiviuals or asa eam depending on the culture of your department and company. The annual amount of income should be comparable to similar jobs in your market. I apolgize for thetyping errors, I have computer issues.

Permalink Reply by Christine Conley on July 27, 2010 at 12:28pm

nicely put

Permalink Reply by David Ortiz on July 27, 2010 at 12:48pm

What happened to looking at the whole picture?

What is the business model of the entire dealership?

Is the dealership more about "people hearding" into the showroom or "relationship building"?

These questions have to be answered before setting up a pay plan for BDC Reps.

If the dealership is on the path of relationship building, then you should pay more towards a sold unit bonus with a decent hourly wage... They would still get their appointments shows bonus, but on a different level. The quality of the turn over would be better if the reps spend more time to set the appointment.

If the dealership is on the path of "people hearding", like most sub-prime dealers are, Then you should pay them more on appointment shows on a tiered level. Also pay more for sold, but emphasize on the shows.

Bottom line is that we have to structure the "bonus" part of any pay plan to match what the dealership's overall goals are. Some dealers are happier selling less cars with a higher overall gross (relationship delaers), but some dealers care only about the volume (People Hearders).

What path is your dealership on?

Permalink Reply by Kevin Nichols on July 27, 2010 at 8:18pm

There you go!! Somebody's paying attention to the PULSE of our business.

What PATH IS your dealership on? What is your plan of ACTION?
Before you have this in place, and all of your processes mapped out, you shouldn't even worry about pay plans.

I'm not saying this with any bad attitude, it's the truth.

We have to really have a PLAN of ACTION in place.

I just happen to have built a BDC from not even having an internet dept.oe a CRM 4 months ago.
I have a family owned Dealership with 11 franchises and a 75 bay collision shop, and towing company that I work very hard for.

We are heavy into Social Marketing, just launched a new CRM, plug ins for that, and are implementing a phone tree and new service reservation system.

As far as the internet is concerned, there has to be a sliding, or declining salary, and a "per" appointment and sold amount to start.

MOST importantly, have your BDC "Hand Off" to the sales floor when an appointment is made.
This will ELIMINATE the usual conflict and unrest that happens between your internet dept. and the sales floor. This way, EVERYBODY'S HAPPY!! Charge the deal a flat 150 and be done with it.

All of this is good, but without a carefully mapped out plan (Yes, flow charts too!) you'll be flying blind without an instrument rating, for those pilots out there that will make sense.

Simply put, get a plan of action together first. Most of all, (a lot of us have forgotten this part) Have FUN with it!!

Kevin N.

Permalink Reply by Kevin Nichols on July 27, 2010 at 8:20pm

There you go!! Somebody's paying attention to the PULSE of our business.

What PATH IS your dealership on? What is your plan of ACTION?
Before you have this in place, and all of your processes mapped out, you shouldn't even worry about pay plans.

I'm not saying this with any bad attitude, it's the truth.

We have to really have a PLAN of ACTION in place.

I just happen to have built a BDC from not even having an internet dept.oe a CRM 4 months ago.
I have a family owned Dealership with 11 franchises and a 75 bay collision shop, and towing company that I work very hard for.

We are heavy into Social Marketing, just launched a new CRM, plug ins for that, and are implementing a phone tree and new service reservation system.

As far as the internet is concerned, there has to be a sliding, or declining salary, and a "per" appointment and sold amount to start.

MOST importantly, have your BDC "Hand Off" to the sales floor when an appointment is made.
This will ELIMINATE the usual conflict and unrest that happens between your internet dept. and the sales floor. This way, EVERYBODY'S HAPPY!! Charge the deal a flat 150 and be done with it.

All of this is good, but without a carefully mapped out plan (Yes, flow charts too!) you'll be flying blind without an instrument rating, for those pilots out there that will make sense.

Simply put, get a plan of action together first. Most of all, (a lot of us have forgotten this part) Have FUN with it!!

Permalink Reply by William Bryant on July 28, 2010 at 5:50pm

Best pay plan set up I've seen is to pay a base salary, and tiered commission for each appt/sale. A higher flat per appt and per sale based on better lead-to-appt and appt-to-sale ratios. This way you accomplish your goal of having high conversion ratios on your leads, and your people get paid for performance.

The manager should get bonuses for hitting unit bonuses.

You can tweak the numbers for each to match your store's performance and desired monthly payout.

Permalink Reply by Martin Torres on December 11, 2010 at 9:15am

Salary, Performance Based on Total Gross.  (The total gross generated by the department)

 

Adjusted Gross = (Total Gross - Budget - Salary)

((Total Gross - (Adjusted Grossx%))x%= Pay

 

(In reality there the Salary is not a salary but a draw to drive the department to be performance oriented.)