LIVE
Hey, welcome to the Monday Minute, 52 weeks to a better dealership, a quick reset to help
you lead better, think clearer and build your dealership with intention.
But before we get started, make sure you review the Sunday's newsletter.
Newsletter lays out the full theme for the week and why behind it and simple exercises
you can work through with your team.
Monday Minute is the mindset.
The newsletter is the roadmap.
All right, Jeffrey, what we got, buddy?
All right, Luke.
Well, today we're going to talk about something that takes years to build, but only a
minutes to damage.
And it's not Jeff's hair.
It's not your marriage promise.
It's your reputation.
So independent dealer world, your reputation is one of the most valuable assets you have,
right?
It affects referrals, it affects reviews, it affects repeat business.
And ultimately, it affects your profitability, right?
So there's a statement that might surprise some people.
Don't be cheap.
No, the cheapest price is rarely the best deal for the customer.
And it's rarely the best deal for the dealer either, right?
When you race to the bottom on price, you leave yourself no room to take care of
customers when things go wrong, right?
We've all had that situation.
We get so beat up on price.
And then after the sale, they want us to fix that, this and the other.
And it's like, dude, let's be honest.
Like, things are going to go wrong.
It's going to have issues.
There's going to be misunderstandings.
I'm going to want to repair stuff.
And if you beat me up so bad on price, I'm not going to be able to take care of
the problems when they do happen.
So make money.
But then the question is also, how are you going to respond when the, when
the problems do happen, right?
Uh, great dealers, they build in enough margin to make sure that they have options.
Right.
Is there enough margin to help the customer out?
Is there enough margin to do some goodwill repair?
Is there enough margin just to be able to sit down and talk to the customer and
have someone who's there to just let them vent?
Cause honestly, yeah, 80% of the time the customer just wants to vent.
So you need to have somebody who's good at that on your payroll.
Maybe it's your manager, maybe it's you, maybe it's the office manager, but to be
able to handle these interactions and make sure they don't turn into bad reputation
because your online reputation really matters now more than ever.
Yeah, for sure.
And you know, Jeff, I've done, done, uh, sessions about this and I really,
really love, uh, to see dealers who've put in the extra effort to get those
reviews up high and what that brings us to our homework.
Number one, start with your Google reviews, not because they're the only
reviews that matter, but they are the ones that customers see first.
Ask yourself, do we respond to every review?
That's the good ones, the bad ones and the ugly ones.
We need to make sure we're responding.
Do we thank, thank the customers for leaving positive feedback.
And actually do we also have a way to make sure the customers are leaving reviews?
That's super important.
And do we professionally address concerns when we do have complaints?
Cause boys and girls, I'm going to tell you, you're going to mess up.
Cars are going to break.
We've got to make sure that when we mess up or the cars mess up, we take care of.
That's another important question.
Who owns that?
Jeff was talking about it earlier.
Who owns the post sell complaints at your dealership?
Um, needs to be one person responsible and they need to figure out what they're
doing.
Customers, if they get bounced around on that and feel like they're not being addressed,
they're going to get frustrated.
And when customers get frustrated, typically they complain and the best way for
them to complain in their eyes is to go on the internet.
So every best operator out there has a great process.
They have one person that owns it.
One person follows up and one person that act is proactive when it comes to
resolutions, unresolved complaints, don't despair, but they become stories.
They become reviews.
They come viral on the internet.
And we can't have that because our reviews are our reputation.
So you're assignment this week, review your online reputation.
Look at every Google review you've had in the last few months, identify trends.
Sometimes you can see that, Hey, we, we just all of a sudden started getting
bad reviews.
Well, is it a recon problem?
Is the salesperson problem?
Is it an F and I problem?
There's something there that's probably causing that, uh, respond to the reviews
when needed, evaluate your resolution process because it's super important and
make sure your dealership is positioned to take care of the customers.
Make sure you're making enough money to take care of it because it will cost you
in the long run if you don't reputation and built by being the cheapest is built
by being the best at what we do is built by being a dealership that stands
behind its customer.
So let's build this together.
0:00
4:51