The Unsung Superheroes of Your Dealership

Dealers are some of the greatest entrepreneurs in the world, but they don’t operate the business alone. Many will tell you that taking care of your people is one of the most important principles in running a successful business. Hiring a great team is one thing, but keeping them together long-term is nothing short of a superpower!

When we talk about taking care of employees, it’s easy to default to the management team or salesforce. These individuals are highly visible and an essential part of your day-to-day operations. Instead, let’s focus on the unsung heroes of your dealership; those who are sometimes less visible, but equally essential. By remembering what makes these roles so valuable, and considering how best to support them, you can ensure your best people stick around.

The Accessories Manager

In 2022, the accessories industry accounted for 40.7 billion dollars in sales, but dealerships accounted for less than five billion of that. This is a huge area of profit many dealerships missed out on. What person in your dealership is responsible for selling accessories, and how can you set them up to win?

How about giving your accessories team the power of mind-reading? Knowing what accessories each customer would love on their new ride would definitely help you get a piece of the accessories industry! Start by having an established accessories manager, and giving them a consistent process to follow with each vehicle sold. When accessories are offered and shown to every customer, you can ensure no opportunity gets passed up. Making these changes can have a big impact on your profit per vehicle sold and retaining these vital members of your staff. When your customer imagines all the ways they plan to personalize their new car, and you offer options before they ever leave the dealership, they’ll leave thinking you read their mind.

Title Clerk

We’ve all heard the phrase, “Not all heroes wear capes.”  The business office is the place where many of these heroes dwell, including the mighty title clerk! Titles equal money, and being able to quickly and easily secure titling and ensure accuracy is an undervalued trait of an efficient dealership

Let’s put on the mask of the title clerk for a moment. Your dealership is constantly acquiring and selling vehicles across multiple platforms. How long does it take to ensure every deal jacket is accurate, prepare it for funding, and submit it for titling? How can you make sure the information on the title is accurate? With so many vehicles moving in and out of the store, it can be difficult to keep track of each one. And having to chase down out-of-state titles can delay the process – and your money – even longer. This is the life of your title clerks! What superpower can prevent errors or delays, and set these employees up for success?

Teleportation is the clear choice for the title clerk. With so many titles moving in and out, the ability to move from place to place means your title clerks know where every title is, and can check status changes in a flash! How do you facilitate this? With a system that gives complete visibility into all titles in process and makes it easy to transfer titles, avoiding delays and legal issues. Trust me, your title clerks will thank you for ensuring your system makes their job easier.

Parts Counterman

Your parts department wears many masks. In any given day, you’ll find this team pulling parts and filling orders, receiving and stocking new deliveries, updating quantities and locations, updating inventory quantities, and much more. The rest of the dealership relies on these heroes to be accurate, fast, and efficient. It can seem like a daunting task, but with the right powers for the job, these heroes can keep the parts department well-organized and ready for any job.

Let’s give super-speed to the parts team!

Digitizing your parts department is a great way to help the team maintain speed and accuracy. 76% of dealerships are still receipting in parts manually and the outdated methods limit your parts heroes to a normal speed. Going digital can make an out-of-this-world difference, putting time back into the day and making errors easier to spot and correct. Going a step further, having a parts system integrated with your DMS can take effort out of reporting and communicating across departments.

With so many different employee perspectives to consider, it’s hard to please everyone. By having one system that connects everyone, and maintaining streamlined processes across the business, your team of heroes will always have what it takes to save the day!

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