Platinum Info Central

CONTINUING THE MOMENTUM FOR THE BUSINESS THROUGHOUT QUARTER 3

In terms of marketing, we’ve had a good start building the Q3 campaigns and getting things underway, with marketing grids and plans already being implemented across a variety of media – direct mail, prospecting lists, conquest mailers, selling events, digital and product placements.

It seems apt to re-iterate our priorities from the start of year, which we show again below. Please share this with team members as appropriate and use excerpts for sales meetings, dealer web messages etc.

Please ensure that our collective focus is on the following;

CONTINUING THE MOMENTUM
In order to deliver on the required result in what will be a competitive marketplace, each department needs to build a momentum that all team members will relate to and enjoy being a part of.
Momentum in a business needs to encompass the following areas in order to deliver business and personal success.

CUSTOMER DELIGHT & RETENTION
A successful business will delight and therefore be more likely to retain a customer’s business and loyalty. We must do this each and every time a customer visits us or contacts us.

We must do what we say we’re going to do. If, for example, a customer wishes to be contacted in the morning, then that is the time we must contact them – not in the afternoon when it’s inconvenient for them. Obviously, failing to respond to an enquiry is not an option.
We also need that “magic ingredient” of making each customer feel valued and special.

Instead of simply serving a customer competently, try to create that “something more” that bonds the customer to us.

Think about how this can be achieved in every aspect of what we do.

SELLING
We must never lose sight of the fact that we are a business that “sells”, whether it be products or services.

We should not be “coy” about selling.

Provided we sell with integrity, we should be proud of selling.

It’s also important to remember that when interacting with customers, we are selling ourselves as well.

UPSELLING
In these economic times, making a “sale” is not always enough.

Have a continual process for the “upsell” whether F & I products, Service Plans, VHC, Accessories and seasonal items such as Winter Tyres and Snow Socks.

SMART SELLING
“Selling” and “Upselling” are essential, but may need to be considered with Smart Selling.

Smart Selling is a concentration on the products or activities that will earn the maximum franchise bonuses, or perhaps an extra focus on over-age used cars, or maybe an offer on De-Icer before the winter ends.

Another “Smart Sell” for the business is Service Plans, as it ties the customer to us for the duration of the plan.

MAKING A PROFIT & THE RETENTION OF MARGIN
Though we must delight each customer, it must not be done at the expense of making a profit and retaining a margin.

Aftersales teams might consider the impact on the end result if we achieved a higher recovery rate throughout the year, or Sales teams might consider the effect of achieving an extra £30 margin in every used car. Small increments sustained over long periods can make big differences to the bottom line.

Customer delight will also help, as the customer will be much more likely to return.

There’s a useful phrase that may help “Turnover is for vanity, profit is for sanity”.

PROSPECTING & MARKETING
We have lots of good tools in the group such as Dealer Web, VHC, Platinum Info Central and our Marketing resource.

We must use these resources continually to prospect customers in sync with our marketing activities to maximise each campaign.

We expect to be very active in the marketing arena during Quarter 3. Almost certainly, we will be involved in many types of promotions across all brands and all departments.

As well as ensuring that we retain as many of our customers as possible, we must and will actively seek new “conquest” customers to expand our client base.

DATA CAPTURE
Accurate and full data capture is essential to allow future marketing and prospecting. Anything less shouldn’t be tolerated by any of the management teams.

In particular, please ensure that we raise the bar with email capture. This will allow larger percentages of our customers to be marketed digitally in the future.

FORESIGHT
Where we feel that we’ve “missed a trick” by being too late to do something, there is an opportunity to improve.

For example, if we get to the first “heatwave” of the summer and we haven’t prepared our “Air Conditioning” campaigns, we’ve missed a trick.

We know that the summer’s going to bring a certain amount of warm weather, so it makes sense to prepare the work earlier.

Adherence to an outline Marketing Plan will assist in this, and avoid the “Last Minute.com” scenario that never produces the best results.

TEAMWORK
The best results are achieved by teams working together for the common good.

There was a lot of fantastic teamwork during the first half of 2014, so let’s build on this again throughout Quarter 3, continue momentum and
meet the challenges and opportunities in this second half of the year.

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We look forward to working with you during Q3 and wish you a successful trading period.

Yours sincerely
Jeremy Cuff & Odette Shocklidge
Joint Managing Directors/Platinum Motor Group