Why a BDC is indispensible for growth. 

In the “good old days”, automotive dealerships could grow merely by waiting for the next customer to darken the doorway. Today, it’s nothing more than a quaint memory. Dealerships now understand the need to consistently engage target audiences to grow. Not just any audiences, mind you. They’re shifting focus to existing customers, rather than chasing new ones. It’s a job perfectly suited for a high performance business development center (BDC).

Mining your CRM for Gold.

Here’s the good news. Your dealership already has a prized store of data on existing customers – your CRM. And it’s most valuable when a BDC Manager leverages it to reach out effectively at every stage of the customer journey. Nurturing relationships within your CRM – data mining as it’s commonly referred to – is a huge opportunity to increase profitability and keep customer costs down. Plus, there’s an added bonus. The dealership can achieve better results from digital marketing efforts. Sure, data mining may sound complex, but you don’t have to be a data scientist to unlock nuggets of gold from your CRM. A properly trained and managed high performance business center team can determine where a customer stands in their vehicle ownership journey, then arm agents with sales or service messages that possess a greater chance of resulting in a sale.

The success rate of selling to a new customer is 5-20%. Conversely, the success rate for an existing customer is 60-70%!

“A high performance business development center armed with a simple data-driven strategy can prevent defection and strengthen any dealership’s customer base,” says Melissa Szekely, Sr. VP Operations at Blueprint, a division of Dealer-FX. “Better yet, when aligned with strong digital communications like our Total Service Marketing packages, a BDC can align their efforts with outbound campaigns that reach the right customer at exactly the right time.”