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so we are here for another uh webinar uh run by autotalk.com in conjunction with the podium our great clients our great friends uh at podium now joining me today is uh and I apologize again if I get this wrong is podium Regional sales director for Auto uh Richard latamaji uh and Jordan Malone the sales manager for Motorama Kia in morocca thanks for joining us gentlemen thank you now the topic for today is one that I'm sure everyone's kind of pretty pleased to hear about because time is money and plus the longer you leave a client hanging the you know the more chances they are to have to find another reason not to go through with the deal is how to speed up your sales process with Podium business efficiencies and customer satisfaction continue to be key priorities for dealerships increasing speed to sale whilst delivering exceptional customer service can be made possible when leveraging the right technology and Richard I'm sure you're about to explain to us the technology that you guys have that allows dealerships to uh to do this so yeah I mean take it away yeah what what uh what can you tell us about this yeah thank you for that introduction Richard let me share my screen and we'll go right into it is this visible for everyone that's always for me awesome yeah so thank you for that intro issues um basically we're going to talk about how to speed up your sales process using um text message and I really think uh the easiest way to do that is to go through the customer Journey right and so just a little bit about myself first of all um I've been with Podium for three years and in those three years I've mainly worked in the dealership space you know we have about 650 dealerships um Podium today in Australia so have had a bit of experience and and seen the success that dealers have had over the years with Podium and then I'm also obviously joined by Jordan Malone who is the sales manager at Motorama Kia morica we'll go to Jordan in a moment but just before we do that you know the easiest way to explain this is is really going through the customer Journey right what does an Australian do when they're looking to buy purchase a new car and a lot of the time they're going to be doing their research online right and they're going to be looking up maybe a specific brand or a specific model of cars and when it's go time 8 out of 10 Australians will go on Google and just look up a local dealership all right and so why are Google really so important is um you know dealers have this um and justifiably massive focus on the CSI scores right the customer satisfaction uh that's pushed from the OEM and we have a big focus on it and a lot of the time what we find when we speak to a new dealership is they actually have great CSI scores but that doesn't translate over into the Google reviews right and who knows the CSI scores is the OEM and the current customs of the dealership but not necessarily the new clients that are just trying to choose a dealership online so the way that we kind of look at it Google reviews are a public representation of your CSI scores and so interestingly enough I'll give one example here we've just onboarded a customer a dealership where they actually had the best CSI scores for both their service and sales in their region but their Google reviews because they didn't have a process in place to get those Google reviews were below four stars right so when you're below four stars as a dealership for example Google actually blacklists you from searches such as best dealership near me so someone could be right next to your dealership and pull up a list of let's say Ford or Mitsubishi dealers and if you're below four stars Google doesn't actually give that recommendation they recommend dealerships over four stars so that would be like something that we need to fix straight away all right and so once you're considered based on your reviews the customer then lands on the website and one of the tools that we provide and something that's really prevalent already in the Australian dealership plan is a web chat tool right so there's a lot of different web chat tools out there there's live chats you know there's a you know it's it's a robot reading of a script sometimes it's a call center maybe overseas that are handling your leads we personally believe that text message is the way to reach your customers right a key reason for that is you can continue a text message conversations after the customer has left their computer right and so the other thing that we believe now is your website is an online extension of your showroom so what we want to do is we want to be able to provide the same level of experience online as if someone physically walked into your dealership and unfortunately that is very hard to provide with either a robot or a third-party provider overseas that's not really passionate about the brand and the community that you have around the dealership so the way that we do it and you know Jordan is we'll we'll talk to Jordan about this in a moment is essentially we have ai on the back end of Podium to decide whether it's a sales service or pass inquiry and if it's a sales inquiry if we funneled straight into the hands of the best sales rep and and they can start that text conversation with the sales rep in the dealership and so you know specifically for Motorama Kia Morocco this has driven some absolutely amazing results um you know your dealership I think over the years has been the top performing you know you've won a national dealer of the year for Kia several times and I think this year you won uh best sales of the Year Jordan that's uh that's some congratulations to you there as a sales manager thank you yeah what do you put that down to I mean you know what does your customer experience look like foreign first came in um and damaged the sort of face-to-face initial relationship with the customer uh in terms of the volume walking through the door we had to look at alternate ways of of keeping ourselves successful and keeping our jobs and and being prosperous and um Motorama as a group you know head-on went into looking for the ability to talk to customers um online and offline and still giving them the I suppose the immediate responses that they would want as they would be walking into the dealership knowing fine well that wasn't the case um and again just looking for ways like you said it's to speed up that process without cutting Corners um and ultimately if customers were not comfortable to come into the showroom or have the home visits that we would normally look at as a daily process um they still wanted their answers and they still wanted that human interaction all we did was put them you know the the chat in between and made it real you know without their I suppose the the AI in the background deciding what answers to give without any empathy or understanding of tone Etc yeah right and so you you previously used the like I said AI or a live chat functionality as well how would you sort of describe the difference in that experience well put it this way we don't use them anymore whereas Podium um has has definitely shown a steady and um Progressive sort of importance to the way that we run our business and and how the guys make their living uh they've had to buy into it I mean admittedly when it first came in I'm sure 99 of everyone watching will agree that it was almost like oh here we go it's another tool it's another part that's being added into our process that we just have to deal with we'll see how long this one lasts etc etc but in all fairness you know like um as I got more into it and I learned more about the analytics and and how they can be utilized and I suppose gaining a little bit more understanding and influence and control of a lot of the detractors around uh um my competition um we learned to use it um really quite successfully and going back to the basics which was what's going to make you different to everybody else you know we saw well we're just going to help people the way they want to deal if they're going to text us like this this is how they want to deal and we're going to have to become just that much better at it so that we don't have to rely upon walking we don't have to rely upon phone calls um and you know with the current stock situations you know we're not having to deal with um having no cars in the showroom to show people um so but I think the good thing about Podium for me is that it it's not just the initial contact with the customer we can basically do the full process and when I say fill process that includes the afterward after stuff as well so like you said the Google reviews um the fact that you can hold on to a customer's history chat for when they need a service we can control that when they've got a problem though they need a part or they need a warranty claim Etc it's all it's all all done in that same chart history and you can basically own your customer for life which is part of that Motorama value you know like one of the things we really want to do is have customers for life and I think the way that you do that in the modern Days by giving people the opportunity to deal efficiently and effectively with ideally one person or at least what they see as one form of line of communication with with the dealership yeah amazing Jordan thank you for that um one question that gets asked quite often is obviously when you're handling these conversations yourself how do you deal with the um the stuff that comes in after hours um well we we made an agreement as a as a team that and as a group that we wanted to be the Benchmark and we wanted to set standards and we wanted to do the over and above unbelievable customer experience which uh ultimately every manager in the group has access to the podium web chat for their department and there's notifications that go out to certain people so that from a management point of view we can either control it ourselves or delegate out but ultimately we want to treat it like a phone call um and ultimately if you sat there and and had somebody ringing that you're in quite your main inquiry line it doesn't ring for a minute you know so we sat down and thought okay let's treat this like a phone call as soon as it comes through we either deal with it ourselves and as a Management Group you know we agreed that we should be handling this immediately um and second to that the the sales staff it's it they they have grown to learn that this lead is ultimately the hospitality that they can have because these people want to engage with you and now if you then reciprocate and say hey uh Papa State at night and you send them an immediate response all of a sudden you trust your obligation levels that they all Skyrocket um and that seems to be a very common theme with the first response back from the customer once you actually speak to them and they realize that you're not a robot is thank you for the you know the prompt response yeah um and all of a sudden that that wall comes down you know I mean you you and where you've got other as a customer you know if you're doing it yourself like if you're on the phone to phone company X trying to work out why your Bill's so high yeah if you don't want to talk to them anymore you know it's a robot you stop chatting yeah whereas when you're chatting to somebody and you know that they've taken the time out of their outside working hours to actually communicate with you it shows that they like there's a care Factor there um and then on the other side you know from a selfish point of view from the sales consultant they know that that is a lead that could end up with them getting paid commission if if I can add in here I mean I think that's such a great way of responding to people because also in a time where we're seeing you know stock is is short and turning over relatively quickly websites aren't always updated as quickly as as as people would like them to particularly on the major uh the major sites until someone responds and lets you know that you know confirms your vehicle actually existent is what it is that vehicle doesn't it is just vapewear essentially so the fact that you've answered you can answer quickly and confirm that it's there confirm you're willing to talk uh that I guess means that that vehicle is then real that thing is real to the customer and Jordan Jessica you used a pony map for that right you don't actually physically have someone at the dealership after hours no no no so everyone is locked and loaded with the the podium app on the phone uh the notification settings are all correctly set within the dealership I mean outside of ours ultimately yes it's it's either myself or um our general manager Joel will will get that notification and ultimately we will deal with it if it's available on the back end of that we do have support within the team uh that have the notification come through at the same time so uh you know and sometimes you can have a laugh with it because you both may be sitting there on a on a Sunday afternoon watching the Telly and it's a matter of who gets then you can see who's typing back and it's a matter of who does it quickest you know and and I think the mentality around that is important because you know as we all know uh the the average epidemic sales consultant doesn't bother on a Sunday afternoon like that they switch off it's done whereas the guys are taking this on board and looking at this as an opportunity you can have a tax minute a text message conversation for four to five minutes and do a deal yeah and that that four or five minute conversation on text usually cuts out the 20 30 40 minutes of half truth or you know the the natural defense mechanisms of a customer because they don't have to give you it there's no obligation but the fact that you're doing these things for them in such a manner I think builds that ability to to drag real information out very very quickly and customers are now aware of you know it's not exactly easy to find stock or sometimes even buy stock um depending on which dealership you go to like they are being made to feel that it's difficult whereas four to five minutes and you're sent through a deposit request through Podium they've sent you the license through to your email your phone and the next morning you'll send through a contract you know it's um it's as close to order taking as as you would like but these things are becoming the norm and you've got to do it well to own it yeah absolutely John and one of the things that really surprised me was when we were preparing for this webinar you know logged in and and I saw that you you know and you talked about this as well you had a conversation come through someone inquiring about a car I think at 12 o'clock and and an hour later you only had exchange a couple of text messages you'd taken a thousand dollar SMS uh payment deposit well that and that's becoming it's not and I suppose if I'm speaking of people wondering about podium this is not an order taking service you you have to treat this like a needs analysis you have to treat this like a relationship with somebody on your shoulder in Florida you have to treat this like uh a phone call coming through it has to be taken and and and dealt with ingly like it can't be a a slap Dash version of a meeting with a customer otherwise you see that you do see uh the failure just become blatantly obvious like if you're not a supposing control or wanting to find out more or don't want to take the conversation further I think it's very easy to interpret that from the customer's point of view um and it goes back to that one-on-one sales training about anyone keep asking questions keep asking questions you've got to be doing it otherwise they get the that feel of I'm just being fobbed off again yeah yeah I mean and so one of the things that you mentioned as well obviously Jordan is you know a key part of Podium as well is being able to once they've had this amazing customer experience on the delivery process or once a service Ro is completed to request a Google review so can you tell me just a little bit about you know how that has worked out for the dealership and how the extra reviews impacted uh Motorola Makita Morocco well I think um when I took over we were setting something like 32 or 33 Google reviews for uh I don't even know if we had a three-star rating at the time right and again driven by the what happened with corvid and the lack of face-to-face relationships um I will admit that I think Motorama went the absolute correct way with uh just making sure that over and above anything else that our customer experience level remained the same so we then you know I'd already gotten the bandwagon of okay if people are looking at who they want to deal with um they're sitting on their phone or they're sitting on their iPad and as you mentioned the first thing they do is they type in Kia dealers Brisbane and if you're not within the Googles or algorithms that allow you to be in that top one two three four you don't even get a look in it anymore and I suppose fast forward down down the track um as you've got up there you know we've managed to collect 700 natural Google reviews like um we're not bluffing it it's that there's not like 500 Google reviews going through in a month because again you get caught out when they're not real uh we've got over 700 Real reviews in the space of about you know three years um it's not uncommon for us to hear a customer now come into the show and say hey we've come past two or three other dealerships purely because we've seen your Google reviews and with the team that we have like um they're actually starting to see their own personal reviews Catch Fire because we've got customers walking in saying I want to deal with consultant X because we've seen his reviews and it's amazing you find um you find like a trend of a certain culture putting reviews through with a certain name that community all of a sudden starts to follow suit and it doesn't matter like all of a sudden it doesn't really matter where we come from it's like they come from North business and Gold Coast to wimba you name it they're coming to deal with that person because their Community has dealt with that consultant and that's the the feedback that they've been given or that they've seen um so it does trickle down but ultimately even from the top you know I think across our group um everyone's on board with with making sure that they are digital and open reputation is is top class and it's in line with the motor and cultural and values you know and we we really do just want to give everyone that best experience uh that we possibly can every single time that creates that customer for life and once again if you relate that back to Podium that customer for life it now has a full conversation in one chat that you can look back at forever you know no matter who has been their file is on a web chat with you yeah brilliant one question that I had about the reviews as well um this is sort of feedback that I hear from other top dealers is once they kind of become like you I think I believe you're the um top rated Kia dealer in Brisbane at the moment is the the customer changes a little bit as well all right because now you're getting more and more of those type of customers like you mentioned that might be traveling from further away that want to do business with your dealership rather than just contacting you because they've already got a quote from three other dealers for example you know because the product is the same they just want that top service and they want to know if they're in good hands is that kind of would that be a fair assessment absolutely and and the good thing is I mean I'll speak specifically for my dealership and most of the more around it but these guys will will perform under that pressure they know that we've got people coming from X Y and Z City or or suburb that we need to perform based on our reputation otherwise it becomes twice as bad and we can't risk and we won't risk having the work put out there um to create these reputations uh we won't put it under you know any sort of under Jeopardy because ultimately we know fine well a poor set of reviews can be extremely detrimental but one poor review Here There and everyone we know what happens we have slip UPS we have you know places that we have uncontrollables that ultimately we're the agents forum and we have to cop that but that also makes us real you know we're we're not um we're not five stars every single every single time because there are things that obviously we don't control there are variables but ultimately the fact that they're still prepared to go and do something showed that they came to us in the first place and when you have to sit there and go okay it's about how do we minimize our mistakes now we're that good at getting the five-star experience to the customers how do we minimize those those anything lower than five stars and getting a negative review every now and then just makes it real right like I think the way that you respond to negative reviews for example people look at that and they're actually sometimes gives you the respect as well they see like okay they've actually dealt with that person and they've stayed positive and they you know they've got a resolution in the end and the good thing about the Google reviews is that you do have an opportunity for them to change that review and ultimately that can work on the back end of the scale so you know once they've been through the sales experience we need to make sure that that's continued through because we don't want the the rating to go down or get edited because of something else later on down the track we have to bear that in mind there's one more question Jordan this this comes up quite often as well you know when it comes to asking for a Google review request um dealers sometimes kind of worry about over surveying the customer because of the OEM um so as it go out as well like how do you time that review and what would you sort of say to that well ultimately we still we still encourage as close to 100 short of handovers as possible um and that's our time to go through with the customer and and just make sure that we walk through the car walk through their experience you know walk through any questions or concerns that they've had leading up to the time and it should and it does give us that opportunity at the very end to go look do you believe that you've had uh uh a good experience with us is there anything we could do better we're happy to take the feedback and if you don't mind rather than doing that now I'm going to send you a Google review um to give us that honest feedback I mean we don't want to put people in a position where they feel they've got to give us maybe um the easy way out review I'm more than happy to take the feedback um and when it's done publicly there's no hiding from it which again I prefer um I would rather let people see who we are for real and uh specifically you know Motorama again are known for transparency they're known for that hope and honest approach where we like to give customers the opportunity to be a part of it rather than not feeling like they've got to battle for it um so anywhere down the track if they feel they want to give us some feedback we'll take it and I think again relating it back to the Google review and if they have come through a Podium they're used to that experience where I've just sent you a text with a link so they know it's it's not something abnormal it's been done through the process like our initial web chat was they are your your deposit was done there here's your Google review by the way if you need anything else later on use that chat you know it it keeps it all in that same place with them so it's not abnormal it's not new it's not difficult um even with the pressures that you're getting from oems to to collect you know their their service indicator scores and surveys back it's not much based on what you've given them yeah amazing and look everything that you've spoken about Jordan is is purely right now in that sales process but what's really exciting is right you can use that two-way text messaging throughout after sales service you can use that to organize Finance um you know people asking for parts so it really touches on every arm of a successful dealership oh it does and the fact that we've got uh an excellent Finance team as well they're on board with the podium web chart so if it's a finance related chat um it will get allocated um to that Finance Specialist or that business manager um to speak directly um our aftermarket Consultants are on board so they speak to customers through there as well um to try and keep everything in the same place but in all fairness I think if we sat down and thought about it how long it does take to sit with a customer when they first walk into finalizing something versus what it does to text somebody through um the process it actually becomes so much more time efficient as well yeah and with the pressures on the front end to get a lot more done than what we asked what we what we used to do we need that time efficiency you find that accelerating that purchase sending out the SMS payment link helps a lot just to kind of lock that commitment in oh absolutely and I think you know if you look at a live example with the Optus you know hacking and stuff going on just now people are becoming more and more cautious with the cyber attacks and uh and accessing information so the secure link option does become very beneficial um and again if you're looking for customers to have quality time with a finance specialist knocking out that yeah maybe it's terminal not working or the internet is down we can't get it going it's it's done and dusted um it doesn't become I suppose a scary part of the process anymore um it's it's just apartment and part and and people will take that on board um and again like if you look at the days where you're busy in the dealership and there's not enough time to have people sitting around waiting and you've got to utilize it's just another part well hey I'm going to send you the deposit link now so you can do that whilst you wait to do your finance application you know again customers are probably being reciprocal of the fact that we're trying to keep things time efficient for both parties and I think that is respected um and probably you know knocks out that little bit of embarrassment later on you know they didn't bring a card or whatever else and I'm like there's there's all these other variables that can that can cause such a um aspect of the the process if you get it wrong whereas at least this way it seems to be pretty secure absolutely absolutely really well I know you you've always used buying for you know close to three years now and then it's become second nature to you but maybe if you could just really quickly talk about like starting up with Podium how do you approach training the staff to to implement their emails as part of the daily process um well it did it did start with uh obviously the web chat you know that was the the first and foremost point that we we needed to get everybody on board with and understanding that our goal across the group is to get everybody responded to in under one minute irrespective of the department that's huge so it's ambitious but if you're going to be the best you've got to do something different um once we got everybody on board with that and understanding how to use things like the payment scheme sending links sending photographs and you know if we've got a car sitting on the shortened floor we've been sending things through that way um that was a great start and everyone seems to be on board with it and sees the benefit and then then we move into I suppose a bit more of the analytics in the background where you can use um I track um I track my team specifically on on their Google reviews and their average uh response times to customers their average scores through the month sorry do you use the leaderboard for that yeah yeah so the leaderboard on there uh and we'll play with the metrics based on you know if we think there's an area of opportunity we'll we'll change the metrics But ultimately it's around that response time uh the reviews that are going out you know so we've got kpis in place of deliveries to um to Google reviews uh as you can appreciate not everybody has a Google account or wants to do a Google review so that's fine um there has to be a little bit of leeway there but then there's also that response rate and and you can tell when when your process is good and it's timed correctly and the customers have had a good experience your the review rate so your your invite is quite strong and then it's a matter of managing um making sure that your the review the review stars are if not five as close to five as possible um that's that's important thing for me because we talk about that you know probably daily um based on what what number of cars we've got going out for the day of the week um the payments you know we track the payments to make sure that we're we're not um so I'm missing out on opportunity uh we will look at um probably the competitive set as well through the dashboard you know that's probably important for me I mean owning our own you know pmas uh probably one of my main goals um is just making sure that we own it and and making sure that no it's not just the volume you know we are looking for that quality as well so that our latest results are the best our review numbers are the best on a monthly year-to-date basis you name it um so we use I actually use a fair few of the the different things within podium but it took time once I got to know and had to use I had to use it well I had to be effective with it um it does help with a lot of the conversations you're having both up and down you know so when you're talking to Senior Management about what we're doing Here There and Everywhere like this is important to to sit there and say hey well we're holding x amount of average reviews per month the ratings are good the response rates are good our average response times are good our competitive set is where it needs to be there's there's a lot of positives there once you start utilizing it all and the results speak for themselves absolutely I mean the the they translate in from so many different like we talk about omnichannels all the time now you know and and this is probably one of the key areas that's in conjunction with so many things um and to have it all in one place does make it very easy once you get to know it about how you keep all those things in coming in through to one place um but yeah the results ultimately you look at how many deposits and how many deals that we're doing over Podium you look at how many positive conversations that we're having that all might not might lead to a deposit through Podium But ultimately the appointment ratios you know once upon a time we talked about how many points you get over the phone well notice how many appointments can we get face to face from podium if they want to do that yeah but ultimately the people who are texting you because that's how they want to deal with you and it's then left up to them we'll say okay well if you want to continue by text we can do it all by text if you want to come in we can do it all like by coming in you can you know maybe do things that you can do in the back of a phone like um yeah it's interestingly so one of the stats that really speaks for text over perhaps emails or phone calls I mean firstly 95 of text messages are open in the first three minutes if we're in a meeting I'm not going to pick up a phone call but if I see a text I'll just read through and I might quickly shoot a response as well and and I think what's really interesting is 65 of consumers in Australia think texting makes working with a local business more convenient but we almost never actually have that option for a consumer it's always a contact form it's an email or sometimes it's a live chat so when we have that texting availability there I think it gives a massive Edge to the ocean I think if you and we go back to those golden rules like humans will always want human right interaction in this industry they do not want to speak with AI um even on a text message they just don't because it just gets frustrating because nobody understands the empathy behind what you're trying to achieve and if we're honest like customers coming through on this text messaging are probably texting two or three other places because that's the most time efficient cost efficient way for them to get the answers that they're looking for ultimately it then becomes if you're the most efficient and you're giving them the best information and that turns into the best experience you're in with a hell of a shout yeah amazing I think we've gone over the 30 minutes that was allocated for this weather it's okay thank you so much mate for sharing a little bit about how you use boating man and life at the dealership no my pleasure my pleasure Richard any any um fighting words yeah look I mean if you've never gonna last question to do uh for a minute so we haven't seen you come through but I mean it sounds like you need great performance there from Podium I I love the concept of text I mean I I hate any other communication method when I'm buying trying to buy thing than text text or some form missing format I mean I think my wife who ultimately makes the final buying decisions in our house she doesn't she hates being on the telephone she wants to text if she can't do it by text she's not that interested and I think is so ubiquitous these days I mean sure we've got it on our you know it's on our phones constantly but for uh for people who say own an iPhone and a and a and a Macbook you text in front of you all day I consider you can sit at work no one watching and still chat away with a salesperson uh on your computer it's just such a great technology and Podium seems to really have license that and Jordan you and your team seem to be finding a way to turn that into uh sales and it's a that's a great way of a great result for everyone so look thank you everyone for joining us uh don't forget we will have a bit of write-up of this in the next Auto Talk magazine uh that's out next week also we will share the link out and Podium will send that material out so you can uh show that the rest of your team discuss it and potentially consider what Podium has to offer so any last words from uh from you Jordan or Richard I just thank you so much for everyone for joining us today absolutely I appreciate your time Richard thank you thank you thanks thanks everyone and uh yeah hope to see you in a future uh webinar bye-bye