Self Assess Your Calls

Phone Skills
Consider the last time you self-assessed your job performance. Perhaps it was part of your review process or in the spirit of simply evaluating your skill set to progress in your career. Most people struggle with accurately representing their job performance because it’s difficult to be objective about our own perceptions.

Study after study demonstrates that employees and managers alike are ditching the traditional, annual performance reviews. In a 2017 study of 1,500 office workers, Adobe - who stopped traditional performance reviews in 2012 - found that 59% of those surveyed agreed that performance reviews “have no impact on how they do their job”.

More and more organizations are moving to a model that encourages continuous feedback between employees and managers. A qualified and experienced call tracking and monitoring provider will deliver a wealth of data and recordings from inbound calls, showing how call recording for dealerships are a powerful employee training and development aide. Managers can identify performance improvement opportunities by listening to how employees manage the caller experience. Employees can assess and improve their own skills by listening and scoring their own phone calls. Self-assessing calls allows you to reflect on your caller’s experience and adjust your future performance based on areas of success and opportunity. This process provides a platform for training application and aligns self-accountability with performance.

The following questions will assist you in conducting a meaningful self-assessment of your calls and help you consistently provide a great caller experience.

1. Did you open with a great first impression?

“Good morning! This is Sam Adams from ABC Awesome Dealership speaking; how may I help you? (with a 🙂 in your voice)”

Only 4% of dealership employees state their first and last name when answering a call, yet 90% of employees stated their first & last name on their voicemail greetings. Let’s formally greet our customers over the phones.

2. Did you bridge into questioning?

“I’m happy to help! Let’s get you some answers.”

Share what makes their vehicle of interest an attractive purchase.

3. Did your question technique position you as a “Trusted Advisor” to the caller?

Did you know a recent study says that 79% of customers say that it’s critical to work with representatives who doesn’t just ask questions and provide information but interacts in such a way that the customer views them as a trusted advisor.

Consider whether you took the opportunity to ask questions and provide information to:

4. Did you convey empathy and acknowledge emotion where applicable?

“I realize how complicated it is to…”

“I can see what a huge impact this has on…”

“I know how confusing it must be when…”

5. Did you provide differentiator statements to demonstrate your store’s value proposition?

“Do you understand how our pricing works here?

“Are you familiar with our warrantee?”

6. Did you transition into next steps in a way that was comfortable for the caller and provided them with the information they needed?

“Based on our conversation, it sounds like this model is a great fit for you, may I schedule an appointment for you to come in and do a test drive?”

“I’ll find out as soon as we hang-up this from this call. What’s the best way to reach you with an answer? Call or text?”

7. Did you provide a warm closing at the end of the phone call?

A warm closing ensures that the caller is left with a great lasting impression of you and the company. Close your calls strong and with as much energy and enthusiasm as you showed at the beginning of the call.  

8. Considering the caller’s experience in the interaction you just reviewed, how likely would you be to recommend your dealership to a friend or colleague?

Congrats! You just gave yourself a net promoter score! Learn more about net promoter and how its benefits here. https://www.netpromoter.com/know/

9. To what extent do you agree with this statement, “I made it easy for this caller to do business with my dealership”

The reason we include Customer Effort Score (CES) as a question on this self-assessment is because CES is a primary indicator of a customer’s loyalty. When it comes to service, companies create loyal customers primarily by helping them solve their problems quickly and easily.

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