Most possibility among many industries that have witnessed unprecedented evolution, automobile is one of them. The automobile dealerships that have successfully embraced new approaches with changing pace have thrived, while ones that could not be left behind. Remarkably, after taking over as the interim GM at the money-losing family automobile group Infiniti Store, Minneapolis in 2007, the way Jeff Lupient overhauled the company made the industry astounded!
To cost control, Lupient considered cross-training his employees and enhancing internal collaboration between the sales and F&I teams to gain efficiency, and increased productivity to make the company profit-making.
The Challenges of Traditional Sales And F&I Departments
Traditionally, the working method of car sales and F&I departments was in isolation where each department performed their assigned tasks independently. However, this approach not only created inefficiencies due to miscommunication among departments but impacted the bottom line of customer’s interest. Ultimately lack of consumer experience led to the decline of sales and service making the companies experience huge losses.
Jeff Lupient: How to Overcome Communication Barriers and Create Synergy
To prevail over the challenges experienced by car sales business, it is imperative to promote effective communication and collaboration in the sales with F&I teams. Working together in a team leads to smoother as well as more fulfilling experience for both valuable customers and employees.
Strategies for Creating Synergy
Jeff Lupient highlights seven unique strategies for creating a collaborative and encouraging work relationship among sales and F&I teams:
- Organizing daily inter-departmental meetings to get updates, address individual and group issues and challenges, and explain queries if any arise in an objective environment.
- To upscale team collaboration, Lupient prioritizes the adoption of cross-training initiatives. This unique approach works greatly by helping each team member gain an in-depth understanding of the roles of their associates and how their job role is interconnected with their activities. The whole idea is to let teams know the significance of coordination without which collaboration cannot be achieved.
- Leverage technological innovations to promote better coordination and communication.
- To build a highly collaborative and well-balanced team, it’s vital to produce an environment that nurtures trust and respect.
- To promote harmony and collaboration, introducing production or sales incentives for the team members is a great idea.
- Employers need to encourage open communication for seamless and flawless information exchange.
- Lupient also suggests that both teams should be trained to apply customer-centric approaches by working together. This will uplift customers’ experience, increase sales, and greater productivity.
Fostering Collaboration
To lead an automobile dealership business, it is integral to encourage communication and coordination among the sales as well as F&I teams. To achieve this, make sure to:
- Set a common objective
- Encourage cross-departmental interactions
- Appreciate the team and reward them for their collaborative efforts
- Utilizing collaborative tools
- Promoting a harmonized work environment hoists morale and work efficiency while resulting in a reduced employee turnover rates. This also brings agility in the sales process, leads to exceptionally satisfied customers, and thereby upsurges business profitability.
Advancing Communication
To promote communication in car dealership business, a businessperson should be caring about three vital factors including active listening, sharing of clear information, and streamlined processes.
- Active listening encourages understanding and builds trust between team members which is the key to solving problems and innovation.
- Sharing clear information ensures efficiency while the use of digital communication tools is a great way to achieve the goal.
- Streamlining communication helps reduce confusion among teams and leads to a smoother workflow
Bottom-line
Precisely, merely having an efficient sales team and F&I department in place does not mean success of car dealership business but creating effective synergy between them can be the game-changer. For this implementation of cross-training initiatives, regular meetings and bringing technology solutions are vital to promote cooperation and collaboration that leads to success.
