Dealerships are generally pretty good compared to most other businesses. However, there still seem to be some areas that could be improved upon:

Time to answer incoming calls - calls should be answered promptly. Many businesses now have “smart answering” systems, but if you don’t, you must ensure that you have a standard that is understood by everyone concerned. This standard needs to apply to transferred calls as well.

Answering script - calls should be answered according to a “script” that it appropriate for your dealership. Telephonists should speak clearly and slowly. With the number of official languages and accents in South Africa, it is really important that the client understands what your telephonist is saying. Answering transferred calls also needs to be in accordance with your requirements. Quite often the telephonist is well trained, but the rest of the staff deal with calls willy-nilly.

Transferring calls – most systems have a ring time setting for transferred calls in that they can only ring for a certain time before they revert to the switchboard. I would set this to 5-10 rings at most. Additionally, the telephonist should always ask clients if they want to hold rather than automatically just transfer them again without asking.

Basic telephone activity should be monitored and measured. Some of the many elements to measure and track:

• Number of dropped calls.
• Time taken to answer incoming and transferred calls.
• Traffic per extension.
• Timing of traffic for incoming calls and transferred calls.
• Unanswered transfers.
• Time spent on calls.

Dealerfloor (dealerfloor.co.za) and I will be publishing regular articles on dealership efficiency. I am really looking forward to sharing ideas with you. Join the conversation by sending a WhatsApp to 082-776-1887 to be added to our group.