In 2017, Cooper Auto Group began to include the new-car manager, used-car manager, finance director and general manager of each of its eight franchised locations in a weekly meeting. They present their metrics to an audience that includes third-generation owner Joe Cooper and the group’s executive team.
“We know these guys know their numbers,” said marketing and Internet director Steve Koch.
But something about presenting the data firsthand weekly in front of the owner “really hits home where you’re at,” he said.
Koch called the practice an example of the “inspect what you expect” concept and said it fostered the corporate culture at Cooper. It kept the company “management-driven” rather than “market-driven,” active rather than reactive, he said.
Cooper Auto Group, of Edmond, Okla., ranks No. 133 on Automotive News‘ list of the top 150 dealership groups based in the U.S., with retail sales of 6,810 new vehicles in 2020.
Before the change in meeting format, the dealership group gathered weekly with just the general managers and let orders trickle down to department heads.
But now, when those individual managers participate in the weekly metrics check, “they seem to get the point a little quicker,” Koch said.
The presentations highlight five concepts the group characterizes as “nonnegotiables,” according to Koch.
Accountability: Each person has 100 percent responsibility for their department’s objectives, Koch said. They need to hit the goal or have a plan to get back on track to achieve it.
Assets: The managers are responsible for asset management. In the case of new or used vehicles, this would involve tracking factors such as wholesale profit, cost to market and days’ supply.
“You’re yoked with that responsibility,” Koch said.
CSI: Managers must keep their customer satisfaction index above the average in their zone or market.
“We’re on a growth trajectory,” Koch said, and automakers stress CSI and incentivize it financially.
Phone and Internet mastery: Employees who fail to demonstrate sufficient quality in handling phone calls or Internet leads aren’t allowed to work with that mode of communication until they demonstrate proficiency.
Cooper Auto Group had used a phone training system that scored employees’ ability to take calls, Koch said. If a staffer failed to exceed a score of 4 out of 5 on a 60-day average, “you went back to the training room,” he said. Similarly, employees need a 12 percent closing ratio to keep taking Internet leads.
“It’s not like, ‘Oh, you’ll never get another lead again,’ ” Koch said. But the group would want to “re-Cooperize you” until the targets are achieved, he said.
CRM: Cooper Auto Group wants customer interactions captured meticulously in its customer relations management system, Koch said. The information needs to be completely accurate at all times, he said.
“Believe it or not,” the managers struggle with this more than their respective sales personnel, according to Koch. “They live in that ecosystem,” he said of the rank-and-file sales force. But managers will call a customer on a cellphone and fail to document it, he said.
This precise CRM documentation allows the dealership to evaluate factors such as the ratio of closings to appointment shows, he said.
Koch said the dealership originally set a goal of 60 percent, only to realize it hadn’t even closed half of the customers who kept appointments.
But without clean data, “all of this reporting is just fabricated,” he said.
The weekly meetings can surprise new hires who “realize we run it like a business” according to Koch. “We have these meetings, and it’s not a sales meeting,” he said. “It’s not a hoorah, Saturday morning meeting. … We could be selling widgets.”
It’s a “culture shock” when a new hire must go in front of Cooper, explain why they’re not on track for that month’s goal and describe how they’re going to fix the issue, Koch said.
“They all stand up there at first and just report on their numbers,” Koch said. The culture shock comes when Cooper explains he knows the data; he wants to hear their solution.
“It really helps,” Koch said.
The employees return to the trenches aware the owner is watching and with the realization that “they’re gonna have to perform.”
Koch said the group holds to the maxim, “If you talk about it every day, you’ll never have a bad week,” and so on through the year.
The metrics the dealership group has tracked since 2017 have improved. “We’re on a consecutive streak of improvement,” he said.
Cooper Auto Group has grown in footprint and market share.
“We feel,” Koch said, “focusing on the business in this matter is part of our success.”