Fred Anderson Toyota of Sanford in North Carolina changed its schedule to give sales staff two days off in a row and also disbanded its business development center — all in an attempt to change the store’s culture and performance.
The move has worked, General Manager Greg Davison said. The schedule change, which began in January 2021, has sales reps, sales managers and finance-and-insurance managers working four days, then taking two consecutive days off. The move has given those staffers a better work-life balance and has improved the store’s retention rate, Davison said.
“I wanted to create a culture change that allowed salespeople to make a great living as well as enjoy their earnings,” Davison told Automotive News in an email.
In addition to better retention, the dealership, which is open on Sundays, has benefited by attracting new hires who want better hours than many dealerships offer, Davison said. He estimated that Fred Anderson Toyota’s sales staff retention rate for the past year improved to 58 percent, a number that includes two people who stayed at the dealership but were promoted to different roles. The store’s sales staff retention rate was about 25 percent in 2019, he said.
Eli Colonroche, the dealership’s traffic manager who has worked at the store for about four years, said the schedule change has been a boost for employees and allows people a chance to go on short trips.
“The new schedule is really giving everybody the flexibility of being able to do things outside of the dealership,” he said. With the old schedule, “it felt like you could burn out a lot faster.”
The new approach means sales staff get at least one weekend off a month, Colonroche said. Previously, they typically would get two nonconsecutive days off during the week if they worked a Sunday shift.
Sales rep David Darrow, an employee for a year and a half, likes the schedule switch. When he started during the coronavirus pandemic, he had Sundays off and then a day off during the week.
“Personally, it has definitely helped out a lot, to get two free days to do something like a normal person,” Darrow said.
It has improved his job performance, he said.
“Professionally, it just gives you that refresh,” said Darrow, who said he sells about 20 vehicles a month.
Davison said sales reps, when they return from their two-day breaks, want to know about fellow staffers’ sales performance.
“It’s raised the whole level of competitiveness,” he said.
Part of the store’s culture change was scrapping its traditional BDC during the pandemic, Davison said.
Colonroche is a proponent of the store’s decision. Six sales reps make up a dedicated Internet sales team and have helped bring in “much more quality traffic,” he said. Show rates for appointments have improved.
Davison said Internet leads from March through November last year fell by 2,400 compared with the same period in 2020.
“We’re closing our total Internet leads at 2 percent higher this year than we were last year. Our phone traffic is closing about a half percent better,” he said in December. “Our showroom traffic, we’re closing 5 percent better.”
That translates to a 4 percent higher closing rate on sales leads despite lower new-vehicle inventory, he said.
In 2019, the dealership sold 980 new vehicles and 727 used vehicles. For 2021, even with the inventory woes, the dealership was on track to sell about 940 new vehicles and 870 used vehicles.
Fred Anderson Toyota of Sanford is part of Anderson Automotive Group, which has eight dealerships in North Carolina and also sells Nissan, Subaru and Kia vehicles, according to its website. Anderson Automotive of Raleigh, N.C., ranks No. 71 on Automotive News‘ list of the top 150 dealership groups based in the U.S., with retail sales of 12,915 new vehicles in 2020.
Davison said the store’s now-defunct BDC would work to “flood the showroom.” The switch, though, has lifted his staff’s sales volume by an estimated 10 percent, he said.
The dealership in February implemented new tracking software from vendor Proactive Dealer Solutions to give sales reps the ability to handle Internet and phone traffic. Since then, Davison said he has seen more success from salespeople handling leads. Darrow said the tool enables “better communication between sales associate and sales manager.”
The scheduling change also has helped attract new hires, Davison said, including some who were fearful of working “from 7 to 7 or 7 to 9 every day, six days a week.”
In all, the scheduling and BDC transitions have led to a “much more successful work environment,” Davison said.