Browsing Tag: outsourced BDC

    BDC Operations, BDC Process, BDC Staffing

    3 Service BDC Models – Part III

    June 26, 2018

    Hybrid Service BDC model

    This model is often referred to as backstop or overflow because the call center is there to back you up when you have your hands full and all your phone lines are all busy.  In this scenario the calls immediately roll over until your in-house agents are available once again.  This model allows you to keep a small contingent of internal BDC agents that you can oversee, and a scalable means to handle spikes in phone call traffic without having to increase your agent headcount.  In addition, usually the hours before and after your internal BDC agents work are covered, as well as for those times when either bad weather, vacation, illness, power outages, etc., is keeping your internal BDC staff from working.

    Pros:

    • Provides “call coverage insurance” for your BDC; service calls answered properly, professionally, and consistently.
    • Allows for immediate and scalable resolution to call volume spikes
    • Typically covers hours before and after your internal BDC operates
    • Provide your customers with a better overall experience
    • Minimizes hold times and average speed to answer during call spikes
    • Frees your service advisors, allows them to focus on their customers

    Cons:

    • Inconsistencies in messaging/experience may surface when comparing verbiage or scripts used by internal BDC agents with external BDC agents
    • Dealer is committed to paying for both internal BDC agents and external BDC agents; typically internal BDC agents are two, three, or more, times more expensive
    • Fees for the external BDC agents will vary from month to month, hard to predict what those costs will be

    There you have it – 3 ways to consider setting up your Service BDC.

    BDC Operations, BDC Process, BDC Staffing

    3 Service BDC Models – Part II

    June 14, 2018

    Centralized or Outsourced Model:

    In this model you simply route your service calls directly to a call center, and/or ask your receptionist to forward service calls to the call center if you don’t have an auto-attendant (call tree).  The obvious difference here from the on premise model is scale, pure and simple.  There are a team of folks answering your calls, if someone doesn’t show for work you won’t notice it, there is a scalable and repeatable training curriculum in place, and you are maximizing appointment opportunities ringing into your service phone line.  Your average speed to answer (ASA) and average hold time (AHT) should be much lower than prior to hiring the call center.  Note: Just because you hired a call center doesn’t mean you never have to experience lengthy hold times, sometimes it will happen.  Don’t make improper assumptions, call centers cannot always staff to perfection for all the peaks and valleys unless you are willing to pay a serious premium.

    Pros:

    • Many fewer calls will go unanswered, missed, or abandoned – scalability
    • Better/consistent and professional appointment booking experience for your customers
    • The service advisors are freed up to focus on the drive, conduct multi-point inspections, recommend additional services, and assist their customers
    • Service BDC partners should be able to provide reporting so you can inspect what you expect, and be able to see the ROI you’re getting
    • Fill more empty slots in the schedule with appointments
    • Improve CSI
    • Increase WP (warranty pay) and CP (customer pay) revenue
    • Extended hours of coverage that would be really difficult, or simply not feasible, to support in dealership
    • Appointment calls are scored for quality regularly to ensure higher standards are met
    • Easier to support additional languages
    • Your service drive business will grow

    Cons:

    • There will be cases when the call center must reach a service advisor for assistance or ask the advisor to follow up with a customer, so advisors need to readily answer calls/emails/texts from their call center partner.
    • You may occasionally hear a complaint about an accent or non-local sounding agent (as long as you have a US-based call center partner this will be very minimal)
    • There will be mistakes made by the call center.  It’s a numbers game and humans aren’t perfect, and since the call center is answering more calls than you ever could, there will be more mistakes made. For example, saying night drop is available when you don’t offer that service.
    • Phone calls add up and your bill might be bigger than you expected.  If you’ve never accurately measured, or even know how many calls you were missing before, this bill could be a real eye-opener.
    • Improper scheduler configuration will cause issues (left hand right hand problems – inaccurate advisor schedules, not restricting workload for certain op codes, etc.)
    • Part time employees or new employees may not know to forward calls to the call center partner properly, or forward the wrong types of calls to the call center.

    Next up, Hybrid Service BDC model