4 Ways to Create Better Team Cooperation in Your Car Dealership
Like every other type of business, dealerships require effective communication and team collaboration. Dealership teams, in particular, need excellent communication on both the front and back ends to succeed. With the right strategies and solutions, dealerships can facilitate consistently great communication between departments. This will, in turn, enhance the dealership’s daily operations as it continues to expand.
To give you some direction as you work on improving communication between dealership teams, here are some tips for excellent team cooperation.
1. Team Meetings
Why they matter
Every dealership should ensure everyone is on the same page with team meetings. Regular meetings enable enhanced team cooperation as staff members review goals and the tasks required to achieve them.
How to get the most from them
Morning stand-ups offer a means for everyone to share their priorities and potential blockers. For example, one sales team member may have specific sales targets to reach but find that certain bottlenecks in the sales process make this difficult. From there, other sales team members and other departments, including leadership, can explore these blocks. In the process, they can begin developing a truly working solution.
Over time, meetings can focus on different issues to streamline various processes and maintain momentum.
2. Productivity Tools
The opportunity
You also need the right technology to support your business and further enhance team cooperation and communication. There are numerous tools that dealership teams can utilise across all departments to enhance productivity.
What to look for
For instance, a tool like Slack is a great communication platform that enables individuals and teams to delegate tasks and track progress. Email remains another channel to keep teams on the right track.
Many mobile apps boost productivity for employees, whether they’re on-site or working remotely. These apps allow employees to access them at any time and place, and they can update automatically as staff make changes or updates. They can include daily reminders, customer notes, workflows, and appointment scheduling. Some apps even serve as a communications hub, keeping all phone calls and text messages in one location.
Also, consider offering training for these tools. Share guides or quick tips with employees, which could help them get the most out of these tools. You may even make these a part of your stand-ups whenever you introduce something new.
3. Digital Systems
The advantage
A comprehensive digital system is another technology that can help your business improve communications. A reliable digital system will streamline the sales process, enabling cross-team communication and seamless data transfer.
Key components
A complete system will include a variety of tools to manage nearly every element of your dealership. For example:
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Dealership management system (DMS)
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Customer relationship management (CRM) system
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Enterprise resource planning (ERP) system
…and more.
You should also prioritise solutions that cater specifically to dealerships rather than generic business tools. A platform designed for dealerships gives what you need to optimise most operations — offering visibility of all deal pipelines, helping identify where friction may be occurring. The right tool also helps:
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Simplify data entry
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Keep information consistently updated
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Share actionable insights
In addition, you can track performance via key performance indicators (KPIs) based on your goals. A good digital system could also include a digital leaderboard that tracks each salesperson’s progress — encouraging healthy cooperation and competition.
Ultimately, a dependable digital system underpins all your efforts and communications by delivering transparency and control.
4. Team Training & Development
The rationale
Having team meetings together with the right technology can help with communications across your organisation. However, staff development and training are equally important. Without them, teams may grow stagnant and certain members may not progress via better communication over time.
What to include
To help lift your staff up, develop specific training programmes around communication. During these sessions, employees can learn all kinds of communication skills. Some of these skills could include how to:
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Give and receive feedback
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Have difficult conversations
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Properly notify others of issues or ask informed questions
These skills are just as critical as knowing how to make a sale.
As your teams engage with these programmes, they’ll enhance their skill sets. Beyond helping staff develop professionally, it could even help with personal growth through improved general communication. This makes your training programmes invaluable assets for your employees.
Apply the Right Strategies and Tools for Great Communication
You need to provide your teams with the necessary resources for effective communication and cooperation. Without these assets, your teams may struggle to connect internally and externally, which could hurt your bottom line and hinder your staff’s growth. The key is using the right mix of strategies and technology to equip your employees and leadership fully. From weekly or even daily stand-up meetings and training programmes to productivity tools and digital systems, there’s plenty you can do to assist with communication.
