- 30 Aug 2021 Author: Michael Johnson
For general managers, it’s easy to get excited about adopting new software. How else are you going to empower your processes and drive performance?
Unfortunately, not everyone on your team will see it that way. From their perspective, learning even the best dealership software can feel like a barrier that prevents them from doing real work. Despite the value that digital tools provide, your teams might be resistant to new processes if they feel change is being forced on them. After all, “we were doing just fine before.”
This is a major problem — difficulties in adopting digital initiatives can lead to lost deals, increased inefficiency, low morale and slow ROI. Fortunately, there are ways for getting your teams to embrace new tech. Let’s dive in.
Aligning your people and technology
All dealership software needs people to power it. That’s why involving your teams in the process is critical to successful tech adoption.
How critical? Well, involving your employees in decision-making increases the likelihood of successful software adoption by close to 50% — according to McKinsey research. Your likelihood of success increases by giving senior staff like department managers a leading role in instigating change — in these cases, adoption is 80% more likely to succeed.
But aligning your people and your technology can be a challenge. As this IBM study on business transformation shows, a key step is to get team buy-in for new digital initiatives.
Getting employee buy-in
One strategy to win over your teams is to show them how tech can empower them to do their jobs. Picture a typical dealership pipeline, where a deal moves through multiple departments. At each step, managers waste time by reproducing the same information across their individual spreadsheets. But what happens when your sales representative orders a different car or changes the delivery schedule? This information will reflect on their sales spreadsheet, but not for other departments.
This is an example resulting from poor team alignment and maladapted processes. Now imagine you’re introducing a business intelligence tool that syncs data across spreadsheets while protecting sensitive information. To get employee buy-in, explain how this tool will save them the time it takes to input data. And having access to the latest updates will arm teams with the information they need to perform at their best. By highlighting these benefits, you may even get them excited about using new technology.
Steps to successfully adopting dealer software
When adopting new dealership software, we recommend the following steps:
- Discuss dealership issues with your teams — to attain employee buy-in, you need to involve them in your software-buying process. Their perspectives provide significant insight into what challenges your dealership faces and what new software needs to do to address them.
- Choose your solution — once you’ve narrowed down your list, perform a cost–benefit analysis before deciding on solutions. Refer to your teams and ask yourself the following questions: Is it secure? Is it easy to learn? Will it integrate with my current system? Will it scale if my dealership grows? How long will it take to see ROI? Do my managers have any issues with this solution?
- Make managers your change agents — first win over your department managers by showing them how your new dealership software is the best way to empower their teams. Then give your managers the responsibility of evangelising for new software to their teams. Importantly, tell your managers to highlight how this software benefits dealership employees.
- Onboard stakeholders — to get the most out of your new tools, you need a plan to onboard stakeholders and teach them the ins and outs of using the software. Your solution providers might offer on-site or remote training.
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How SalesLogs can help
When adopting new tools, the best dealership software is easy to learn and quick to master. This helps you see ROI faster by limiting substantial onboarding pains.
At SalesLogs, we’ve developed an intuitive solution that’s tailored for dealership processes. Our DataGrid tool, for example, helps you synchronise all your dealership data in one place. As we’ve built DataGrid to operate a spreadsheet, your teams can quickly pick it without impacting their performance.
Our dealership solution includes the following features:
- Real-time feeds for your whole fleet
- KPI dashboards to track team performance
- DataGrid — SalesLogs’ easy-to-learn data capture tool
- Communication tools that keep your teams in the loop with each transaction
- Multi-level permissions to control who sees your data and at what point
If you’re curious about how our software can empower your teams, click the button below to contact a sales representative or request a product demo.
