Between the regulations and compliance requirements of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act Privacy & Safety Rules, the Disposal Rule, Buyer’s Guides, Equal Credit Opportunity Act, Red Flags Rules, Reg Z and more, it’s not a wonder why our business has become so complex. Not to mention the over watch present today with state and federal agencies and the CFPB.

To meet these stringent standards and requirements, dealers create a plethora of processes designed to ensure their company’s compliance. Unfortunately, their success is dependent upon people throughout the org chart working in cooperation and unison to execute consistently and effectively. Given the rate of turnover in the automotive industry, how we compensate our people and the quality of talent the industry attracts, this is, at best, a flawed strategy doomed to fail. At worst, it’s a business ender.

While many have made great strides in this arena, the majority still struggle to achieve consistency or competency on this front. It is all the regulation and compliance that has created the complexity that plagues our industry today; compliance and regulation born in no small part to protect the consumer from archaic sales practices that haunt the industry to this day. The challenge is not in the complexity of the processes, but the complexity derived from a multitude of processes. It’s like juggling. 100% of the population can juggle one ball, but the number drops significantly with two, and even more with 3 and then off a cliff with 4 or more.

So, what can we do to minimize or mitigate our exposure?

• We could look for ways to streamline and consolidate our existing processes. While this can be an effective exercise, and one you should do if you haven’t, it rarely serves as a total solution
  • Good first step

• The easiest way to solve for this is to hire more people to spread out the responsibility. In other words, start taking balls away from people. This can be an expensive fix though
  • Not cost effective

• You could create a continuous training regimen in your store that addresses turnover through a certification process that requires a certification signed off by a manager
• • Challenging to maintain
• Share the load: Redistribute process responsibilities more evenly across your teams, creating greater balance and thus, better results
  • Not the whole solution, but a good start
• Look for ways to create automation in your sales processes. If you can reduce your dependency on people with automation, you can increase your people’s process execution effectiveness in the more important tasks/processes that require a human touch
  • This is your highest ROI action

How do I create automation in my sales process?

• Look to the technology tools you employ in your store today. Your CRM, your DMS, your desking software…just to name a few. Figure out how to better leverage them to achieve your goal of minimizing and mitigating your exposure
• If your existing technology can’t support this, find a process unification solution that can help you automate those processes that can be

What if 100% of your processes were executed with 100% of your customers 100% of the time? How much more money would you make if your teams could accomplish this? The team that wins isn’t the one with the better playbook, it’s the one who executed their playbook better.