3 massive time saving tips for car dealers

Creating more time

Whenever our team come into conversations with dealers, two topics that are commonly discussed are how to sell more cars and how to sharpen up their processes to become more efficient.

In previous blogs, we have touched on various ways dealers can sell more cars, but we haven't yet gone into too much detail on how dealers can free up time in their business. If you've been feeling overwhelmed and as though you don't have enough time to get everything done, or if you would like to become more time smart, then check out our simple time saving tips below.

Time batching

Do you perform the same or similar tasks multiple times a day, or week? Doing these tasks at the same time (also known as ‘time batching’) improves productivity by helping you stay focused on one set of activities, as opposed to chopping and changing between different tasks and having to refocus over and over again.  

Each time you perform a task, it takes time to set yourself up and to mentally get into the zone. Doing this several times a week means you are spending seven amounts of time setting things up which in turn reduces productivity.

A number of interesting studies have shown that multitasking can decrease productivity by as much as 40%, and increase errors by as much as 50% when completing a task. These stats alone are a great reason as to why you should implement time batching, it’s a huge time saver and is a great way to increase productivity!

Outsourcing

Do you ever find yourself trying to do something that you're not experienced in, or particularly skilled at? If you don’t have the expertise to do a certain task then find someone to outsource this to.

Yes, some things can be worth doing yourself, but remember you can't do everything in your business and you can't be the jack of all trades. Remember, time is money, and the time you spend doing things you're not skilled at can be better spent elsewhere.

For example, if you're trying to create a website for your business and don't really know what you're doing, you're going to spend a whole lot of time trying to put this together and the reality is, it's unlikely it will hit the mark. You're best to outsource this and get professionals who specialise in website creation to do it for you.

Automation

We’ve saved our biggest time saving tip to last - automation!

Automation is one of the best things you can do for your business, it frees you up and enables you to spend time on other aeras of your business. 

As we've all experienced, some weeks can be busier than others making it difficult to stay on top of tasks. For dealerships, it can be difficult to ensure you respond to prospects in a timely manner, and to find the time to create content for social media.

Having automated tools such as an auto-responder that responds to incoming vehicle inquiries, and having automated Facebook adverts setup can take off the pressure. Automation brings peace of mind, knowing that certain aspects of your business are being taken care of and don’t require your time.

At Motorcentral we offer two automated products that can free you up:

1. Auto Attendant

Motorcentral Auto Attendant gives your customers a professional automated response to their incoming email enquiry (from places like your website and third party sites like Trade Me, Autotrader & Need A Car), including further information about the vehicle and your dealership, plus it includes built-in calls to action.

Find out more about Auto Attendant and how it can help your business here.

2. AdConnect

Motorcentral AdConnect automatically advertises your vehicles to the 2.9 million kiwis that use Facebook (within minutes) and:

• Displays your adverts to the people most likely to purchase your vehicles
• Uses data from places like your website to best match the audience for EACH individual vehicle
• Automatically creates highly targeted and effective ads in the correct formats

Find out more about AdConnect here.

Benefits outweigh the costs

Of course, automation and outsourcing are not free, but the benefits far outweigh the costs:

• Frees you up so you can spend time on other areas of your business.
• You can be at peace knowing certain aspects of your business are being taken care of.
• You don’t have to spend money paying staff to try and do things not as effectively.

A task for you

We encourage you to block some time out in your diary to sit down and go through the different sections of your business. Work out where abouts you can improve and become more efficient. Always strive to be better, everywhere you can.

--

Disclaimer:
The Motorcentral blog is intended for educational purposes only. All writers opinions are their own and nothing published on this blog should be interpreted as a recommendation or advice in any way. Motorcentral is also not responsible for and does not verify accuracy of any of the information contained within this blog.
In the event third parties are referenced within this article, Motorcentral is not necessarily affiliated with those third parties.