Fixed Operations
Factory Field Representatives Are Often Wasted Talent
By Ed Kovalchick
Before you read this, keep in mind that I was a dealer for many years, so my sense of this situation encompasses multiple sides of this important issue.
My staff and I have been developing and conducting training for automotive manufacturer service and parts field representatives for many years. Recently, I had the pleasure of traveling and working with some high-line service/parts reps for the purpose of assessing their approaches for assisting in the improvement of their assigned dealers' performances. More specifically, these dealers needed assistance based on the numbers and CSI measurements I reviewed.
The personnel I traveled with had prior dealer experience and they were quite competent and hard working. In one particular case, both of these paladins generally had very good personalities, worked well with dealer personnel, treated each dealer's customers very effectively and most importantly, they exercised first rate manners around everyone they had contact with, especially the dealer personnel.
Well, so much for the good part.
Let me back up a bit and paint some perspective on this evocative situation. Over the last decade, I have noticed that most manufacturers have made a concerted effort to hire service and parts field personnel who are far more capable than those I saw occupy the service/parts field in the 1980s. Remember I qualified this statement by saying "most". For too many years, the "field" position existed in a lengthy period where it was treated as some type of entry-level position. Most often, people were placed in these interfacing dealer/manufacturer positions with nothing more than some type of college degree (it seemed anything would do), and the willingness to travel every day. Most relatives were quite impressed.
Now, unlike then, manufacturer executives realize how important individual dealer performances are in maintaining competitive positions in each automotive marketplace, large or small. The advent of sophisticated customer satisfaction and retention measurements (begun in earnest about 1980) has demonstrated clearly which dealers are performers and which are not. No dealer can hide from this extraordinarily level playing field, and the same goes for the manufacturers. Excuses just can't be supported, when the scoring is on equal values, correct or not.
Consequently, accepting the poor performance of continuously under-performing dealers is just not an option anymore for manufacturers. So to aid in eliminating the problems that plague these dealers, the manufacturers began rebuilding dealer support staffs with far more competent field personnel, many being quite capable of running any number of departments in a dealership far better than the dealership personnel they regularly visited. This was a significant change indeed.
I want to interject that I have tolerated the domestic field rep who wore an earring (ugh) and hated everyone he worked for and the import rep who couldn't get his butt out of bed before 10am; but I am not discussing the minimalists and losers of this profession.
Back to the original story about my travels with field representatives.
No matter how much excellent information, no matter how much ability the field reps bring to the dealers and no matter how well the reps respond to the dealer personnel, there is an overall disinterest on the dealers' part in the improvement strategies these people bring to the dealer. While part of my role was to assess and develop methods for the reps to function more effectively, I found myself in the position of assessing the dealer personnel also, especially when it came to their abilities to recognize and create needed performance improvement. These situations are two-way streets.
These are some of my "general" overviews of the dealer - field manager circumstances based on these experiences, and other travels in the last decade:
1: Most dealers and managers have been influenced to assume that every evaluation, and recommendation coming from the factory is somehow connected to some coercive attempt to extract money from the dealer. This is most unfortunate, and consequently, great areas of potential performance improvement are never realized. Often this attitude has started at the top of the food chain with the owner, who, in the past has been influenced in the same manner. There are numerous programs that are vital to the dealer's service/parts sales, customer retention and overall dealership health. But, because of this attitude that "they make me do it", many of these programs are not used effectively and the dealer does not get the results that are available. This is most unfortunate, since it stems from an attitude, not facts. My advice is to assume nothing is bad until it is studied and proven to be not in the dealer's best interest.
2: As a result of item one, little if any dealer management time is allotted to working closely with field representatives to analyze, isolate and develop improvement plans. While most dealers and managers will sit through a quick and mostly wasted overview of the field reps work at the end of the day, I never saw any problem-solving teamwork taking place with dealer and manufacturer personnel. The concept of being on the same team unfortunately does not exist.
3: As a result of the first two items, field representatives, as you might expect, start going through the motions of providing assistance, but find themselves mostly trying to please their own superiors, all of which seem to have an agenda of their own. They soon figure that if dealer personnel doesn't care, and perhaps their efforts aren't related to the latest "priority" for the manufacturer either, then why and how should they care?
4: As an unfortunate result of all three of the above items, some very talented people on both the dealer and manufacturer sides are not getting the job done, which, with different circumstances, would be victories for both the dealer and manufacturer.
My advice to dealer and manufacturer executive, department, and field management is to change the entire communication process between the manufacturer field personnel and the dealership management team. I found it most interesting that in no cases did any dealer managers know the true background of their field manager, nor what "big picture" purpose they even played in the manufacturer/dealer relationship. When they had lunches, it was more of a friendly bull session, and the day's end included the obligatory completing of the paperwork, none of which accomplished much.
I was a dealer and had many field representatives over the years myself. I too have been guilty of taking the typical line that the factory personnel is only there for their own purposes, and frankly I believe I picked that up from the prevailing dealer culture I was always exposed to, instead of making a determination on my own.
Who is losing in this current "only-tolerable" environment? Well, everyone actually.
Ed J. Kovalchick is CEO of Net Profit Inc, an international automotive manufacturer and dealer, training and management-consulting firm, located in Alabaster, Al. Mr Kovalchick is a featured speaker and instructor at conventions, 20-Groups, associations, and other automotive related events worldwide. He is also a former six-franchise new car dealer, and independent shop owner. ekovalchick@dealeronline.com.
