Ringing round the group
Your group has three sites. A customer at the town centre site wants an automatic in grey. The site does not have one, so the salesperson rings the other two. One says it has two; the salesperson promises one to the customer. The next day a driver collects it, and on arrival it turns out the car was reserved at its home site last week, but the reservation was on a notepad.
Meanwhile the third site has a car that has sat for weeks and would sell well at the town centre site, but nobody has suggested moving it.
Each site sees its own stock
Even when the group shares a DMS, each site's staff look at their own stock by habit, and status is not always kept current.
- Reservations are recorded differently at each site.
- Prep status is not visible to other sites.
- Transfers are agreed by phone and not logged.
- Keys, documents and accessories do not always move with the car.
What ringing round costs
Promises made to customers from out-of-date information are broken. Drivers move cars that are not available. Cars that would sell at another site stay put. Time is lost on every phone call and every wasted trip.
Accounting for transfers between sites can also go wrong if nobody records when the car moved.
There is a customer cost that is easy to miss. The buyer who is told 'we have one at our other site' and then gets a call saying it is no longer available does not blame the other site. They blame the dealership they walked into, and many do not come back for the alternative.
And the group loses one of its main advantages. Several sites should mean more choice for every customer, but only if every salesperson can see and trust the whole stock list.
How we build the group stock view
- Stock and status are read from each site's DMS records, including reservations, prep stage and location.
- Salespeople search the whole group's stock from one screen, filtered by what the customer wants.
- A transfer request records the car, from and to sites, reason and requester, and the home site approves it.
- Approved transfers are assigned to a driver or transport firm, with keys, documents and accessories listed to go with the car.
- The car's status shows in transit until it is received at the new site and checked.
- A weekly view shows cars that might sell better elsewhere, based on your rules and each site's recent sales.
| Question | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| Who has a grey automatic? | Ring round | Group search |
| Is it really available? | Ask the site | Live status |
| Where is the car now? | Ask the driver | In transit, then received |
| Did the keys come too? | Found out on arrival | Checklist with the transfer |
Which cars to move is your managers' decision. The view gives them the facts and a record of each move.
A group that sells as one
Salespeople at any site can offer the whole group's stock with confidence. Transfers happen on a record, with keys and documents going with the car. Managers see which cars could sell better elsewhere and move them on purpose.
Signs your group needs this
- Salespeople ring other sites to find cars.
- Transferred cars turn out to be reserved or not ready.
- Keys and documents do not arrive with the car.
- Nobody suggests moving slow stock between sites.