How Accessories Create Accountability

"Tracking orders and communication between departments is great—it holds people accountable with the new reports that are available."

- Peter Boothe, GM at Wild East Town Honda

When you think of selling accessories at the point of sale, your first thought may be dollars and cents. While profit is a major benefit of selling accessories, there are other aspects of an accessory process that can benefit your dealership at a high level. 

Accessories do more than increase front-end gross, boost CSI scores, reduce turnover, and create repeat business. And they're more than a resource for making customers sticky or benefiting fixed operations.

Accessories also improve cross-departmental communication and hold people accountable. Here’s how accessory sales create accountability in every department.

Sales

The most successful dealerships in the accessory game create a process that’s unique to their store and graft it into the car sale. That works best when there’s buy-in from the top down, and salespeople are incentivized to present accessories to every customer, starting with a lead-in product. After the process is rolled out and commission plans are in place, accountability is the critical piece that will make or break your accessory program. With the Insignia Group software, system administrators can track the number of accessory presentations each salesperson makes. Over time, you’ll see who's following the process and selling what. As individual salespeople pull ahead or fall behind, tracking and reporting provide the accountability a sales manager needs to bring everyone up to pace. 

Parts

The job of a parts manager is a heavy lift. When you add salespeople presenting and selling accessories, some parts departments want to lock their doors and turn out the lights. The fear of salespeople showing up at the parts counter five times in one day is enough to say forget the whole thing. Having all the information readily available digitally keeps your parts manager accountable for keeping things updated and doing their part to keep sales running smoothly! Furthermore, tracking which accessories are selling will create accountability with updated inventory and ensure the parts department is doing everything it can to stock what’s in demand. 

Service

Dealerships are constantly looking to increase efficiency and cut costs. Having technicians standing around is equally as bad as having more work than available service techs. Tracking accessory sales highlights the number of installations monthly and the manpower needed to make them happen. By reviewing processed orders over time, service managers have a high level of awareness of what their department needs, including individual skill and time requirements. The service manager may consider spotlighting a certain product each month and/or require a particular number of presentations, all of which can be tracked in the system. 

Life in the dealership moves fast, and we believe in working smarter, not harder. If you’re ready to begin (or improve) an accessory sales process, make sure you have accountability measures in place—ensure they are easy to track and simple to follow so they stay at the forefront of everyone’s mind in the dealership.

Insignia Group Can Help

For more than twenty years, Insignia Group has worked with dealerships across the nation to implement accessory sales in-store and online. Our system makes presenting and selling accessories easy and accessible. With high levels of tracking and reporting, dealership management can be sure of their ROI, inventory, and the level of commitment from each person involved. 

Are you ready to get profitable in the accessories game? Schedule a demo with us to see how our system can work for you.