Understanding Supply Chain Issues For Your Dealership and the 3 Key Solutions

Mar 29
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9
min Read
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Dealer Webinar

[Webinar Transcript from March 2022]

Ben:

Hey everyone. Thanks for joining us today. My name is Ben. I'm on the marketing team here at Kenect. Today we're going to talk about some key solutions for understanding supply chain issues and what you can do. We're going to talk about Kenect for about five minutes and then get into the bulk of the webinar. Should be about 20 minutes total, don't want to take up too much of your time. If you have any questions, please feel free to type them in, in the questions tab over there on the side panel. I'll get to them throughout this webinar, or for sure at the end when there's more time. So, with that, let's get started here.

Who is Kenect?

First off, who is Kenect? We're based in the Silicon Slopes of Utah. This is just outside Salt Lake City. We're a text messaging platform for our dealers throughout North America and we were founded by dealers and built for dealers like you. We help you communicate more efficiently, generate new leads, collect payments via text message and drive online reviews. We are the 25th fastest growing software company in America and that's according to Inc. 5000. We've really seen tremendous growth over 2021 and in the early parts of 2022, because people are embracing technology and they're embracing business texting, which is really where people want to be. It's all about simplicity and convenience for customers and the dealerships are start starting to realize that that's where they need to be to meet the customer.

Why text messaging? Because your customers prefer it. 89% of consumers would prefer to interact with a business via text message rather than a phone call. 98% of all text messages are opened, with 95% of those read within three minutes. I mean, just think about people carrying around their phones, checking every few minutes. I'm sure you have your phone probably on the desk right now so you can see text messages as they pop up. 96% of consumers find phone calls to be disruptive and 78% of US consumers say receiving a text message is the fastest way to reach them for important service updates and purchases. Especially as we go through inventory issues, and I'm sure some people have staffing issues, you want to make sure you're keeping customers up to date as quickly as possible. Also making sure that employees know what to tell customers as you're going through this process. It's not going to be a mystery to customers, but you certainly want to make sure that they're on the front lines and they know what's going on, especially when it comes to inventory issues.

So, this is what it looks like if somebody texts you in. I just wanted to give you a look here. If somebody texts in this is through your existing business line, this inbox is set up through Kenect through your existing business line, not your personal cell number. So all of these texts that come in are coming to one number into this platform, but every one of your team members can see it, or whoever you decide you want to have see this. So then you can assign people to respond to each text message as they come in. You can see where the conversation is. You can see when they texted in, what they're asking about, and then if somebody's not there to respond, you can respond to them. It's all going through that existing business line. So customers just see that one number and then they're also texting back in that one number. So this is what the inbox looks like. It's similar to an email, but it's really laid out so that everybody can see what's going on and it's easy and convenient for employees to respond.

We also have a mobile app, which is free in the App Store, and you can see similar layout to an email system. But you see over here, you can also send photos, use your camera to do video chats, and you can do this from anywhere. Your employees can be at home and they can use their phone and they can access this platform to respond to customers at any time of the day. Or they can set up automated reminders and also use that all through their phone. Again, free in the App Store and very handy, especially if you're out of town and you still want to respond or make sure that you're checking your messages if you're assigned to a certain person that's texting in.

Broadcast Messaging with Kenect

So, we wanted to also mention broadcast messaging because this is a new system that a lot of dealers have been asking for. It's a way for you to send out a bunch of messages all at once to a group in your contacts. Because if you're sending out something in the same... You don't want to send them individually. If you're sending out a winterization reminder, or a service reminder to a bunch of different people, you'd want to cut down that time that you have to use it. You can also say “here's a sale we have,” or “here's a discount that we have especially for you in the summer,” that kind of thing. So you can send that all out to a subset of your contacts list.

You can schedule the message, or you can send one right away and you can also easily identify and reply to broadcast messages right inside the inbox, which we showed you. So you can also quickly filter out broadcast messages based on scheduled or sent, which is also handy, especially if you're scheduling it for 300 people or 400 people. So you just click that button over on the side, click add, use the name of whatever you want to call this message that sends to people. Then the group that you've chosen, whichever number of people that you want to put in that group of your contacts, what the message is and then you hit send, and then you take a look here for approval. It also shows you how many people you didn't send this to and so how many available you have remaining, and what the message will look like. Hit approve, send it to the customer and the customer will see that in their inbox.

They can click on the information. They click on the link and they schedule their appointment. Or they can click on the link and get a view of what your discounts are or whatever you'd like to send to that group of customers. So you're not sending it individually. You're not sending one text to each person, but you're sending it to a group. And it's easy for you to be able to get that information out faster.

So here are the top eight ways that dealers use Kenect. I won't go through all of these, but like we talked about scheduling warranty reminders, scheduling maintenance notices, all this can be done pre... You can do this ahead of time and schedule it for 7:00 a AM tomorrow, something like that. You can collect payments via text message and then we showed you the video chat. You can also attach and send photos, videos, invoices, and PDFs, and then you can capture more leads from Facebook, Instagram, and your website.

3 Key Solutions to Supply Chain Issues

So today we wanted to talk about three keys to fixing supply chain issues. Number one, we want to identify the problem. What's been going on in the last six months or eight months actually and what are some of the ways that we can identify what's going on and try to fix it?

Inventory struggles, these are something that I'm sure we've all been dealing with for a long time. Container ships not being offloaded fast enough, causing a backlog in supply chain. Pandemic has made supply and demand pretty volatile. Well, we've seen this start right around the summer of 2021 and it really hasn't slowed down. Supply chain was having a tough time keeping up to demand as companies were reacting too quickly to the pandemic. So, what that meant is in the summer when that happened, people were starting to get back to normal. Things were opening back up and so dealerships were saying, "Oh, we need to order stuff. We need to put more stock in. We need to make sure that we have enough for customers that are coming in." So everybody ordered all at once. All the ships arrived at the ports and nobody was there to take all of the ships all at once. It was just too much. Too much of a backlog. Ports are still struggling to try to figure that out. They've actually improved quite a bit, but now the new issue that's popping up is labor shortages. It's also triggering factory shutdowns. So we're seeing not enough workers there to meet the demands.

As people are opening back up again, we've seen this in the last few weeks. Pretty much everybody is back to their normal routine, but as dealerships are ordering more things that backlog is now becoming an issue of workers. Factory shutdowns and stuff like that. So the port is slowly starting to come back, but we are seeing the new trend starting that things aren't being made fast enough. Supply chain analyst Sea-Intelligence says the current log jam has no precedent. Really never been seen before. The past experience would suggest that this would take eight to nine months for networks to recover.

What that means is it's probably going to go through 2022, maybe bleed into 2023. So you want to make sure that you are on top of this and that you have solutions for it. So use available technology and the way we do this is making sure that you have something in place that tracks what's going on. Making sure that if you ordered something in October and it took six weeks to get here, and then you ordered something in January, it took four weeks to get here, you're keeping track of all that. So you're relaying that information to your employees who then relay it to your customers, to say this is how long things are taking. This is what's going on. We want to make sure we're transparent with you, but we can text you quickly and give you updates.

Your Customers Want to Text You

Saving time will save you money. Text, don't call because customers expect it. Another way that saves you money is with this texting system in place. With supply chain issues, if you have somebody coming in to get something fixed and you don't have the part for their equipment to get fixed, but they're expected to come in that day or the next day you can send them a quick text. You say, "Hey, your parts not in, don't show up. We'll let you know when the part comes in and we'll get you fixed up."

That way you don't backlog your service department. You're making sure things keep flowing. You're leaving more opportunity for more revenue in other places. Because if that piece of equipment is in your service bay, or being fixed, or hasn't been in for sale yet, then the customer is just taking up that space and that's not what you want. So making sure you're texting, not calling. Customers don't really want to respond to you via phone tag or leaving voicemails or stuff like that. They want that quick text. They're going to read it 98% of the time that we just showed you. So that's the easiest way to reach customers,

Text messages per month per location, we've seen a 55% increase in messages per dealer year over year, and dealers are not completing entire transactions via text. That's sales and service and all of it's new. This started before the pandemic and it really ramped up after the pandemic as more people realized the benefits of texting and using all the tools available to them to make it simple and convenient. We've also seen an 80% increase in MMS message per dealer year over year. That means when pictures are sent back and forth, it usually indicates a service upsell or a serious sales engagement.

The way that I can explain this to you is if you have something, maybe a customer, you said, "Hey, we're going to order this part for you. It's going to be a little cheaper, but it's going to take about four weeks to get here." Maybe another part comes in and it's a little more expensive. So you'd just text the customer and you say, "Here's a picture of the part that we just got in and what we can do. We can have this for you. It's a little more expensive, but we can put it in today." Chances are your customer is going to say, "Yep, put it in today," because they know that everyone else is dealing with supply chain issues. You're not the only ones and they're going to get a leg up. They're going to be able to put that part in. It might be a little more expensive. They might pay a little more, but it's what they want and it's simple and convenient for them. They know that if it's in stock and you're offering it to them, they're going to take it. So that's where the service upsell helps here with pictures and images, and especially with video chat, that also helps to explain to customers exactly what's going on.

So the next one is improving communication. Dealers sometimes struggle with communication boundaries and give out their personal number. So you want to make sure you're not doing that anymore. Stop giving out your personal cell number. Through this Kenect platform we're using your existing business line. It's easy. It's an easy way to make sure that customers are funneled through one platform that they can all see. Stop taking customer calls after hours. You can also balance responsiveness with boundaries by making sure that all of the text are filtered through that one number and then they're also getting responses. If your employees are being able to respond to that, then they're able to give responses to customers through the existing business line.

This is just to show you leads, but I wanted to hammer home just a little bit to show you exactly what we're talking about here. So dealerships on average take about an hour to respond to leads when they come in. Then after hours, that jumps up to three and a half hours to respond to any lead that comes in. So this is for leads, but it also goes to any text that comes in for customers. If a customer has a question and they don't get responded to within a certain amount of time, they might choose to go somewhere else.

But if you set up a system with Kenect and you use an automated system, or you have a platform where anybody can respond at any time of the day, then you're able to give a response to customers. Even if it's an automated response, you say, "Hey, we're not open right now, but we'll get you in the morning when somebody's back in the office." That's easy, right? That's easy for customers to see yeah, we're monitoring all this stuff. We really do care about your question and we'll get to it when we can. It also makes sure that you're responding in some way. You're giving a response so that one hour or three and a half hours goes to zero because you're actually giving them a response and they're explaining what they need and they know that you are actually monitoring this stuff.

With the platform you can stagger when employees come in, so they can respond to these starting at 5:00 AM, starting at 6:00 AM all the way until midnight or whatever you choose to do. So that you're staggering, making sure that somebody gives them a response. It's an important to create a plan, setting expectations about communication with employees and customers. Try developing solutions like standardizing workloads and don't get left behind. Keep track of what's going on. Make sure that you are monitoring the trends from customers and monitoring the trends from supply lines.

You want to make sure you are taking an informal poll of what's going on from your supply parts that are coming in. So you know exactly how long it's taking, what issues are cropping up, whether it be staffing in the factory or shipping issues or whatnot. Just so you're making sure you're creating a plan and putting something in place to make sure you're tracking all this.

Automating certain tasks, you want to make sure you're keeping customers happy with giving them what they want. Texting versus calling, that's what customers are looking for. They've gotten used to it over the pandemic. So this is really important to make sure that you are offering them the tool that they're used to or have been used to over the last two years.

So the other key is finding solutions and we want to make sure you're increasing revenue, being proactive. Make sure you text everyone who's bought from you in the last three to four years. Be transparent about how long things take. Don't wait for them to reach out and then make them feel like they're part of the team. Like they're in it with you. So over communicate. Make sure that you are giving them all the information that they need and that you're giving them information maybe above and beyond. "We're working on your equipment, it's taking us a little longer. We're going to be done in about two hours." Or, "We found this while we were working. We just went ahead and fixed it, because it doesn't cost very much and here's a picture of it." Or something like that. So it shows them that you are on top of it. You're monitoring. You have them in mind and you're making them part of the team, part of what's going on and making sure that they have all the updates that they can.

Remote payment, also big thing. It's gained momentum during the pandemic and it really hasn't stopped. Popularity really has risen in the last few months. So we really wanted to hammer home this solution and the tool, because it really is something that customers are responding to. Customer convenience via contactless interaction.

Remote Payments

Cards aren't going away but will shift to remote forms of payment and it's all about simplicity and convenience. We've seen our numbers double from revenue from dealers that use us in the past year because customers are really gravitating towards this tool that really helps them and they really think that this is worth it.

So customers say they would prefer to continue to shop online or on smartphones for home delivery, freeing up time for people and activities more important to them such as family, friends, work, physical wellbeing and leisure and entertainment. This is just not going away. This is actually increasing as the pandemic lifts. So why text to pay? Because you can collect payments and deposits via text message from sales and service customers. You can also collect on service tickets and special order parts with a 98% open rate like we were talking about. Allow for after-hours pickup. If you call somebody or text somebody. If you call them, you may have to play phone tag and say, "Call me back or leave a voicemail," or whatnot. But if you text them, you can say, "Here it is. We're done in about an hour. Here's the link to text to pay. You can prepay and then we'll have you ready right outside. We'll meet you outside when you're done."

So it's easy. They can just sit in the parking lot and wait for you. Or you have an hour, you can keep them updated and say five minutes out or 10 minutes out or something like that so that they know when to show up and it's really easy for them to just swing by and pick it up. You can also get paid faster and reduce accounts receivable. So this also goes to staffing issues, which we were sort of discussing. People have seen this reduce the amount of time that staff has to deal with bills or accounts receivable on the phone going asking people to make payments, stuff like that. They just send them the link and then they send it back with next day funding and it's a hundred percent secure.

So this is what it looks like. Text to pay growth per location, we've seen four times year over year growth. Some dealers are actually running 80% of service and parts payments through text to pay. All of that has just become a huge trend. Dealers are really gravitating towards this because what they're realizing is that customers are filling this out faster. So they're getting paid faster. You don't have to be on the phone collecting bills, asking people to pay, leaving voicemails. Maybe they listen. Maybe they don't. This is an easy way for you to just text them the link and then they fill it out.

They can also see the invoice. If you want to see the invoice, you can also share it with them through the text system. So you can send them a PDF of what it looks like and what it's all about. It's also really just simple and convenient. Customers are looking for that. They want to pay from the comfort of their own couch and that's easy for them to do so.

Here's how it looks. If you want to click the button down at the bottom, the little dollar sign, that'll give you the link and so you can say, "No need to call, just make payment over the phone." You enter the amount, the invoice number and whatever it's for and then the customer completes the transaction themselves. So they put their information, they put their card number and then also we add your logo, your company logo at the top. So they'll see the logo and they'll know that it's from you and it'll boost their confidence in what this system is all about.

If they're at all skeptical, you can even text them and say, "Look, we're going to give you the form. It's going to be for text-to-pay. You click on the link and can fill out the form and our logo will be at the top. That's how you know it's from us." That way customers will feel more confident and they'll be able to fill that out and it'll be easy for them.

Six Benefits of Kenect

So, the six benefits of texting generating more leads on their website widget, generating dozens of online reviews and making sure you stand out online and sell more units, using video chat in sales and service, which we showed you just a little bit. Collecting deposits and payments from sales and service and texts from your existing business line, not your personal cell phone. Really no need to give out your personal cell phone anymore. If you have this system on your computer or your phone, it's really easy to use this or have anybody use this and it's all coming from that one business line. So customers know exactly who they're texting. They have one number to remember. So if you give out your personal cell, number and a salesperson gives out their cell number, and the service department gives out their cell number, that’s numbers they have to remember. This is all coming through their existing business line and then they know who to text when it comes time for them to get asked questions or send in payment information or all that. It can also save time and sell more by sending videos, photos, and surveys.

So if you have any questions, please feel free to text us. We can set up a free demo for you and you can take a look at how this platform would work for your business. Then also, there's certain tools that we can add that would be unique to your business. So what would work? What features do you want on this? And then also how it would fit for your day to day. So we want to make sure that this is simple and convenient for you also, and we want to make sure that you get the most out of this. Again, a really good look at what this would do for your business and how it would transform it.

We really feel confident that this is something that you would benefit from and we also know that customers are looking for it. So you're meeting customers where they want to be. It's really not that far fetched, as you might think. Customers are really going to embrace this once you adopt it. So again, thank you so much for joining us. Have a great rest of your week.

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