In today’s market, dealers are either thriving in a growth mode, or struggling to stay afloat. Whether you’re successfully adding franchises to your dealer group or tightening your belt in an effort to remain competitive, nothing will make or break a dealership’s success quite like people. At Tasca Automotive, they’ve grown from a small, family owned single point store to a multifranchise auto group operating out of four locations. They’ve grown substantially while maintaining CSI scores that are among the highest in the nation and customer loyalty above 63 percent. Throughout the growth process, Tasca has naturally needed to add people. What’s unique is that the Tasca leadership team believes that their most important asset is their people and as Bob Tasca III likes to say, “We owe it to our customers and ourselves to invest in the development of our team.” But how do you move beyond the typical new-hire training? Tasca hired an outside training and consulting company to improve their strategy for recruiting, hiring and training their people. Bob Tasca III says that, “We’ve been able to manage growth, increase profits and reduce turnover. We use a recruiting, hiring and training system to ensure we hire the right people for the job, baptize them in the Tasca way of doing business and give them the tools and skills they need to get off to a strong start. We build on that foundation with weekly in-house sessions and monthly training meetings with our consultant.” Here’s an outline their 120 day New Hire Orientation: Part 1 – Welcome to the Tasca Family: Overview of the dealership’s History, Vision, Mission and Principles. Part 2 – Welcome to the Dealership: Introduce new hire to each department and clarify their role within the entire ownership experience. Part 3 – Dealership Tour: Working tour of every department. Part 4 – Department Internship: Work briefly in each department to better understand customer experience and interdepartmental communication. Part 5 – Job Training: Detailed training regarding job specific activities, processes and procedures. Part 6 – Mentorship: Every new team member is assigned to a mentor who is responsible for guiding them through the first 120 days. Part 7 – Certification: The new team member meets with manager to verify proficiency with each job skill as defined in their Certification Book. Once you have the right people on board and have given them the right start, what’s the secret to increasing profit and reducing turnover? Bob Tasca III insists that it hinges on how well you’re able to maintain employee satisfaction. According to Tasca, “Employee satisfaction drives customer satisfaction and loyalty therefore, the goal of Orientation is to see that every one of our graduates is excited about their career, confident with the skills and process needed to get results and eager to continue with their personal and professional development. Now that everyone is on the same page and our processes are generating great results I could not imagine not spending the time and money to train our people properly.” Below is a summary of some of Tasca University’s training modules:
Sales Process
Management and Coaching
Phones Strategy & Process
Internet Strategy & Process
Customer Relationship Center
Sold and Unsold Follow Up
Service Contact and Follow Up
Lease and Retail Renewals
