I worked closely with a UX Designer on a receptionist dashboard project for dealerships. My role was to determine the key challenges dealership receptionists have and what content would be most relevant to them, then communicate this to a UX designer to bring the dashboard to life.
Having visited dealerships of all sizes across the country and speaking to their receptionists, as well as having worked at a dealership myself and previous front desk experience, I had direct knowledge of many of the challenges receptionists frequently face.
I also have read dealership reviews regularly over the past 7+ years to understand the customer experience. After all, customers typically leave reviews when they are ecstatic or disappointed about their experience. Whether or not the content is 100% true and accurate, being one-sided, it provides helpful insights as to what customers expect and what they actually get out of their dealership experience.
Receptionists often provide the dealership’s first impression, however they are often kept in the dark on key information that can help them provide an excellent experience for customers. Our goal with this project was to eliminate as many of these challenges as possible by displaying key information on a dashboard and providing quick access to helpful resources.
Challenges, Goals & Solutions
Below are some key challenges that dealership receptionists often face, our goals to accomplish with the receptionist dashboard, and the solutions we implemented in the design. Because the design is proprietary to the company for which we created this dashboard, no images will be displayed.
Keeping Up with Dealership Events and Promotions
Dealerships regularly have events that are communicated to customers via email, mail and social media, but oftentimes, this information is not shared with key dealership employees, including receptionists and salespeople. This often results in customers being more knowledgeable about dealership events than the employees, which can start the experience off negatively. If the receptionist or salesperson doesn’t know what’s going on at their own dealership, what else don’t they know?
Our goal was to provide an easy way to keep all dealership employees updated on events to avoid this snafu. If the dealership was having an event, we wanted to ensure the receptionist had the details to answer any questions customers had when calling or stopping by.
We accomplished this by incorporating a dealership events calendar in the dashboard so marketing and management could keep employees updated on current and future events, including event details, dates and times.
Preparing for Appointments
It’s common for dealerships to have several sales appointments daily, however appointments may not be in a location that receptionists have access to, such as the dealer’s CRM, and appointments can be generated and stored in multiple software programs. So even with CRM access, it’s likely the receptionist will not know who to expect each day. Some salespeople may tell the receptionist about their upcoming appointments, but generally, there is not a consistent way that appointments are communicated to the receptionist.
Imagine if this practice occurred at other businesses, such as doctor’s offices, banks or hair salons – wouldn’t you feel apprehensive if you went to a doctor appointment and the person at the front desk didn’t know who you were or who you were there to see? Purchasing a vehicle is a major investment and if you’ve been communicating with a dealership and have an appointment, at the very least, when you arrive for the appointment, you should be expected and treated as such.
When I worked at a Ford-Lincoln dealership, we would regularly have “Lincoln Academy” training sessions during which we would learn key customer experience best practices to provide our customers with the “Lincoln Experience.” Something that has stuck out in my mind over 5 years later is making the customer feel welcomed and expected, even saying the words “we’ve been expecting you” when they arrive.
Our goal was to communicate every appointment to the receptionist so when customers arrive for their appointment, they feel expected and valued, not like a stranger walking in off the street having their first experience with the dealership.
We accomplished this by incorporating an appointments module to the dashboard that displayed all of the day’s appointments with the customer’s name, the assigned salesperson and a button to quickly notify the salesperson that their appointment had arrived. This button would send a message through the built-in messaging tool available on desktop and mobile devices, so even if the salesperson was away from their desk, which is common, they could be alerted.
We also incorporated an indicator to notify reception if this was a return “VIP” customer or a new customer so they could adjust their conversation to suit the customer’s relationship with the dealership. A simple “welcome back” could make a huge difference in the customer’s experience and make them feel valued as a return customer, providing a more positive experience.
Saying the Right Thing
Phone scripts and email templates are common for many sales roles at dealerships, but when it comes to the first dealership employee many customers speak to – the receptionist – scripts are not very common. Part of providing an excellent experience is consistency in ensuring those speaking to customers have a shared message.
Since most dealerships have multiple receptionists and many work part-time, it’s important to ensure their conversations are consistent, from the initial greeting to answering questions. If you’ve seen pretty much any receptionist’s desk, you will see reminders, procedures and information posted in nearly every free space. This can lead to a cluttered look and put potentially confidential information in public view.
These scripts could provide the receptionist with what to say when there’s a major recall going on, event information, a special holiday greeting, or OEM-required greeting. This could even be used to document simple procedures, such as what to say when a customer calls in a complaint, what information to collect, and who to direct these customers to for resolution.
Our goal was to provide dealerships with a way to document all of these scripts and messages in a singular location where receptionists could easily access, without having to tape documents all around the desk area.
We accomplished this by incorporating a scripts tool at the top of the dashboard. A phone greeting could be pinned so it is always visible and additional scripts would be just a click away.
Who Works Here, Anyway?
Have you ever called a business to speak to an employee and the receptionist seemed unsure of who you were asking for or whether that person still worked at the business? It’s not a positive experience for the customer, especially if they’ve been recently communicating with that employee. Why doesn’t the receptionist know who they work with?
It’s no secret that dealerships have extremely high turnover rates, especially in sales. According to an NADA (National Automobile Dealers Association) report, overall dealership sales turnover ranges from 74-80% and short-term, 39% of salespeople are terminated in the first 90 days. For a receptionist, this means there’s always new faces and familiar faces often disappear quickly.
Additionally, non-sales inquiries can be the most daunting to a receptionist. They’re under the pressure of having to quickly come up with answers, but it can be challenging to know who does what at the dealership.
Our goal was to eliminate the questions of “does this person still work here” and “who does what around here” and instead, provide a crystal-clear directory so the receptionist could confidently answer questions for the customer and direct callers to the appropriate person, both key responsibilities of that role.
We accomplished this by incorporating an employee directory on the receptionist dashboard which included employee names, availability status, titles, departments and contact information so the receptionist could easily identify the correct person. The directory included a messaging button so the receptionist could instantly message the employee on a messaging platform available on web, desktop and mobile application, so regardless of whether the employee was at their desk or out and about around the dealership, they were reachable.
Keeping Personal and Professional Communication Separate
I’ve mentioned a messaging platform in a few of the examples above and I believe it is a key feature for dealerships to keep work-related content on a messaging platform that does not require employees to text each other from their personal devices. This has several benefits, one being that this keeps communication between employees on a dealership-controlled messaging platform.
An example I will never forget was when a salesperson asked the receptionist to text him when his customer came in. This is not an uncommon occurrence. The receptionist didn’t feel super comfortable sharing her phone number with the salesperson, but did as he asked when the customer arrived. The following weekend, the receptionist received some inappropriate late night text messages from the salesperson. It was then that she vowed to never share her personal number with a salesperson again.
In general, nearly 88% of receptionists are female, and in automotive, women represent only 19% of dealership employees, so there’s a significant gender imbalance. This can be an intimidating environment for women to work in and has potential for harassment cases. In fact, according to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 76 harassment charges are filed with the EEOC daily and defense and settlement costs average $125,000 per claim.
If questionable communication is on employee personal devices, it can also be much more difficult for a dealership to legally gain access to, if needed for a complaint. By keeping communication on a workplace-controlled messaging platform and off of employees’ personal devices, this can help reduce the chances of this happening and provide a way for dealerships to have documentation if it does occur.
Our goal to assist in separating personal from professional communication was to eliminate the need for receptionists to use their personal cell phones to text coworkers by providing easy access to a dealer-controlled communication platform.
We accomplished this by including a messaging module on the dashboard as well as messaging functionality by every employee’s name so that the receptionist could start a conversation with one click.
Conclusion
Working with a UX designer, we were able to concept and design a receptionist dashboard that would address the key challenges dealership receptionists face every day. By providing easy access to a dealership-controlled messaging platform, receptionists could easily message coworkers with the click of a button and not have to share their personal information with coworkers through texting. And by placing the most pertinent information in a singular location, receptionists would no longer need to tape reminders and potentially confidential information around their desk, risking it being in view of customers.
Sally Scott 