Challenge:
About Banister Automotive Group
Banister Automotive Group operates three Nissan and Ford dealerships throughout Virginia and Maryland. Part of the company’s mission statement is to be a dealership group that leads with their hearts -- always treating customers and the community with care, respect and thankfulness.

David Webster, Fixed Ops Director for Banister Automotive Group, oversees the fixed operations for the Group’s two Nissan dealerships and its Ford dealership. At each store, the team has struggled with handling the influx of inbound phone calls. In one dealership, the cashier and rental agents have even had to handle calls. Another dealership has employed three full-time receptionists to answer inbound phone calls. The group also contracted a third-party BDC to act as a back-up so that they didn’t miss any calls. Even with the outside BDC’s support, Banister’s service advisors and receptionists struggled to manage the steadily increasing volume of inbound calls at all three stores. As the number of calls has increased, so have the costs to manage those calls.

Solution:
David, along with the group’s owner, Dan Banister, evaluated the Group’s digital options and found that STELLA offered the best value for their needs. They implemented STELLA at each dealership -- choosing to integrate it with their Xtime scheduling tool. All three stores witnessed immediate results. They experienced ongoing support from STELLA’s staff. Throughout the initial onboarding process, STELLA team members were able to respond to questions on the same day. They also helped the team at Banister Automotive Group anticipate any potential issues and prevent them from stalling the team’s progress.

Result:
David realized cost savings within each dealership. Third-party BDC costs decreased immediately. The new investment in STELLA delivered a net gain in savings overall. Today, Banister Automotive’s service advisors are able to fully focus on in-store customers and have the time to personally call customers with real-time status updates. In addition to this, the dealerships that had previously tasked other staff to handle inbound calls can now relieve those team members so that they can refocus on their primary responsibilities.