Case Studies

STELLA has helped us solve our BDC recruiting and training issues by providing us with a consistent and reliable phone response system. Our customers' calls are always answered in a professional way. Calls are short and effective. Customers are happy, employees are happy and the dealerships are saving money.


## Our Dealers Tell us…

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Hear what Auto Dealers and Customers say about STELLA

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VIDEO TESTIMONIALS

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Joe Hansen.mp4

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StuartBerkley.mp4

Listen to the testimonials from real callers.

Car Owners enjoy doing business with STELLA.

Results That Speak for Themselves (2).mp4

**Challenge:**
When Brad Garrett, Parts and Service Director for CardinaleWay Mazda, arrived at the store, he found that the dealership had service scheduling problems due to using multiple software tools for setting appointments. The BDC and Service teams were inputting service appointments into three different software solutions - the CRM, DMS and a Service Scheduler.  As a result, double bookings and long wait times for appointments were frustrating both customers and staff. The challenge was creating a clean system for setting up all appointments for STELLA to utilize.

**Solution:**
Brad shut down every avenue of scheduling appointments except the Service Scheduler which allowed STELLA to have a clean picture of the shop load. According to Brad, “Terin Burks, my STELLA Sales Director, did a great job understanding my requirements for appointments and working with the team to program the system to follow those requirements.”  As a part of his transition process Brad called STELLA frequently to check when the system would schedule the next appointment. If it didn't match his shop load, he would call Terin to troubleshoot the new scheduler set up. He also listened to every phone call to see how the client would be routed. Concerns were addressed quickly and resolved. Brad hasn't listened to a call or had a problem since the first month of implementation. Once the new process was established, Brad was able to forget about it and focus on other issues.

**Result:**
The dealership’s appointment show rate is high. STELLA helps the service drive remain booked from morning to night. The BDC team places a reminder call the day before every appointment. And, importantly, the Advisors are no longer able to turn down appointments, like the 4:30pm oil change or Saturday morning tire rotation. STELLA books appointments every 15 minutes right up till 5:15 pm based on Brad’s initial setup.  STELLA also allows the service department to receive appointments during non-working hours – from phone calls from those people that do not like to use the Online Scheduler.

Their  "ease of making an appointment " score is high and the dealership has not seen a survey complaint about trying and failing to talk to a live person. STELLA  has freed up the advisors and BDC to make outgoing calls which is where the money is made.




Cardinale, Case Study (2).pdf

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Case Study
Brad Garrett
CardinaleWay
Mazda

**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.

Banister NISSAN Case Study.pdf

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Case Study
NISSAN

**Challenge:**

Jason Aufiero, General Manager of Boch Toyota, recognized that they were missing calls and that customers were complaining about not being able to get through to the dealership to set appointments.  He leveraged his third-party BDC to help, but the BDC got too bogged down answering calls that they couldn’t place their expected outbound revenue-generating calls. 

**Solution:**

Jason researched systems to supplement his BDC and discovered STELLA.  He found that STELLA could handle some of the simpler inbound calls using its cognitive reasoning and ability to streamline repetitive tasks.  According to Jason, “STELLA offers our customers a seamless experience.  Even though it’s automated, STELLA sounds very natural and is able to set appointments very efficiently.” 

**Result:**

After two months, Jason now relies on STELLA to answer all inbound service calls.  Jason says, “We have realized a cost savings with our external BDC, but the biggest benefit is that all our customers calls are getting through – and they are no longer complaining.  It has been a game changer for our Service Department.” 


Boch Toyota, Case Study.pdf

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Case Study
Jason Aufiero

**Challenge:**

Shaun “NIFF” Kniffin, Director of Marketing & Technology for the Germain Motor Company recognized that some stores were experiencing longer than average hold times and a higher percentage of calls that did not reach the intended agents. Without a functioning service BDC some stores were creating bottle necks of callers with multiple attempts from customers trying to reach their designated service advisors to either schedule appointments or receive quick status updates.


**Solution:**

By removing simple service scheduling processes from the flow of inbound calls, the newly-installed STELLA allows for more person-to-person interaction to happen without sacrificing the ease of scheduling appointments. This improves the customer experience by allowing technology to replace human interaction when necessary and acceptable, while allowing more time for the more complicated conversations regarding the status of vehicle being serviced.


**Result:**

Customers really like the ease of use of interacting with STELLA. The cost savings of having to attract, develop and retain quality associates is a nice serendipity when using technology to bridge the gaps when staffing continues to be lighter than usual. According to Kniffin, “Our expectations are to continue to use STELLA technology to make things easier for both our associates and our customers.”

