We have made some big changes to the Sales team with Mark Bennett recently moving into the role of Sales Director. We sat down with Mark to learn a bit more about him, what changes have been made to the team, his views on the market and what Dealerweb can do to help.

What were you doing before becoming our new Sales Director?

I’ve worked in the Dealerweb Sales team for over six years prior to becoming Sales Director. I joined Dealerweb in March 2011 as a Regional Director responsible for growing new business and maintaining our customer relationships in the north of the UK. In February 2016 I was promoted to the role of Divisional Operations Director.

What was your background before joining Dealerweb?

Before joining the Dealerweb team I had worked as a Consultant & Business Development Manager at Manheim for 4 years. Prior to that, between 1990 and 2006, I worked in many dealership roles. I started my automotive career as a vehicle re-finisher before moving into an After sales role as a service advisor. In 2000 I changed direction and moved into sales and quickly worked my way from Sales Executive to Business Manager and then onto Sales Manager for Volkswagen, Land Rover and Toyota.

What changes have been made since you took on the new role?

I think the focus has been on the structure of our Sales and Account management team. We have really wanted to ensure that we have the right people with the right skills in the right positions. The team has recently been split into clearly defined roles, we now have dedicated Regional Directors that cover every corner of mainland UK and N. Ireland to ensure all our customers have access to an industry expert and familiar face that knows them and their needs. We’ve also created two new Account and Training Manager roles to ensure all new and existing customers are set up and trained quickly and effectively. We want to help every dealer maximise their investment in Dealerweb and help them achieve the best possible results, the new set up will help us more effectively support a growing number of users.

We have also launched an enticing new web-lead response tool Dealerweb React and therefore recruited a new Business Development Manager to help drive its success and focus on new business acquisition. As dealers know, the car buying market and consumer habits are rapidly changing. With digital enquiries and customer expectations ever-increasing we know we must diversify our own product offerings to continue to help support our customers, the market and the business.

What do you hope to achieve as Sales Director?

Overall it must be to cement our position as the UK’s leading provider of automotive enquiry management. I will be supporting and looking to grow our existing Sales and Account Management team to drive the growth of our customer base and ensure continued commercial success. It’s all about the people and we are proud to have such a great team and the ability to offer dedicated account management for every customer.

Finally, the latest SMMT figures show that the quarter and specifically September has been tough for Dealers. What are your thoughts and what is Dealerweb doing to help support its customers?

New car registrations were down 9.3% in September so I think it’s more important now than ever to ensure that all our customers can fully utilise all the features of Dealerweb. It is however encouraging to see that despite the fall in both new car registrations and enquiries in total our customers seem to be capitalising on every opportunity. For both the year to date, Q3 and September our customers have seen a slight increase in new car sales despite a fall in total enquiries, this has resulted in an improved conversion rate of 1% year to date and for Q3 and an improvement of 2% in September. I think this shows that potentially the prospects that enquire about a vehicle are more certain of a purchase but more importantly that dealers are doing a fantastic job of capitalising on every lead.

We have also developed Dealerweb React to help dealers capitalise on every lead early in the buying process. From our own research and from talking to the dealers we work with we also know that buyers are far more informed when they walk into a dealership than they ever have been. The wealth of available information online means that when potential buyers enter the showroom they have heavily researched the market and are therefore much more informed than ever before, online enquiries for the year to date are up 21% across new and used vehicles.

This insight shows it is increasingly important for dealers to begin to nurture every lead early in the buying process but despite this the average response time across the industry to online leads is 42 hours. There is a clear disparity between what people expect and what dealers do, our own research found that 49% of car buyers will look elsewhere if they don’t get a response within 1 hour. Dealerweb React helps dealers capture and respond to web leads instantly and with an integration with Dealerweb Showroom ensures 100% of online enquiries are captured and logged in the lead management system.

I believe that ultimately, in tougher market conditions, dealers must ensure that they have a robust sales process in place that is supported by technology and data. As we have seen with our own customers this can help offset tougher market conditions by taking full advantage of every lead.