Case Studies

Sales Case Study

The Client Problem: One of the top five auto dealer groups was experiencing a tremendous amount of sales turnover. With over 7,500 employees spread out among 100+ car dealerships across the United States, processes and systems were not always consistent across the board. This was never more present than in the interviewing and selection process of salespeople. Many of the general managers in the dealerships were hiring people onsite without evaluating whether or not the individual had the skill set to actually perform well in the job. Other GMs took a more scientific approach, or so they thought, administering standard personality profiles—such as DiSC, Predictive Index, and a host of others—to their candidates to evaluate if the candidate can perform well in the role in question. Both approaches—hiring on the spot, and hiring based on the results of personality profiles—yielded less than favorable results. They would hire approximately 25 salespeople for a new recruiting class, spend 4–6 weeks training them, and then lose 90 percent of those trained within 90 days.

The ZERORISK Solution: With the assistance of ZERORISK HR, the client began a process whereby the ZERORISK Hiring System Profile was administered to all of their salespeople and identified groups of high, medium, and low-level performers based on their sales numbers. This process established “benchmarks” for success which were then utilized to compare future candidates to determine their fit, their areas of needed development and growth, and the most effective ways to communicate with and motivate the individual once hired. In addition to the benchmarks, many interesting findings came out of this study. Key differences were found among people that were successful selling new versus used cars, as well as selling luxury versus nonluxury cars.

The Bottom Line Result:Their first recruiting class using the ZERORISK Hiring System Profile to assist in the interviewing and selection process consisted of 13 people; as of 1 year later, 10 were still in the job and performing at a high level. The second recruiting class consisted of 24 new hires, and as of a year later, 23 were still on the job performing at a high level. After using the ZERORISK Hiring System Profile for hiring salespeople for 1 year, the client increased retention by 67 percent and added $32 million to the bottom line in reduced turnover costs and increased sales.

Turnover Case Study

The Client Problem: One of the nation’s largest providers of medical software solutions was experiencing unusually high turnover in all areas of the organization. They employed physicians, nurses, coders, software developers, and a variety of other professionals. Due to the technical nature of their software products, they thought that the real-life knowledge and experience from nurses and doctors would be beneficial in the leadership and management roles in the company, as well as helpful in selling this type of software. So they hired only for this technical skill and educational background. What they soon learned was that while these employees had the education and technical skill, they had a serious lack of management competence and sales skills inside the organization. Turnover was rising, especially turnover within the first year of employment.

The ZERORISK Solution: Needing to address this problem, they implemented the ZERORISK Hiring System to assist in their evaluation of candidates and utilized the results to guide their interviewing and selection process. This program provided needed interview training and guidance to the hiring managers. Additionally, the ZERORISK HR staff consulted with the client’s leadership team to better resolve employee relations issues as a result of a lack of management competencies within the organization. Managers were provided emotional intelligence coaching and were consulted on how to best manage, communicate, and lead their direct reports.

The Bottom Line Result: Within 1 year of implementing the ZERORISK Hiring System and the emotional intelligence-based management development programs, overall turnover dropped by 48 percent and turnover of employees leaving within 1 year of their hire date by 81 percent.

Customer Service Case Study

The Client Problem: A luxury auto dealer was expanding and looking to ensure they hired employees that had core competencies that fell in line with their corporate values. Serving this high-end market, high turnover was not a real issue, as many people within this industry wanted to work for such a high-end dealership. However, as you might imagine, customer service was a key corporate value within the organization. They wanted to create, and maintain, a reputation for creating client-friendly environments within the dealerships, and offering exceptional client service. The leadership team knew that having the right people would be the key to creating and maintaining a reputation for excellence in customer service and wanted to implement a process that ensured they hired customer service-oriented employees.

The ZERORISK Solution: In 2002, the client contracted with ZERORISK HR to implement the ZERORISK Hiring System into their interviewing and selection process to ensure they hired customer service-oriented employees. The first step in this process was to evaluate and measure the Emotional Intelligence Competencies of the employees that consistently exhibited excellent customer service. This process was completed by administering the ZERORISK Hiring System Profile to this group of employees to objectively identify the core Emotional Intelligence Competencies they possessed that allowed for their excellence in customer service. One of the most critical scored areas on the ZERORISK profile that had a direct correlation to excellent customer service was a positive bias to Empathy. This attentive bias allowed their employees to develop lasting, and genuine relationships with their clientele. Additionally, ZERORISK HR trained all of the hiring managers in the dealerships on behavioral interviewing, with an emphasis on confirming the candidate exhibited empathy. All future candidates were then asked to complete the profile in the interview process so they could be compared to the benchmark for excellence in customer service. This process was implemented for every position in the dealership from the general manager to carwash and valet drivers.

The Bottom Line Result: In 2003, the dealership was named the exclusive recipient of the 2003 Award for Performance Excellence, recognition of organizations that excel in performance excellence, quality, and customer satisfaction. Their new car client satisfaction index (CSI) at one of their Lexus stores is among the top 10 percent of 226 Lexus dealers in the United States. Their other Lexus store has a CSI of 98.9 percent and is among the top 10 percent of Lexus dealers in the overall sales experience, and is also rated the top Certified Pre-Owned Lexus dealer in the United States.