Keith Sponburgh Email & Phone Number

St. Charles, Il, Us

North Aurora, Illinois, United States

North Aurora, Illinois, United States

Greater Chicago Area

The Bill Kay Auto Group is multi-state car dealership group serving the suburbs of Chicago and Tempe Arizona. My responsibility was to re-build and lead the Business Development Center for the sales departments at Bill Kay Chevrolet, Bill Kay Ford, and Bill Kay Corvettes & Classics. Additionally, I was responsible for sales marketing, website maintenance, inventory management and managing all marketing vendors. Additional Job Duties• Develop and implement a process for the Internet Sales Team (BDC) including the transfer of clients from the Internet process to the in-store sales team process.• Manage the budget for advertising across multiple vendors and platforms at three locations encompassing five dealership websites.• Administer the dealership CRM system (Vin Solutions). Including user management, process implementation and maintenance, data management, report generation, email template creation, internal equity marketing campaigns and customer journey process for all sales prospects and existing customers.• "Desking" vehicle sales deals for cash, financing and leasing customers to expedite the sales process. This involved processing the customers credit application, estimating trade-in value and building the purchase agreement including all relevant taxes and fees.Achievements• Maintained consistent and relevant website traffic levels across all sites through the COVID-19 shutdown and accompanying severe reduction in the advertising budget of approximately 80%.• Successfully built two new Internet Sales/BDC teams after COVID-19 lay-offs.• Significantly increased Internet Sales/BDC employee performance levels to exceeding industry standard KPIs for response time, contact rate, appointment creation and appointment show rates.• Implemented cost saving changes by removing duplicate marketing programs, under-utilized programs and redundant software solutions.

Greater Chicago Area

As a consultant with a focus on automotive dealership (B2C) marketing and Internet sales/Business Development Center (BDC) management I help dealerships understand and improve their marketing efforts and Internet sales process. My goal with each client is to customize a solution based on their needs ranging from creating a new marketing strategy or building a new Internet sale department to simply helping them understand how they can refine and monitor their current efforts.While I am not an advertising agency I do help clients interested in managing their own advertising with training or hands-on assistance with social media marketing, Search Engine Marketing, re-targeting, and display advertising.Additional Services Provided:Develop marketing strategies, audience segments, and advertising budgets.Create custom reports to consolidate analytics data and clarify marketing ROI.Help design and implement an effective Internet sales process, or build and train a new or existing team.Assist with acquiring new advertising providers and vendors or managing existing providers.

Lombard, Illinois

The Ron Postma Auto Group was three car dealerships serving the near west and southwest suburbs of Chicago. My responsibility was to re-build and lead the Business Development Center for the sales department and create a Business Development Center for the service department handling all three dealerships from a central office. Additionally, I was responsible for both sales and service marketing and managing all marketing vendors.Oversee the dealership marketing efforts including web site content (SEO), paid advertising (SEM, Social Media, Display and re-targeting) and customer retention campaigns. This is a combination of in-house efforts and managing vendor relationships.Manage the daily operation of the dealership Sales and service call center (BDC) handling a high volume of inbound telephone and Internet leads and customer service calls.Manage the dealership CRM software including user management, data correction and process implementation. Established the service call center including the hiring and training of new staff, developing a scheduling process for service customers and creating a marketing program to increase service market share.Achieved a constant increase in web site traffic and both sales & service lead volumes with a new marketing strategy. Overall monthly advertising expenses were reduced substantially by eliminating unused services resulting in a net reduction of 20% in advertising expenses with a net gain of 180% increased site traffic and 175% increased lead volume.

Barrington, Illinois

Manage the Service Business Development Center and Switchboard Center for the 11 store Motor Werks Auto Group. The 8 person service Business Development Center (BDC) is responsible for handling all vehicle service appointment scheduling and service customer retention programs. The 6 person Switchboard/Reception team handles all inbound phone calls for sales, service, parts and administration for all 11 stores in the group.Developed and implemented the group wide phone call processes for both the switchboard and Service BDC handling a combined average of over 40,000 inbound customer calls per month.Enacted a group wide service customer retention program consisting of over 6000 outbound calls per month, event based real-time email marketing and two-way text communication.Improved overall customer experience by re-designing the call transfer process and working with IT to update the CISCO phone system's hunt groups across all departments at all stores in the auto group. Migrated the Service BDC to CISCO UCCX unified call center system to help reduce call abandonment rates to a monthly average below 1%.Increased group wide service appointment volume from a monthly average of 2400 in the first half of 2017 to a monthly average of 4350 by the end of first quarter 2018.Improved service appointment show rates through training and process updates from 83% in June of 2017 to exceeding 90% each month from November 2017 through March 2019.Drove substantial gains in individual employee productivity through training, contests and self-monitoring activities in the service BDC. Existing employees saw gains of 120-200% in appointment creation and show counts while new employees exceeded industry standard KPI targets for calls per day and appointment set ratios within 2-3 weeks of their hire date.

Downers Grove, Illinois

Oversee the day-to-day operation of the business development center handling a high volume of inbound telephone and Internet sales, parts and service leads, live chat, two-way text messaging, customer service calls and overflow from the switchboard operator.Lead the seven person call center staff including all hiring and training of both part-time and full-time employees.Monitor the data entry of 20 sales employees and 7 call center employees in the company CRM software to improve both pre-sale and post-sale customer service.Provide regular training in both one-on-one and group environments to call center and sales employees.Oversee the in-house digital marketing efforts by managing SEO, SEM, social media marketing and email marketing both directly and through vendor relationships. Includes the regular monitoring and reviewing of site analytics, campaign ROI and KPI tracking and budget maintenance. Manage the online inventory of 300 used and 200 new vehicles with daily price adjustments based on the Chicago market and OEM incentive updates.Created, Launched and managed a series of highly targeted social media ads that achieved an average CPC under $0.40 and outperformed well established vendors by achieving similar total clicks and better conversions to leads for under 10% of the ad spend.Re-designed the service appointment process and provided training which lead to an increase in service reservation show rates from 78% in Q1 2016 to 90% in Q3 2016.

Naperville Illinois

Manage the daily operation of the Business Development Center which handles the new and used sales requests from customers for Bill Jacobs BMW|MINI, Bill Jacobs Volkswagen and Land Rover Hinsdale.Lead an exceptional team of 8 representatives responsible for handling thousands of incoming Internet leads and inbound phone calls. Team members averaged 3-400 new prospects per month and maintained an average response time of under 6 minutes across all stores and all sources.Increased the appointment set rate for Internet prospects from a department average of 17% in June 2015 to a department average of 22% in December 2015.Provided additional training to push the appointment show rate from all lead sources from 43% in June 2015 to 59% in December 2015.

Downers Grove, Illinois

Oversee the day-to-day operation of the business development center handling a high volume of inbound telephone and Internet sales, parts and service leads, live chat, two-way text messaging, customer service calls and overflow from the switchboard operator.Lead the seven person call center staff including all hiring and training of both part-time and full-time employees.Monitor the data entry of 22 sales employees and 7 call center employees in the company CRM software to improve both pre-sale and post-sale customer service.Provide regular training in both one-on-one and group environments to call center and sales employees.Oversee the in-house digital marketing efforts by managing SEO, SEM, social media marketing and email marketing both directly and through vendor relationships. Includes the regular monitoring and reviewing of site analytics, campaign ROI and KPI tracking and budget maintenance. Manage the online inventory of 300 used and 200 new vehicles with daily price adjustments based on the Chicago market and OEM incentive updates.Improved total website traffic from 4000 unique monthly visitors to over 15,000 unique monthly visitors while simultaneously reducing the SEM (pay-per-click) budget by 30%.Designed, tested and optimized model specific new Ford SEM ad campaigns resulting in a 27% increase in traffic, a 12% increase in time on site and a 3% reduction in bounce rate.Developed a new Internet and telephone sales process to better handle the increased leads from website visitors. Repeatedly reached a 100% response rate within one hour on OEM tracked leads compared to the zone average of under 80%.Delivered detailed training to new and experienced employees to improve appointment show rate from 40% (2010) to 63% (2013).Increased monthly department sales volume by over 200% without a substantial advertising budget increase. Resulting department sales reflected 60% of the total store sales in 2013 compared to 30% of total sales in 2010.

North Aurora, Illinois

Oversight of all Internet sales and service leads delivered through a variety of online sources. Included assignment of new leads, monitoring follow-up with active prospects, participating in follow-up with both prospects and customers and assisting department managers with customer service issues.Responsible for the maintenance and continued development of the store's on-line presence through direct maintenance of the company website and extensive contact with service providers.Implemented a new Internet sales process including extensive use of automated tasks through the ADP CRM software.Designed and implemented multiple email marketing campaigns to coincide with manufacture programs and an extremely effective email and social media campaign for the CARS program.Successfully ran a very aggressive conquest campaign to gain new parts and service customers from the surrounding area coinciding with the Chrysler shutdown of select dealerships.

Dekalb, Illinois

Short term contract position responsible for the installation of low voltage (telephone, cable TV, intercom) wiring in a rehab/conversion project of an abanonded dorm building that was converted into a 42-unit appartment building. Project was expanded to include the installation and configuration of a small office PC network in the new property management office in the same building.

St. Charles, Illinois

Involved in initial sales contact with new prospects in person, over the phone and through Internet leads.Conducted regular follow-ups with prospects and customers in a sales environment with no existing follow-up policy or CRM system.

Naperville, Illinois

Managed pre-owned inventory advertising with print and on-line advertisers in addition to regular sales functions.Implemented GMAC Smart Auction policy and handled the posting and sales of vehicle through the on-line Smart Auction service.

St. Charles, Illinois

Developed the business plan for a training and conference center catering to small businesses and professional groups.Established an effective, low-cost marketing strategy through the use of business networking and community events.Achieved exceptional customer loyalty with superb customer service.

Batavia, Illinois

Managed the growing staff of computer technicians and served as the primary client relations liaison for all in-shop technical services. Helped grow the fledgling IT services department from a staff of two employees to an eventual staff of ten employees and eight contractors.Handled staff interviews and hiring for internal and contract technicians.Provided regular hardware and software training to employees and clients.Provided technical expertise to the sales staff during meetings with existing clients and prospects.Responsible for developing continued business opportunities with existing clients through the development of long-term service contracts.

Winthrop Harbor, Illinois

Managed the department evidence room and all evidence handling and tracking procedures from intake to destruction. Maintained an extremely high level of accountability that withstood repeated scrutiny in criminal and civil hearings.Recipient of two Medals of Valor for superior performance in high pressure, life threatening situations.

Honorable Discharge