Ralph Paglia Wards Dealer Magazine This Guy Is On The Ball Online
1. This Guy Is On the Ball Online http://www.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?action=cpt&title=This+Guy...
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This Guy Is On the Ball Online
By Steve Finlay
Ward's Dealer Business, Nov 1, 2006 12:00
PM
Ralph Paglia worked at three car dealerships before taking a sales job with Reynolds and Reynolds,
a major automotive information technology firm.
While there, he said he'd never work for a dealership again.
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“That was before I met the Gruwell family,” owners of Courtesy Chevrolet in Phoenix, he says. “They
are entrepreneurial and willing to experiment using new technologies.”
Paglia returned to the other side and started working for Courtesy in August 2005 as director of
CRM and e-business operations. Since then, Courtesy has become a leading Internet retailer. It is
No.2 on the Ward's e-Dealer 100.
Paglia quickly hammered out an e-plan of action with his dealership deputies.
“I locked them in a hotel conference room, took away their cell phones and said, ‘We're not leaving
until we agree on a plan,’” he says.
Here's what they came up with:
Five team managers and their staff of more than 40 handle inbound and outbound sales
communications, using the telephone, e-mail and face-to-face meetings.
The overall operation consists of: three business development centers for telemarketing, an
e-business special finance team and four distinct Internet sales teams handling operations at
Courtesy's dealership; two used-car outlets; and a special-finance section for credit-challenged
customers.
Courtesy uses more than 350 Internet URL addresses which direct users to full websites as well as
multiple micro-sites.
Paglia's monthly Internet marketing budget of about $91,000 a month is integrated within total
dealership marketing.
That creates growth for the store in general and e-business in particular. It is important for the
Internet department to connect to the overall dealership operation and not be off on its own, he says.
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