Now, do you know who is online?

I have developed and implemented “Real-Time” email campaign click tracking program for BDC department (while I was selling cars) so that customers may receive immediate email or phone response. It eliminates needless repetition and enhances the functionality and effectiveness of the “email campaigns”

I strongly recommend ISM to analyze the “Avg. Time on Page” report if you are using an Analytic tool on daily basis. This tool will help you to differentiate your prospects.

Simple link with a name query will do the job:
http://www.victorytoyotascion.com/2009-Toyota-Camry-SE-2546.aspx?cfn=Elvis&cln=Presley

Every day you must try to find new ways to improve your skills.

Happy Selling
ecarnews@gmail.com

Thanks for the feedback. I’m a firm believer that processes work. Joe Verde has done an amazing job of helping many of us in the car business understand how to truly track our Opportunities, Activities and Results. Congratulations in advance on your success in 2009!

Helping the best get better,
Mat Koenig

A tool like sounds great for getting leads but not for finalizing the transaction. Check out leasecompare.com for a good example. They let customers customize their own leases against the residuals and money factors they offer. Even still when I run the same MSRP car in ADP i get a payment cheaper by $70-150$ a month.

So in my view the TOOL is just a lead generator. If it is good than you might get more/better leads but the sales force is key.

Thanks for the detailed response my friend. Maybe I wasn’t as clear as I could have been so let me say this.

I love your idea and agree with the vision.

However, many dealers right now are focusing their attention and dollars ONLY on chasing new business.

Many of us forget that we have an enormous database from sales and service that the dealer has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to build.

There is a GOLDMINE of opportunity in those areas and they are basically FREE to prospect and a few well timed phone calls in a simple 90 day rotation could drastically improve sales and profit.

If we can’t get those simple things right – it may be hard to commit to using a GREAT NEW TOOL properly so we may end up with another pile of consumers that don’t get the time or attention they deserve in the long run.

For the dealers who do “get it” I am excited to see your vision come to life.

Thanks again for the feedback Ralph, you’re the man!

Helping the best get better,
m@
Mat Koenig

Your article certainly got my attention! And, although you have clearly identified the nature of a HUGE problem we have as an industry in how mix customers, dealership sales professionals and web based information and communication systems… You made me have a flashback to 1999 when I was in the owner’s office at a small 5 rooftop dealer group in Western NY. Your words echo what the owner said when I showed him how customers could go into KBB.com, go through a Virtual Walk Around process on their trade-in and then get a Kelley Blue Book supplied Trade-In value… He was freaked out, but NOT because the customer had access to this information, he was upset because his perception was that many of the inbound sales calls his sales departments received each day were from people who wanted to find out the “book value” on their current vehicle. And, he probably had a valid point… Luckily, we were able to come up with a plan, and then implement it in a manner that leveraged the emerging information technology (at that time) into creating more sales opportunities. The details are still valid, but that is off-topic.

Here’s my point, for 2 years I managed a team where one of our biggest daily challenges was simply executing the tasks prescribed by our lead management response process. There were over 25 people on my team and we were handling over 5,000 leads from hundreds of sources, but all of them related to either a new Chevy or a used vehicle. The time that was required to respond to an RFQ was always a problem… Looking up the car they asked about in our DMS, calculating the price we wanted to quote, copy and pasting numbers, vehicle descriptions, etc. into the email templates. Then, doing that 3 more times to offer each customer additional vehicles in stock that were similar to the one they selected, so we were providing alternatives for the consumer to consider. Heck, we had NO PROBLEM SELLING CARS when we were able to execute 100% of the process steps! Our problem wasn’t defining the process, our challenges EVERY SINGLE DAY was executing those process steps. The solution you referenced in your post is pure and simple in its objective… MAKE IT EASIER TO EXECUTE LEAD RESPONSE PROCESS ACTIONS. I find it amazing that my query has triggered speculation that the product exists, because the discussion topic I posted was done so that I would have other people’s opinions to consider when drafting a Solution Requirements document. In other words, don’t complain about something that hasn’t yet happened! Your post makes me think of that science fiction movie starring Tom Cruise where people get arrested for crimes they are highly likely to commit in the future… The ultimate in crime prevention. I often wondered, after watching that movie, if we know something in advance, then why wouldn’t we solve the root source of that problem, so it never materializes.

If you use a PC and multiple software programs to execute a series of clicks, copies and pastes that retrieve, transfer and format information into an email… And you do this process repetitiously every day, then why wouldn’t it make sense to build a program to make you more efficient. I mean, let’s really think about this… If you need to follow-up, make phone calls and meet with people in-person, and doing something on your work station PC uses up your time, then freeing up your time by automating that something inevitably means you now have more time to do follow-up and phone calls!!!

There is a Toyota dealership in Sunnyvale, CA and the owner of that dealership is a personal friend of mine who saw the same thing I saw… He invested in a business that hired programmers and created software to automate the lead response processes for his Toyota dealership. His store gets anywhere from 1,200 to 2,000 leads each month. He implemented one additional piece of automation… Sending a response to a RFQ lead with a valid price quote. His closing ratios went up by 4 percentage points in the first month the software system was implemented. The small fortune he invested to create this custom software was fully recovered via incremental sales within 6 months.

If we do something over and over again, every day, repetitiously like a machine, and that simple, mind-numbing task doesn’t require the intricacies of face to face, or voice to voice human engagement, then why would we NOT build a machine to do it?

Matt, here is where I believe you have not yet seen the vision… In order to do all those follow-up and CRM processes that you describe, automotive sales professionals need time, training and motivation. If a software company provides a program that frees up additional time, then you are able to execute those processes more frequently, and sell more cars. You would also be able to have more time for training… In my opinion, the greatest challenges we face in dealership sales departments today is NOT discovering or defining what needs to be done, it is simply executing those things, and finding the time to do them!!!

Now, you are right about something you pointed out… If your team is playing Solitaire on their PC’s while they are waiting for their next lead to come in, then software that uses automation to streamline what they do after a lead arrives is only going to enable them to play more solitaire… Or, go have more smoke breaks outside and bitch about business, or pay plans, or butthead sales managers… I had some of those people on my team, with the key word being “had”. For those really great Internet Sales Professionals out there, providing them with a tool that streamlines the clickety-clack portions of that process, will make that process more accurate and allow them to execute it faster and more consistently. More time to speak with prospects on the phone, and more prospects that are thrilled and delighted with the response they received from their online inquiry will result in more sales to the same number of leads.