DealerRefresh

Obstacles, Observations and Opinions of an Automotive Internet Sales & Marketing Manager

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Tips to Improve Follow-Up With Car Buyers

It’s a classic sales question: to keep momentum going and make the sale, you need to follow up with leads in a way that will engage and move them farther down the pipeline. But how do you know if or when your customers really want to hear from you?

It’s not that prospects don’t want to hear from you, it’s just that they know what they want. And you are expected to know what they want in order to win them over. Salespeople need to provide value in every interaction with customers, especially during the car buying process. To see better results from conversations with your leads, here are three tips to improve your outreach and follow up. 

#1: When your leads reach out, give them what they want.

Whether they fill out a form, chat, call, or stop by your dealership, when a lead first reaches out, make sure you’re making the most of the opportunity. If you’re responding to a lead that recently reached out, respond promptly and completely, taking care to answer all of their questions. Do this daily, making sure there are no prospects left waiting for an email or call back in your CRM. 

When following up with leads who recently reached out, keep these tips in mind: 

  • Don’t rely on auto-responders. There is a time and place for auto-responders, but you should monitor when and how they’re used to make sure you’re not mistakenly assuming your leads are getting the information they want and need. If you are using auto-responders to ensure a timely response during busy periods or after dealership hours, make sure any personalization that can be dynamically populated is added. Include an invitation to visit the lot or call the dealership directly in the auto-response. And always make sure to personally follow up with each lead after.
  • Answer all of their questions (and ask some of your own). If there are multiple questions included in a form or email, make sure you’re providing thorough answers in your response. Most prospects will have questions about price, payments, and availability early on. Don’t avoid these questions. Address each one and include some follow up questions of your own. Emails with one to three questions are 50% likelier to get replies than emails without any.
  • Don’t overwhelm them. If you want to make the sale, make the sales process as easy as possible on your prospects. While there is information you need and asking questions of your own is a good thing, be careful not to ask too much of your leads. Prioritize must-haves versus nice-to-haves, and use sales tools that help you fill in missing information or details (more on that below).
  • Always include next steps or a call-to-action. A study found that 72% of dealerships did not ask leads for an appointment when they called. Whether you’re communicating on the phone or over email, use one conversation to lead into another by always asking follow up questions and planning next steps. 

#2: When there’s new information, be proactive in sharing.

If you follow up too often or with no valuable, new, or interesting information, you’re going to train leads to ignore you. Instead, reach out when you have new information to share that’s relevant to what each lead is looking for. Remember your communication should be about them, not you. 

Consider the following reasons to reach out to prospects:

  • Price Drops. When the price lowers on a vehicle they’ve looked at or a vehicle that previously wasn’t in their price range, let your leads know!
  • Incentives. When seasonal incentives or offers roll out, make sure interested prospects are the first to know.  
  • New Inventory. New inventory is a great reason to reach out. Whether there’s new technology or a brand new model, let leads know when new vehicles arrive on your lot that they may be interested in test driving. 
  • Sold Inventory: If a vehicle your lead was looking at sells, don’t assume you’ve lost that lead. Reach out as soon as possible to let them know and share similar vehicles they may be interested in. This saves them from being in the dark (and lets them know that inventory moves quickly and so should they). It also gives you a chance to turn one sale into two. A study found that 35% of dealerships did not suggest alternate inventory if a lead’s first vehicle of choice was already sold. Don’t make that mistake—use sold inventory as an opportunity to keep a lead engaged by recommending similar inventory.

#3: Understand what your leads are looking for and when they’re interested, even if they aren’t telling you.

Only 13% of customers believe a sales person can understand their needs. Correct that misperception by following up in a way that lets prospects know you truly understand their wants and needs and can help them find what they’re looking for. Sales intelligence tools can help by letting you know where each lead came from, what they have been searching for online, and when to follow up with them. 

Level the playing field and use sales intelligence to understand:

  • What inventory they’ve viewed. No more ‘invisible shopper’ or leads who don’t tell you what they’re really looking for. Use website tracking technology to inform your follow up conversations. 
  • What they’re searching for. Look at everything your leads have looked at on your website. Whether they’ve searched within certain price ranges, researched a trade-in, filtered by color, or viewed lease incentives, you can see a complete record of when each page was visited. 
  • When they’re shopping your website. Part of improving your follow-up is knowing when to follow up. If you know when a lead is on your website, you can prioritize the leads you know are in-market, actively shopping your site. 

Having a window into the online shopping activity of each lead, with a complete picture of the makes, models, trims, price points, and even colors they’re interested in, is a game changer. When you can see what your leads are doing online and understand what they’re really interested in, your follow up can be customer-centric and guided by what each lead wants.

Improve Your Customer Experience By Improving Your Sales Follow-Up

Give customers the information they want, when they want it. With the help of these sales tips, you can better tailor your follow-up to each lead and have more effective sales conversations. Not only will that improve the overall customer experience, but it can help you sell more cars. 

For continued sales success, learn how salespeople get the most from their email follow-up and understand what tools can improve lead engagement by downloading this free email marketing guide for auto dealerships. 


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Connecting Digital and Physical Front-Line Ready

Reconditioning is a critical step in getting a vehicle prepared for sale, both online and instore. If not done efficiently, this tends to be the stage that costs dealers time, money and engagement. Delays in reconditioning can create delays with merchandising, unless you have a process for getting vehicle merchandised through a proactive, phased approach.

When to start merchandising

It can take two weeks to buy, receive and fully run the vehicle through the recon and merchandising process for a single piece. But the best dealers get it done in under 4 days. How? They begin merchandising during the recon process, using technology to bridge the two together.

Begin by taking a short set of photos before reconditioning. Vehicles with a single real image receive 193% more vehicle details views than vehicles with stock photos. Remember, you can retake the set of images once reconditioning is completed. The sooner the vehicle appears online, the sooner car shoppers are seeing it. Reconditioning doesn’t have to slow down your ability to begin engaging with shoppers and building interest on your inventory.

Let technology work for you

As stated above, reconditioning and merchandising can be done simultaneously. It may seem like a big undertaking, but advancements in technology can automate a lot of the process for you. Using outdated methods, like spreadsheets, whiteboards and break room conversations, won’t get you as far as technology. Leveraging technology gives you, and all departments in the dealership, a firm understanding of where your car sits in the reconditioning process.

There are tools that will capture and upload images (pre and post reconditioning) to your merchandising platform, automatically generate vehicle comments and more. Successful dealers use these tools to marry the reconditioning and merchandising process by letting the technology work for them.

One size doesn’t fit all

You are the expert of your product and process, so be sure to remember that one size doesn’t fit all. Not every car will fit into your process and exceptions to their merchandising process will need to be made. Make sound judgement decisions and do what will work best for the vehicle, your employees and then your process.  Remember, you’re the subject matter expert on your product!

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A DealerRefresh Forum Recap: iOS13, Facebook Reactions, Loyal Service, Cox and Rivian

Quarter three has wrapped up, and we’re heading into Q4 with some exciting DealerRefresh topics and some much needed changes to the dealer forums on the horizon. Maybe you have a gameplan ready to go to close out the year on a high note, or maybe you’re still looking for industry insights. Either way, September saw several interesting topics on the forum that are worth revisiting. 

iPhone iOS13 Updates

In case you don’t get out much (or you live under a rock), Apple unveiled a host of new features at their Special Event on September 10th, one of which will be top of mind over the coming months for car dealers – the Silence Unknown Callers feature.

Apple devices that have access to the iOS13 software update will gain this feature that can be toggled on and off in the Settings. When activated, if a caller is not recognized in a person’s contacts, that caller goes straight to voicemail. 

What will that mean for service or sales follow-ups? Will your dealership use the Silence Unknown Callers feature as a ringless voicemail? And what will happen when customers have a full inbox and haven’t opted into alternative methods of contact, like texting?

Now is the time to make other avenues of contact readily available so that your team can get in touch with potential leads and keep those funnels full. 

Facebook Reactions & Engagement

When you unbox your brand new Apple phone, you’ll probably move all of your favorite apps over to your new device right away, including Facebook. If you haven’t noticed, the blue giant has been changing things up lately, making marketers and brand advocates work smarter and harder to keep their engagement up. 

When it comes to post content, do you think certain reactions, mainly the sad and angry options, work to push that content down in the algorithm, making room for posts that get more likes and loves? 

It’s an interesting question, and one that brought up different opinions on the forum. The key takeaway here is that social media is ever-changing, and your content should be relevant and engaging to keep your audience’s attention. 

Take a look at your best performing social content in analytics and let us know if you see correlations between reactions and reach or engagement. 

Why Should Customers Service at the Dealership?

Have you ever provided great service to a customer, offered them free oil changes for life or something similar, only to have them defect to their nearest Jiffy Lube? (The answer is yes, we all have.) 

Some great stats around service retention were posted on the forum, showing that more expensive R.O.s – tires, specifically – have greater rates of defection but that there are strategies you can implement to keep your bays full. 

Whether it be from lack of awareness, failure to establish a value proposition, transparency, or perception, there are some interesting takes on this topic and ideas around what we can do to mitigate the issue from our DealerRefresh audience – hop in and take a look.

Rivian and Cox

Rivian and Cox are getting cozy. Cox is the latest to jump on the Rivian bandwagon, joining Ford and Amazon, the latter of which has ordered 100,000 Rivian delivery vans that plan to hit the streets in 2021. 

How will this partnership affect the future of car sales? Will it negatively impact the current system, taking away jobs and shutting down local businesses? Cox could be planning to manage and operate a fleet of Rivian vehicles or sell subscriptions, moving away from classified ads and toward something that disrupts the industry in a big way. What do you think?

(At the time of writing, there is new information that Rivian is considering a subscription-based service.)

There’s also the potential that Rivian could flop, or that it could struggle in the same way Tesla has. Only time will tell, but this is certainly one topic we’ll have our eye on in 2020. 

DealerRefresh Forums

New partnerships, changing technologies, updated processes… You can find it all on the DealerRefresh forums. Join us this month for exciting conversations and get the information you need to know!

Not a member of DealerRefresh? Joining is quick and easy – sign up today and be the first on your team to get important news, share feedback with others, and gain insight into new strategies.

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Competing With Convenience

As a consumer, online shopping is appealing because of the convenience. I can browse, research, compare, and purchase—usually all from the comfort of my couch. In automotive, companies like Vroom and Carvana are building their brands and marketing around the idea that they can make car buying an easy, convenient, and even enjoyable online shopping experience for consumers. They’ve seen positive results, but profitability concerns and rocky financial reports have also shown that taking the automotive retail experience and moving it online is not an instant recipe for success.

At a glance, the ability to buy a car online seems to provide the convenience that consumers appreciate and expect in 2019. But in reality, simply moving to ecommerce doesn’t correct the frustrations that customers experience or associate with purchasing a vehicle. It takes more than a ‘click-to-buy’ option to disrupt the auto retail experience. The setbacks these companies have faced shed light on why online retailing in automotive isn’t yet taking off; however, their wins also make it clear that working to create a convenient, enjoyable customer experience can lead to sales success. With each tweak to their sales process, companies like Carvana and Vroom begin to model what a positive ecommerce experience for automotive may look like and provide key takeaways that dealerships can learn from:

1. Build a Digital Brand

Customers should know your brand name, and they should know why they do. Whether it’s because you have the lowest prices, the largest inventory, the best financing, the fastest sales process, or the funniest commercials, it’s important to stand out from the competition online by having one positive attribute that consumers clearly associate with your dealership. It’s not enough to have a generic tagline about your customer service. Online retailers are making a name for themselves by being direct about what they do and why customers should buy from them. Build a clear brand and consistently reinforce your messaging internally and across digital marketing channels.

To really reap the benefits of brand awareness, make sure your marketing matches how customers are talking about you online. Poor reviews and low star ratings have an impact that no marketing can work around. Be direct and ask customers to share feedback online. If you’re providing the experience you say you are, your reviews will reinforce your brand messaging and act as word-of-mouth referrals. 

2. Offer Online Tools & Resources

Online retailers rely on high-quality photos and videos since customers can’t view their inventory in person, but that doesn’t mean you can’t leverage these as well. Create a robust digital showroom by investing in 360-degree spinners, walkaround videos, virtual test drives, and instructional videos highlighting car technology or features. Embed pricing calculators and trade-in estimators on your website and make financing information readily available. Consider adding a FAQs page that details the purchasing process and what to expect as a customer. Include time estimates and make important documents available to print so customers can come prepared and cut down their time at the dealership.

Once you’ve built out resources on your website, don’t just let them sit there for customers to find. Proactively share videos, pricing tools, and online resources with sales prospects to help customers make decisions and move further down the path to purchase. 

3. Streamline the Sales Process

72% of consumers would visit dealerships more often if the buying process was improved and 56% of shoppers would buy more cars if the process was easier. Especially when you’re spending thousands of dollars on marketing to generate leads, don’t neglect the role your sales process plays in converting those leads to sales. Evaluate your current sales experience to see where you can learn from online retailers to increase transparency, and speed up the process for customers. 

The best place to start? Financing. Carvana makes the claim that their financing and purchase process takes “as little as ten minutes,” while it took new-car buyers at the dealership 3.6 hours to complete a purchase in 2017 on average, according to the J.D. Power U.S. Sales Satisfaction Index. That’s a big difference and when car shoppers are weighing their options, it could be a deal breaker. You can’t change the amount of paperwork required by your state, but if there are ways you can simplify the process, incremental changes can have a big payoff. Think about whether or not you can increase price and payment transparency, allow car shoppers to complete their paperwork at home or online, or provide the option to pick up their vehicle the next day instead of waiting at your dealership.

Improving the Retail Experience

Whether you offer online ordering or not, these are just a few ways to take the best of ecommerce and apply it to automotive. What other tips or advice do you have? Are there changes you’ve implemented at your dealership to improve the retail experience? 

Share your thoughts in the comments below! At Foureyes, we specialize in technology that helps you make incremental changes to improve the overall experience for customers and move more metal. We would love to hear from you what changes you’ve successfully made and where you’re in need of support—let’s tackle your sales challenges together.

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The Kumbaya Strategy – Why Your Ineffective Internet Team/BDC Thinks They’re Doing a Good Job

The Kumbaya Strategy – Why Your Ineffective Internet Team/BDC Thinks They’re Doing a Good Job

Imagine a world where no one ever told you “no.”

Relaxing and enjoyable, right?

Now imagine working on an internet sales team or in a sales BDC and never hearing a prospect tell you “no” over the phone.

[Read more…]

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FIRST OR FIFTH? WHAT’S YOUR FQR?

If you ain’t first you’re last.

I never would have thought that any valuable internet sales training information would result from a Will Ferrell movie, but here we are. Reese Bobby got it right when he mused that being FIRST is all that matters. Especially when we’re trying to convince skeptical car shoppers to part with forty grand for a hunk of metal with no voice-on-voice action.

The FIRST dealer to give a FIRST quality response wins the race. Sadly, it’s more typical to find dealers saving the good stuff until too late in the conversation.

Over the last twenty years, we’ve witnessed a steady and steep decline in automotive internet lead close rates. Today, dealers are reporting an abysmal average of five percent conversion of leads to sales. You are dropping the ball with your internet lead responses. Dropping it, tripping over it, kicking it under the bleachers, and deflating it. 

I have a very important question to ask you. 

Are you sending a FQR or a FQR? Sure, they look the same but one wins the business and the other is the grown up equivalent of shitting the bed. 

Let me break it down for you. You must start sending a FQR, First Quality Response. What you’re probably sending today is a FQR, Fifth Quality Response. On average, dealers are making it all the way until the FIFTH FRIKIN PASS to send customers anything of value. It’s truly dumbfounding. 

Customers submit a lead and get back all sorts of ridiculous drivel like: 

“Thanks for your email, we’ll be in touch shortly.”

“Is this the best email to reach you?”

[Read more…]

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Common BDC Questions from the Community

The prospect of the automotive business development center is appealing, with the promise of an appointment generation machine that will supercharge your sales floor. That said, building and sustaining a successful BDC is a difficult process for every car dealership. The processes that need to be implemented and the staff that need to be hired present unique problems that dealers have to overcome.

My own experience has been meandering. When I first hired my first BDC rep, I had no idea what I was doing, as I had very little guidance on what to look for. Luckily my first hire turned out to be a superstar, but that was just a roll of the dice. As I scaled the BDC to three members, I started to face new difficulties, and at the same time, I found very few resources available to learn from others.

That’s why I started Car Sales Story, to provide a home for automotive training, with an initial focus on automotive BDC training. Recently I’ve expanded into providing online courses, with my first one being “Mastering Your Lease Portfolio.”

Now, in the last 14 months that I’ve built that site, I’ve faced a deluge of the same questions over and over again. This article is designed to address those common questions, as addressed in the recent Refresh Friday.

Question #1: How Should BDC Reps Handle Out-of-State Leads

Out-of-State leads are fantastic opportunities to make profitable car deals. That said, there is generally not an opportunity to set an appointment. Since I recommend paying BDC reps both on appointments set and cars sold, this should not be a problem! The BDC rep should contact the out-of-state lead, discover the needs, and present the opportunity to a sales manager. If the customer becomes a deal, then the BDC representative should be paid on the sale.

[Read more…]

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The Debate of the Century: The Effect of Gender on the Car Buying Process.

Gender: we all know it’s a hot topic in automotive.  Whether it’s how to sell to the millennial woman or to the classic emotional male buyer, we’re constantly analyzing the difference between male and female shopping patterns.  We’re dissecting how to market to them, negotiate with them, and then retain them as loyal customers.

As part of our quarterly market research, we also were interested in this topic. How does gender affect car buying behaviors on and offline?  What kinds of models are women more likely to convert on? What about men? While compiling millions of data points and conversion sets from online footprint, we also asked our dealer clients what they think of the following questions to get some showroom insight: 

1. Are millennial women buying differently than women historically? What about millennial men?

2. Do salespeople prefer to negotiate with women or men in the showroom?

3. Do women have a preference for the salesperson’s gender?

While some of the answers were slightly different, there were common themes in the answers.  

Are millennial women buying differently than women historically? What about millennial men?

While men are simple and passive buyers, the number of millennial men buying cars is decreasing.   So while there is not much change in the buying patterns, there is an effect on volume. 

Women millennials are apparently completely different from women historically.  Firstly, millennial women come more educated and shop only after research.  And while they used to come to the showroom with their fathers, husbands, or boyfriends, now they are coming more often with their mothers.  An interesting switch. One of our clients emphasized that millennial women are almost never coming in alone and are not confident enough in making the purchase alone. And, while millennial women may be more educated than the traditional woman buyer historically, they are not as confident in negotiating.  Historically, women were more price savvy and were better negotiators than their counterparts.

Do salespeople prefer to negotiate with women or men in the showroom?

For the most part, salespeople don’t care who they negotiate with- they just want to sign a deal and sell the car. However, we did have some clients mention that salesmen would rather negotiate with other men since they don’t necessarily know the right approach with women.  We’re certain this is more common than what was shared with us in this survey.

Do women have a preference for the salesperson’s gender?

Most women prefer to work directly with the women salesperson and would rather wait for the saleswoman to free up from working with a different client.  This is particularly interesting considering that we had multiple clients mention that women will even wait up to two or three hours to work directly with other women. 

While the anecdotal data is intriguing, it became the basis of a bigger report with statistical significance: Gender Distribution in the Auto Industry.  Feel free to download the report here to get more information. 

I’d love to hear your thoughts! Comment below. 

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Is Your Service Center Invisible in Google Search?

Auto service centers thrive on Google Search, typically ranking for dozens of local search terms like “oil change near me,” “service center open now,” and “best mechanic in Tallahassee.” However, if you only have one listing for both your service center and your showroom you could be missing out on free traffic from Google. Luckily, Google allows one-location businesses like yours to split listings, so you can optimize for these distinct searches.

Read on to discover how to separate Google My Business listings so you can win the local SEO battle for your sales team and your service center.

Updating Your Google My Business Listing Step-by-Step

Updating your Google My Business listing to include your dealership and service center separately is as simple as starting a new Google My Business listing. Just follow these simple steps.

1. Go to Google My Business

Visit the Google My Business homepage. This acts as your main portal to any and all Google My Business resources.

2. Click “Manage now” or “Sign in” for new users

If you already have a Google My Business account, simply login. If you don’t have an account, you’ll need to create one. To do so, click “Sign In.”

Once you have a dealership listing set up, click “Manage now” to start working on your service center listing.

3. Search to see if your service center is already listed separately

Even if you didn’t start the listing, it’s possible that Google already lists your service center on Google My Business. To check, just type the name of your service center into the Google My Business search feature.

4. If your service center is listed, select it

To prevent duplicate listings of your service center, if a listing already exists, your best bet is to claim it. To do so, just follow the prompts. If someone else has already claimed your service center, you can also report a problem or request access.

5. If your service center isn’t listed, click “add your business”

Google My Business will prompt you to enter relevant information. Just follow the prompts to give your service center its own Google My Business listing.

6. Accurately enter your service center information

As you follow Google My Business’s prompts, be careful to enter the correct information for your service center, including accurate hours and location. Accurate information makes your business look more professional and empowers customers.

7. Pay careful attention to phone number

While it is important to provide accurate information throughout your listing, the phone number is particularly important. A phone number for your service center is one of the main factors that establish it as a separate entity from your dealership, so be sure to double-check it.

8. Verify your business

To verify your business, Google will send a postcard to the address you provided. Once you receive the postcard, input the verification code on the card within 30 days to finish setting up the listing for your service center.

In some cases, Google may also allow you to verify by receiving a pin through text or email. This is definitely the quicker option.

9. Add, edit, and update information

Users can edit your information, so it is important to check back often to make sure all the information on your service center is accurate and up to date.

To make your listing even more appealing, add photos and provide new information so that customers can see what your service center is up to.

Generate More Reviews for Your New Service Center Listing

Once you’ve set up a new listing for your service center, you’ll need to attract some reviews to get the ball rolling. Here are a few easy ways to solicit more reviews.

Ask clients for reviews

Whenever a customer comes in for service,  have a friendly employee ask if they’d leave a review on Google. It’s simple, but it can make a huge impact.

Send out review invitations

Podium makes it easy to send out review invitations. Time spent and the clunky submission process are two of the main hindrances that stop your customers from leaving a positive review. Automate and simplify the review process to save time for both your employees and customers.

Make the reviews link easy to find on your website

Sharing the link to your Google My Business listing on your website can provide another option to make it easy for customers to leave reviews.

Include the link in your email signature

Placing a link to your Google My Business listing in your email signature gently reminds customers to leave their review whenever you reply to questions or send out reminders. This gives them yet another opportunity to share their experiences and feedback.

Reply to reviews

Replying to reviews shows customers that you care, which could encourage even more customers to leave reviews. This is especially important for negative reviews, which can often be turned into a positive review with a little attention from your staff.

Maintaining separate Google My Business listings for your dealership and service center can improve your visibility and provide your customers with the accurate, comprehensive information they’re looking for. So what are you waiting for? Split your listing today.