Do you know what your connectivity rate is at your dealership?

When data shows that phone calls are the second-most-common initial form of contact with car dealerships, you have to pay attention to phone skills. Dealers must make getting calls to the right person the first time a priority, so customers don’t hang up and call the next dealership.

In today’s automotive marketplace, the phone call has become more important than ever as customers spend less time in the dealership and more time doing research. The phone is often the most overlooked lead source at the dealership. If dealers want to sell more cars, they have to pay attention to the phone.

The easiest place for dealers to start is getting the customer connected to the right person the first time.

What is phone connectivity?

Connectivity is more than just simply answering the phone (that is your answer rate). Even if your dealership has a receptionist or IVR, transferring calls to voicemail doesn’t help your dealership. If your prospects are not reaching the right person on the first try, they are not being properly connected.

When prospects call a dealership, they expect to connect to the right department with minimal hold times. While IVRs are helpful to route calls automatically, they are only valuable if they route to the right person or department and get answered. When a prospect is stuck in an IVR for too long or doesn’t end up speaking to a live person they will hang up frustrated. Angering your prospects doesn’t help you sell more cars or book more sales and service appointments.

How is phone connectivity at your dealership?

Just like you wouldn’t leave someone standing on the showroom floor, you shouldn’t leave calls on long hold times or transfer them to voicemail. Don’t force prospects into having a bad experience at your dealership. Connectivity is easy to fix and goes a long way to making a good (or at least not bad) impression of buying or servicing a car.

Basic call tracking gives you data on the number of calls that are actually connecting through to a live person. Additional call analysis will give you better stats on prospect calls and connectivity rate; alerts can also be sent when a conversation doesn’t go quite right and when the caller won’t give a commitment to your store, so you can take control before they call the competition.

Make sure all departments are staffed at the right times, and you cross-train phone handlers to take care of basic needs.

Every Owner, GM, and salesperson should call your dealership to find out your prospects’ phone experience. If you don’t receive a seamless experience, neither do your prospects. Improve your phone connectivity, and you will see it reflect in your sales.

Look at reporting to determine what times of day you miss most calls.

• - Are enough people covering the phones during business hours?

- Do you see any trends on certain times of day or days of the week where phone traffic spikes and fewer calls are getting connected?
- Is there a difference in phone connectivity rates per department?

Make sure all departments are staffed at the right times, and you cross-train phone handlers to take care of basic needs. Stop letting calls go unanswered or left to leave a message instead of speaking to a live person.

Neutral is better than bad. Don’t let your prospects and repeat customers have a bad first impression. Strive for good but stop the bleeding now by improving phone connectivity.

Improve the Phones at Your Dealership

For more insights and to get the most up-to-date facts and tips to help your dealership, subscribe to our blog. We won’t muck up your mailbox – we only send you the best articles from each quarter.

Once you take control of your connectivity rates, take a look at your sales calls deeper. Are you converting callers to appointments, or are there improvements to be made? CallSource’s Own-Set-Close program comes into your dealership and continues with phone sessions to train and coach your salespeople to improve their skills to make more sales.

Start implementing these changes, and you’ll start increasing your dealership’s ROI take off.

Toyota & Acura Rank Highest Across Luxury and Mass Market Brands for Inbound Phone Experience Released by CallSource

WESTLAKE VILLAGE, CA: 5 Nov 2019: CallSource, the leader in automotive call tracking and analytics, released their first annual Inbound Phone Experience Study analyzing OEMs to determine how each brand’s inbound phone calls impact customer experience.

“For years, everyone has known there is a direct correlation between car shoppers’ dealership experience and their likelihood to purchase. The phone is a key element of customer satisfaction within a car buying journey. We wanted to use our data to find the right combination of behaviors that will have the quickest impact on customer experience for dealers and OEMs,” stated Pogo Parr, President of Automotive.

In this study, CallSource focused on three key areas of the inbound phone call: answer rate, connectivity score, and appointment set rate. CallSource identified these key areas as easy opportunities for dealers to immediately improve their customers’ phone experience. According to the study across all brands and categories, both luxury and mass-market, the average answer rate in dealerships is 95%, with only 83% of shoppers being connected to a live person in the correct department. The biggest dealership challenge is getting in-market shoppers to commit to a dealership visit, which only occurs 19% of the time.

“Awareness is key. By listening to and analyzing thousands of calls, it is obvious the phone process is broken in the dealership. With dealership visits declining as more shoppers research online, securing appointments to increase showroom visits is more important than ever. This study sheds light on the process of the phone that is broken within each brand and what OEMs and dealerships need to pay attention to, right now, to improve the overall consumer experience,” says Pogo Parr.

Other key findings from the study:

• - Toyota and VW rank highest in phone experience in mass-market brands.
  - Acura and Audi rank highest in phone experience for the luxury brands. Luxury brands, in general, have the lowest phone experience scores.

- Kia (90.3%) & GM (88.5%) have the highest connectivity scores in the mass-market while Acura (87.2%) and Audi (86.7%) rank highest in the luxury category.
- Toyota (27.9%) and Hyundai (24.5%) set the most sales appointments in the mass-market category while Acura (27.3%) and Alfa Romeo (25.2%) rank highest in the luxury category.

How Does Your Brand Rank?

For the full report and findings of this study, contact us at marketing@callsource.info or 888-340-0123.

About CallSource’s Phone Experience Study:

CallSource reviewed over 50,000 dealership phone calls across 23 brands between May and July 2019. The calls were scored by live analysts to determine the overall brands’ answer rate, connectivity score and the average number of hard-appointments set by in-market car shoppers.*

About CallSource

CallSource is fully committed to the quality and value of our data. As the inventor of call tracking and over 25 years’ experience, CallSource is the only company that has listened to and analyzed over a billion phone calls, and delivers targeted solutions for OEMs and dealers to improve customer experience and internal processes. We provide call tracking, call processing, coaching, and data analysis to the largest OEMs and industry providers in the automotive space.

* Hard-appointment defined as an appointment offered including specific time and date.

A great phone strategy doesn’t only help your dealership earn a good reputation; it will lead to getting more people into your dealership so you can sell more cars.

You wouldn’t ignore someone who walks into your showroom, right? So why would you ignore a ringing phone?

Dealers need to start paying attention to phone leads and ensuring a stellar phone performance, all the way from answering quickly, to getting the caller to set an appointment – and everything in between. Let’s review what makes a great phone call and how this should go down at your dealership.

1. Pick up the phone

While this seems obvious, it is a necessary step that doesn’t always happen. Phone answering should be a top priority in your dealership, and no calls should go unanswered. CallSource data finds that 95% of dealership calls are getting answered—either by an IVR or a real person. This is great news…. the next step is connecting that call to the right person the first time!

Just because your IVR is picking up the call, doesn’t mean you are delivering a great customer experience. We find that call routing (although an easy solve) is often ignored; this is super frustrating from the customer’s point-of-view.

Have you ever called your dealership to see what a customer’s phone experience is like? Evaluate your call data and look for details like callers hanging up after being stuck in the IVR (either from too robust of an IVR, or a salesperson taking too long to answer the phone), or if they are getting transferred to phone lines where no one is able to answer.

Get our free Automotive Phone Tips sheet to keep at your desk!

2. Direct calls appropriately

Answering the phone is not enough –make sure callers are reaching the right person. Transferring calls to lines that keep ringing and ringing does a disservice to the customer and your dealership. Letting callers end up in a voicemail gives the caller the opportunity to hang up and call your competitor. All calls need to be handled by a live person who can help the caller, right then. Customers are used to a seamless digital experience—you need to make your phone experience equal or better than their online search.

3. Be helpful and informative

Callers want to speak to a knowledgeable and informed salesperson who can answer their questions and seems trustworthy. Since purchasing a vehicle is the second-largest purchase for most people (behind purchasing a house), they must feel that you are the right person to help them with this big decision.1

Buyers spend less time researching and shopping for a vehicle than ever before, and over 60% of their time spent vehicle shopping is online.2 Once they finally call your dealership, you don’t want to blow the call and lose the business of a shopper who is already far down the purchasing funnel.

4. Overcome caller objections

While we’ve touched on how to overcome caller objections at your dealership in-depth before, it is worth noting again as one of your most important phone skills to enable more sales for your store.

CallSource automotive data based on over 100 million phone calls over 4 years shows that only 20% of viable sales leads result in an appointment set. Why aren’t these calls ending in a commitment to come in? Call handlers need to learn how to overcome caller objections and sell the appointment.

Although it is true that consumers are further down the purchasing funnel by the time they reach out to speak to you, just because someone calls your dealership does not mean that you are guaranteed to be the dealership they ultimately choose to purchase from.3

Callers can have a variety of reasons to object to setting a firm appointment with your dealership, such as scheduling availability, wanting to do more research, and other excuses. If you can successfully demonstrate the value of your dealership and convince them that they are making the right decision, you can overcome objections and book the appointment.

Discover how to overcome common caller objections at your dealership with this free tip sheet.

5. Ask for the appointment

The ultimate goal of any inbound phone lead is to set the appointment so they walk into the showroom and you can make the sale. The sooner the time from the call you can get a possible customer to commit to, the better. Same-day appointments are a great way to ensure that urgency is created and the consumer doesn’t have as much time to flip-flop or possibly cancel or no-show. But remember to “sell” the appointment, use time scarcity so they give you the “Yes.”

A sales call that ends without asking for an appointment is a failed call. Use all the great phone skills outlined, and get the commitment to make sure that they walk into your dealership.

Let us help you improve your phone skills

CallSource has industry-expert call coaches to help your dealership hone in on phone skills and keep employees accountable to follow-through with their learned skills to set more appointments.

Stop using those old and outdated phone scripts. CallSource’s Own-Set-Close program teaches the skills and talk-tracks that salespeople need to set more appointments on the phone. Set up a time to learn more about Own-Set-Close today.

Getting commitment from callers can be the difference between them choosing you or your competition.

Setting real appointments gets buyers through your doors and into the car they are looking for.

According to CallSource’s 2019 automotive inbound call data insights, 80% of inbound phone sales opportunities do not result in an appointment.

It is not enough to rely on walk-ins alone. Your phone is a lead-generator, you need to get serious about selling the appointment to sell the car.

Transferring calls to voicemail or answering a caller’s questions doesn’t get the appointment- every time a potential buyer hangs up the phone without the appointment, you’re losing income.

Why appointment setting matters for your dealership:

1. Gains a commitment from the caller to see you

If you are answering a caller’s questions without getting a firm, in-person commitment, you are creating a missed opportunity. You need to set a hard appointment, every time.

Since the average buyer will typically keep researching and calling until they are actually inside a dealership, you want them to give a commitment to your dealership before they have the opportunity to keep shopping around elsewhere.

The time-frame for this appointment matters, too. The sooner date and time that a call handler can set an appointment with the caller (for example, same-day appointments vs. next day), the more likely it is that your appointment will show and keep your dealership as their number one option. Otherwise, you are leaving the consumer to their own timeline, which may end up not including you in it at all.

2. Creates a sense of urgency for the consumer to come in

If you simply say “come in whenever you are ready,” you are inviting the caller to call your competitor. By setting a firm date and time, they are more likely to show up.

In today’s digital age, consumers can and will keep researching until they show up at your dealership.

Cox Automotive’s 2019 Car Buyer Journey shows that most of car buyers' time spent vehicle shopping is online (61%) – compared to 14% of their time at competitive dealers and only 20% of time spend at their purchase dealer. They also show that the average number of dealerships visited is now only 2.3.

Consumers don’t need to walk into a lot of dealerships to compare and shop around – they can do it right from their computer or mobile phone. Once they step foot into a dealership, it is most likely the one they are going to buy from, so get their commitment to make sure it is yours.

Overcoming caller objections at your dealership shows you are the best dealership to choose.

Learn 4 ways to improve call management at your dealership.

3. Gives a professional impression of your dealership

Callers want someone who is knowledgeable and an expert in the industry to speak to, so they know they called the right dealership. Buying a car is a big personal investment; by putting caller at ease they will want to do business with your dealership.

You aren’t just selling cars; you are selling yourself and your dealership over the phone.

J.D. Power shows that over half (59%) of consumers prefer to set an appointment over the phone; if you don’t provide a good experience or opportunity for them to do so, they can move on to your competition.

Download our free Automotive Phone Tips sheet to keep at your desk!

Set more appointments, NOW

Need help on the phone to start booking your warm inbound leads into real sales?

CallSource’s Own-Set-Close is a phrases and skills program that books more appointments and closes more deals. With Own-Set-Close, sales and call handlers get immediate proven results (based off of your own CRM data). CallSource is a top choice for automotive dealers to improve internal processes and sell more cars.

“I’m seeing an immediate impact. . .I’m very happy with [Own-Set-Close]. Thank you CallSource!”
– Jeremy Kilo, GM of New Smyrna Beach Chevrolet

Subscribe to our blog for more insights like these to aid your dealership in increasing its ROI and improving internal processes.

CallSource works closely with many automotive dealerships, and while we know how we can help your dealership improve your marketing, phone skills, and more – ultimately attaining more leads and getting more sales, maybe you need to know better how we can help you. Read on to learn why your dealership needs CallSource.

The Cost of Not Measuring Marketing Attribution

Do you know how much each call is costing your dealership?

Without accurately attributing your online and offline marketing sources, you can’t make data-driven decisions for your dealership.

It’s time to start attributing your phone calls from these advertising sources, especially since phone calls are the second-most-common form of consumer’ initial contact with a dealership.2

Measuring attribution means staying in front of competitors. It’s time to start gathering real attribution with reliable analytics.

How are you tracking attribution and success
from these advertising sources?

Dealerships spent almost $10 Billion in advertising in 2018, with Internet, TV, Radio, Newspaper, and Direct Mail coming in as the highest advertising expenses.1

“Knowing what influences a shopper to contact the dealership, regardless of method, can help dealers determine the value of their advertising and understand where to most successfully invest marketing dollars.”1

The Power of the Phone

One out of four consumers will call dealers as their initial point of contact with the dealership; this method of communication comes in second only to walk-ins.1

What does this mean for your dealership?

You can’t ignore the phone.

Your Dealership’s Experience

Customer service starts with recording your phone calls to ensure a great phone experience that gets leads coming in the door through effective advertising. Call tracking measures what’s driving calls, so your sales team can move more cars.

By not paying attention to the customer’s phone experience, you’ve lost that sale to your competitor before your team has a fighting chance to win the sales.

16% of buyers note that they did not purchase from the first dealership visited because of a poor sales experience.1 Don’t let this happen at your dealership.

Do You Know Your Customers’ Phone Experience?

Do you know what your customers’ phone experience with your dealership is like? Call tracking will show you how many verified leads that call your dealership result in:

- Connected Calls

- Hang Ups

- Voicemail

- Wrong Department

• - Connected Calls

With inbound and outbound call tracking, you will never guess at call outcomes again.

Dynamic Number Insertion (DNI)

With DNI, you can track the entire customer journey online to offline with dynamic numbers that isolate specific customers and what they searched to bring them to your dealership. Every ad source that requires code, like your website, needs dynamic number insertion.

DNI uses a pool of toll-free numbers in the background. The volume of numbers provided is based on your website volume to ensure that each user or source gets assigned its own specific number to be tracked from digital to offline conversion. Some number pools (like ours) are managed automatically, so you do not need to know ahead of time how many visitors you are expecting.

Most other solutions require you to provision the exact amount of numbers in your pool ahead of time. A phone number from the pool will display after being dynamically switched based on the user or source. This ensures that each user or source gets its own unique number.

Text-Enabled Numbers

Calling isn’t the only way consumers will use the phone to contact your dealership. When 97% of Americans text at least once a day, you know that consumers will text your phone number instead of calling.4

With one-click engagement, CallSource’s text-enabled numbers are fast, accessible, and multi-functional to ensure that you’ll never miss a lead.

If you aren’t using text-enabled numbers, you aren’t responding to all of your leads. The customer is left hanging and thinks they are being ignored. This means your potential customer is going to someone who will respond.

Reliability

No other system is more reliable.

CallSource uses humans, not robots, to score calls with 95% accuracy. Our competitions’ AI software accuracy rates can’t even come close to that, as it’s reported that speech and voice-to-text analyses only reach an accuracy of 77%.5

With our 99.999% uptime, you won’t miss a single sales opportunity due to a missed call.

CallShield

Make sure the calls you’re getting are worth your time.

The number of fake calls blocked through CallShield has been as high as 5 to 6 million, or 35%, of fraudulent phone calls being blocked during times of nationwide spam call increases.

Don’t let spam calls take over your dealership’s phone lines. Shield your phone system with CallShield.

Our proprietary IVR solution was built to block spam calls, so your employees aren’t wasting time answering fake and spam calls.

CRM Integrations

CallSource integrates with the top Automotive CRMs – so you can see what’s going on without logging into too many places.

CallSource seamlessly integrates with:

• - ELEAD1ONE

• - DealerSocket

• - VinSolutions

• - Vistadash

• - DriveCentric

• - Momentum

Don’t see your CRM on the list? Ask us about how we can integrate with your system. Chances are we can.

Chat Integrations

CallSource has partnered with almost all the major chat providers so you can see your chat conversations in our EveryLead Dashboard.

We also work with chat providers who have co-managed chat services, providing them with text-enabled numbers so you won’t lose out on any type of communication.

CallSource integrates with the following chat providers:

• - ActivEngage

• - Gubagoo

• - CarNow

• - ContactAtOnce!

Missed Opportunities

Only about 20% of potential sales calls are converted to an appointment, according to a recent automotive study by CallSource.3

What is happening to the other 80% of leads? They are going to your competitor.

Missed a chance to get a lead to come into your dealership? We’ll let you know within 2 hours – usually as quickly as 30 minutes or less.

The other guys can take 10 hours or more to alert you – long enough so that missed opportunity has already gone to your competition.

Stop guessing at call outcomes. DealSaver alerts allow you the chance to recapture that lost lead and turn them into a fan of your dealership.

DealSaver will send you alerts when:

• Disconnected: Sales calls disconnected in progress
• Transfer: All Sales calls transferred to voicemail, where the caller leaves message or hangs up
• Not Available: If the vehicle is not available and the rep does not suggest an alternative vehicle
• Purchasing: Caller asks about buying/leasing car and is disconnected in progress
• No Attempt: If no attempt is made to secure an appointment

CallSource analysts (real, trained, qualified people, not software, and not crowdsourced) listen to the entire call and alert management when an inbound opportunity wasn’t closed.

If an opportunity is worth $2,200, you lose $17,600 for every 10 calls you don’t convert.

But don’t believe vendors that promise you a 96% conversion rate – because converting every caller just isn’t possible. But there’s always room for improvement – we can help you with that.

Converting calls to appointments means you aren’t giving competition to your business.

Book more calls and recapture lost leads with DealSaver alerts.

Employee Performance

The battle of competition isn’t a game.

Missed a chance to get a lead to come into your dealership? Get your employees up-to-speed on best phone practices so they can start booking more appointments and getting more customers through your doors.

CallSource’s criterion for call-handler performance is based on over 25 years of analyzing and scoring phone calls. Call handlers are scored using a special scorecard developed by CallSource and honed over the years, called our Core Four Principles of a Phone Call.

The CallSource Difference

Attribution and closing deals isn’t a game.

Having tracked over 1 billion phone calls, CallSource is the industry expert in all things call performance. We have developed our products based on our clients’ feedback, wants, and needs.

Accuracy

Accurate and timely alerts

CallSource summarizes and contextualizes your data to help you make more informed decisions

Uptime

Reliability

Redundant servers with 99.999% uptime won’t leave you in the dark

Insights

Call processing and integration

Cut through the clutter and take control of your opportunities

EveryLead

CallSource’s premium automotive platform

Track your customer’s journey cross-channel and cross-domain while attributing every text, chat, and web form in real-time.

Support

Dedicated team

Our team has an average tenure of 10 years, delivering the expertise, training, and support you need.

Your Team

CallSource is much more than just a Saas call tracking company. With human-analyzed lead scoring, appointment confirmation, and employee performance overviews, as well as real call coaches and a reputation management system that responds to reviews for you, CallSource aims to help our clients improve in all aspects of their business.

Customer Service

Customer service is the number-one priority for CallSource, and every client receives a designated team of CallSource representatives. Your CallSource team will have an introductory call with you within days of signing up to guide you through any setup and walk you through our easy-to-use reporting platform.

Our continuing advisory services make sure you are not just getting data delivered to you, but that you know how to use this data and set goals.

Data-Driven Reporting

With customized and group reporting available, you can get your analytics the way you want them.

Reports aren’t helpful if you can’t use them. We make sure to deliver your data in the way that works best for your account, no matter how large or small.

Who We Do Business With

53 of the top 150 Dealer Groups partner with CallSource. Are you ready to partner with us too?

Contact us today and get started on your path to dealership improvement.

References:
1. https://www.nada.org/nadadata/
2. https://b2b.autotrader.com/oem/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/2018-Cox-Automotive-Car-Buyer-Journey-Brochure.pdf
3. https://www.callsource.com/automotive/data-insights/
4. https://www.pewinternet.org/2015/04/01/us-smartphone-use-in-2015/
5. http://www.leadscon.com/speech-analytics-meets-manual-human-review/

CallSource, the provider of insightful data and actionable analytics, now provides in-dealership & phone coaching so you can set more appointments and sell more cars.

Westlake Village, CA – August 19, 2019. CallSource, the inventor of call tracking and a leader in providing actionable solutions to the automotive industry, is pleased to announce the launch of Own-Set-Close Automotive Phrases & Skills Coaching. Own-Set-Close offers the best phone skills and word tracks designed for today’s highly-informed and digital-savvy consumer.

When recent automotive data shows that 80% of inbound auto sales calls do not result in an appointment, dealerships know that they can no longer ignore the importance of the phone.

“Own-Set-Close is unlike any other program offered to dealers,” says Pogo Parr, President of Automotive at CallSource. “By providing in-dealership and over the phone call coaching to dealers, CallSource now provides all the tools a dealer needs to operate and perform better on the phone to increase their bottom line. With CallSource’s call coaching and EveryLead platform, you can’t get more accurate data and reporting that boosts your dealership. That’s what it is all about, right? – having really great data that dealers can use so they can easily track what’s working and increase sales.”

Unlike other one-and-done automotive training programs, Own-Set-Close is phrases & skills coaching over time. It begins with word tracks that instantly make your team more effective on the phone. While our coaches are onsite, they will dive into your CRM and update templates and workflows as needed to measure your coaching success using key performance indicators.

One of the fastest ways to sell more cars in the dealership is to help your people improve their phones skills. With Own-Set-Close, you can use your CRM data to ensure that your employees are increasing phone skills by booking more appointments and making more sales. With coaches that have years of dealership and car-selling experience, they not only talk the talk but can walk the walk.

CallSource is excited to officially launch this new program at the 2019 Digital Dealer Conference & Expo.

About CallSource—Own Every Lead

CallSource provides dealers with visibility into what is driving customers to call, text, chat, or click on your website. We provide transparency into which calls are real leads, and which leads booked an appointment. CallSource helps dealerships track call-handler performance and provides individually targeted training and coaching. Dealers are alerted to missed opportunities in time to save deals. Our tracking numbers are text-enabled, and our digital attribution system tracks a customer’s complete online journey. We have a solution for you to track, set, and close every call- click- text and chat.

###

If you would like more information, please call Kelli Conley at 888-376-0123 or email kconley@callsource.com.

You can’t make a sale if a customer doesn’t come to the dealership, and the second-most common initial point of contact with a dealership (after walk-ins) is the phone.* If you can’t successfully overcome objections and convince the caller to come into your dealership by the end of the call, then you will not be able to make that sale.

Consumers call your dealership because they have a need – and want to see if your dealership can fulfill their request. If an inbound phone lead doesn’t result in an appointment, then you have failed at gaining a new customer.

CallSource data based on over 100 million phone calls over 4 years shows that only 20% of viable sales leads result in an appointment set. Why aren’t these calls ending in a commitment?

Some Common Caller Objections:

• I need a price on the car before I come into the dealership.
• I need to check with my partner first.
• Let me check about financing options.
• I want to do some more research before I come in.

Overcoming caller objections can be difficult; by using the tips below, you can overcome objections and convert your phone leads.

Demonstrate your knowledge

By being personable and well-informed on the phone, the caller will feel more relaxed and confident in their decision to call your dealership. Demonstrating that you are an educated professional will remove barriers and open up the caller to trusting you.

Focus on trying to get the caller to come into the dealership. Being informational is helpful, but the best way to truly help them is to set an appointment to come in.

Example:

Customer: “What options does [CAR] come with?”

Agent: “We have a few options of [CAR] available, with varying options. Our most popular model comes with [OPTIONS], would you like to come in and take a look?”

Ask for the appointment

The call should always be focused on getting the caller’s foot in the door at your dealership to bring them along the buyer journey and into the driver’s seat.

Share your knowledge and answer their questions, but don’t simply be an order-taker. Make sure to ask the caller to come in. Once they are in the dealership, you are able to sell a car.

Example:

Caller: Do you have [Trim Level, Color, Package, etc.] available?

Agent: I do have those available, as well as other similar options. Would you prefer to come by now or later to look at the different options available?

Create urgency

When someone calls the dealership, it is because they want to buy or need help. You want to act on this immediacy by getting the caller into the dealership ASAP. Act while the iron is hot.

The goal of every call is to set an appointment and get the caller to come in. By creating urgency, you get the caller to commit to your dealership rather than go to a competitor.

Example:

Customer: I am at work right now.

Agent: That’s ok, when do you finish? [Wait for answer] I will be free after delivering a car for a customer at [TIME]. I can squeeze you in as soon as you are off, can you make it at [TIME]? I am here until [TIME] tonight. Should we schedule for later tonight, or do we need to look at tomorrow instead?

Need some specific phrases to use for the most common caller objections?

Download our free Overcoming Caller Objections Cheat Sheet here.

Get the right phrases & skills to sell more cars

CallSource, a leader in the automotive industry, is ready for phone or in-house coaching to help your team set and close more appointments. Schedule a time with a CallSource specialist to learn more about our automotive coaching program that is guaranteed to improve your employees’ phone skills and lead to more sales for your dealership.

Subscribe to the blog for more tips and insights, and stay ahead of the curve when it comes to bettering your dealership.

*https://b2b.autotrader.com/oem/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/2018-Cox-Automotive-Car-Buyer-Journey-Brochure.pdf

Learn about car-buyers’ digital journey and how it’s changed the game for auto dealers.

It’s no secret that the internet and digital devices are important for today’s consumers. It has changed the way people buy, and has especially had an impact on car-buyer’s journey to purchasing a vehicle.

Dealers cannot ignore digital formats as a vital piece of their marketing and brand recognition for customers. Without a great digital management program in place, dealers won’t have a great chance of even being considered by most car shoppers.

(In a box): Learn more about digital management with your free copy of our Automotive Digital Management Guide.

J.D. Power recently released their U.S. New Autoshopper (NAS) StudySM in which they deliver insights into today’s consumers’ customer journey to car dealerships.

Below are some interesting insights from this study that dealers need to take into consideration for the rest of 2019, and when planning for 2020.

Path to Purchase

• The time of from when internet shoppers start looking online to purchase a vehicle until they actually purchase a vehicle is 12.6 weeks.
• Premium and Pickup buyers have a slightly larger path to purchase, at about 14-15 weeks.
• Lease buyers move the quickest through the path to purchase, buying just after 10 weeks.
• The path to purchase increases as age decreases – so expect Gen Y/Z to take the longest when buying a new vehicle.

Knowledge of make/model to purchase

• 58% of internet shoppers enter the shopping process knowing the make or model they want to buy.
  • This has increased from 49% of buyers knowing the car they wanted to buy in 2013.
• Only 2.4 models are considered when buyers first begin visiting dealers, including the model purchased.
• Dealers’ websites are the most common way that new buyers discover the vehicle that they want to purchase, followed by having previously owned the model they are looking to purchase.

Devices used and website visits

• Shoppers continue to use smartphones for their automotive shopping, and over half of car buyers are internet shopping use their smartphone when looking to purchase a vehicle.
• 14% of automotive internet shoppers don’t ever use a computer (desktop or laptop) while shopping.

• Fewer sites are visited over time as more and more buyers know the make/model of the vehicle they want to purchase from the onset.
  • On average, internet shoppers visited 3.7 manufacturer websites, 2.4 dealer websites and 2.6 independent websites in 2018.
• Of all the websites visited, independent sites are named “most useful,” (36%) followed by the OEM site (32%).

Shopping content accessed

• Almost three-quarters (73%) of shoppers look at vehicle pricing and 71% access model information.
• Search inventory, photo galleries, and vehicle comparisons also remain in the top 5 pieces of content accessed by shoppers.

(pull quote) “Vehicle pricing, model information, search inventory, and photo galleries continue to be the most used content on auto shopping sites.” – J.D. Power U.S. New Autoshopper Study

Dealership contact

• A phone call remains the second-most-common initial form of contact, coming in only behind walk-ins.
• Only 29% of buyers initially contact dealerships in a digital format:
  • Dealer website
  • Email
  • Requested quote online
  • Online chat
  • Text message
  • Facebook page

Track your consumers’ online journeys with EveryLead

CallSource has the most powerful automotive dashboard in the industry. Our robust, non-cookie based web analytics allows you to separately track sales, parts, and service calls also while correctly attributing your online and offline sources so you can spend your money efficiently on your best customers.

CallSource’s Digital Management Platform, EveryLead, is the only platform that shows calls, texts, chats, and web leads all in a single, real-time dashboard. Schedule a time to talk to a specialist about EveryLead today, or give us a call at 833-EVERYLEAD.

Car dealerships cannot ignore the phone. Once you can ensure that employees are picking up the phone every time it rings, you must also ensure that they are delivering a great phone experience to potential car-buyers. Read on for tips to improve your call management process at your dealership.

Maximize Your Phone Answering

Do you know how many of your phone calls go unanswered or are mishandled every day?

Give every caller the same amount of attention that you would give to a lead who walks into the showroom. Only about half of all inbound calls are potential sales, so make every call count.

PHONE TIPS

1. 1. Answer the phone
   2. Make sure your IVR routes correctly
   3. Remember that the goal of every call is to set the appointment
   4. Make every call successful with these elements:
        - Build Relationships, Understand Needs, Create Value, & Ask for the Commitment

If you don’t set the appointment, the caller is going to your competition.

Stop Your Call Routing Madness

CallSource’s automotive data insights show that 80% of viable customer calls don’t result in an appointment. Don’t let a lead’s phone experience be the reason they aren’t walking in the door.

Are you sure phone routing isn’t a problem?

When was the last time you called your dealership and asked to be connected to Sales or Service? How was your experience? If it wasn’t seamless, you need to make operational improvements.

TIPS:

1. Make sure your IVR system routes to the proper department. Check your call tracking data to see how many calls go to voicemail.
2. If a lead leaves a message, who is responsible for calling him/her back? Who makes sure that is happening?

If your customers’ experience isn’t perfect, they are going to hang up and call your competitor.

Download our free Automotive Phone Tips to keep at your desk as a reminder to have great phone calls.

Dedicated Phone Team

Although a lot of dealerships are moving to a BDC model, you don’t have to have one to maximize your inbound phone leads.

If you want to maximize your phone to capture more opportunities, you have to prioritize a phone-handling team and call-management system.

Phone handling is a skill that needs to be developed. Inbound call handlers should qualify leads, make sure the caller has a great phone experience, and get them to the right department as quickly as possible.

Inbound call auto data shows the average appointment-setting rate in a dealer’s Sales department is less than ¼ of all possible opportunities – and the Service department sets just over 50% of opportunities. Both of these stats leave much room for improvement.

Dedicated “Call Back” Employee

Missed opportunity alerts are a great way to save a customer and turn a loss into a win. Training a call handler to specifically recapture missed opportunities will increase your call-to-sale rate.

TIPS:

1. Have a dedicated area for the call handler.
2. Don’t require this call handler to cover the phones while making outbound calls.
3. This call handler must solve the customer’s question or come up with an alternative; he or she needs to listen to the call and find the solution before calling the lead back.
4. Create an incentive program for every appointment set.
5. Train this employee on your CRM, inventory system, and other tools so they can overcome the caller’s objections.
6. Use DealSaver Alerts to prioritize calls.

See how CallSource can improve your phones

Contact us to learn more about CallSource can help you control the phone experience and gain more customers by setting more leads into appointments.

Improve your employees’ phone skills with reporting, training and coaching for better calls.

Digital attribution may sound like the newest marketing buzzword, but it is more than a trendy topic. Understanding digital attribution tells you how to reach consumers to get them in your doors so you can sell more cars.

Why does digital attribution matter?

To implement an effective digital strategy, you need to track and analyze your digital marketing. When 9 out of 10 Americans are online, and 81% of consumers research online before making a buying decision, you have to advertise online. Easy, right? The trick is  – correctly tracking your online ads’ success.

Research shows that digital channels will overtake traditional media by 2021; everyone knows you need to advertise online to reach potential buyers.

The problem is consumers’ buying journeys aren’t as linear as they used to be. It isn’t always as simple as a person seeing one of your PPC ads, clicking it, and then calling your dealership to come in and see a car. Everyone wishes it were that simple! But we all know when potential consumers are doing research, they are bouncing from one piece of content or ad to the next before contacting you.

When this happens, how do you correctly measure which points of the customer journey were important and how do you weigh each touch point? The answer is to use multi-touch attribution.

Solving gaps with multi-touch attribution

A key component for successful multi-touch attribution is determining unique users to follow along their buying journey. Not all research sessions or point of the journey are completed in one session; it may be across several days or even longer that a buyer is researching and increasing their purchase intent.

By correctly identifying people – either by using cookies to identify users or using a more robust, cookie-free marketing attribution solution such as CallSource’s EveryLead platform, you unveil the complete customer journey. Once you know your consumers’ journeys, you must determine which multi-channel attribution model your dealership should and will follow to attribute each touchpoint.

The main multi-channel attribution models used by marketers are:

• Last Click/Final Click Attribution: Attributes the final channel’s click through to the source of lead generation.
• First Click Attribution: The reverse of the last click; attributes the first channel that brought someone into all of the other channels as given credit in lead generation.
• Linear Attribution: All channels are assigned a consistent value in the customer journey by distributing attribution evenly.
• Time-Decay Attribution: The channels at the end of the consumer journey receive the most credit, and the channels as the beginning receive the least. The channel at the halfway point of the consumer journey received 50% of the weight.
• U-Shaped/Position-Based Attribution: Favors straight lead generation by giving more credit to the first channel that brought someone in and the final channel that converted the consumer.

To dive deep into multi-channel attribution models and determine which is right for your dealership, download our free Automotive Digital Management Guide.

How to track consumers along their car-buying journey

With a reliable digital management platform, your dealership can correctly attribute all of the touch-points that consumers interact with to bring them to your dealership.

By knowing where consumers go online when they are researching cars, you can make better-informed marketing decisions. This matters because understanding what is important to customers means you stop paying for things that don’t matter as much. This translates to driving people to your dealership more efficiently.

Without using cookies (which can be unreliable at giving true data), but by using a more robust digital tracking system, your dealership can track consumers not only cross-domain but cross-device. You need to know this to understand what ads ultimately end in a sale.

Dynamic number insertion (DNI) measures the number of phone calls from your digital marketing and connects the online consumer journey to an offline phone call. Simply stated, DNI is a phone number that follows your customer no matter where they go on the internet, regardless if they switch from a phone or tablet.

The rule of thumb for DNI is if something requires code, you need to be using DNI.

Learn more about your consumers’ complete journeys and your marketing performance success

Investing in your digital attribution with multi-touch attribution tracking empowers your marketing team and your dealership to have a fuller picture of the customer journey.  This means your sales teams get more leads to close more deals.