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

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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.

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, 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.

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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

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.

CallSource, the originator of call tracking, is excited to announce the promotion of Pogo Parr to President of its Automotive Division. Pogo has been a staple in Automotive for many years and has recently served as CallSource’s Senior Vice President of Automotive. Pogo has a strong track record in the automotive industry and a reputation of loyalty and dedication to his company, employees, and customers.

 “In the past 18 months, Pogo has been realigning the automotive division with talent, structure and new technology, empowering the team to bring the best service and most accurate analytics to the industry. The results Pogo has posted on the retail and OEM side of the business have been impressive. Not only have we seen significant growth over the last two years, but we are also bringing substantially more value to automotive dealers. Our OEM relationships are growing at a rapid rate, and we’re designing specific products to fit their needs. Pogo is a strong leader with both people, and understanding technology needs. We’re delighted to have Pogo in this position, and are confident this move will bring even more value to our company and customers,” said Elliot Leiboff, CallSource CEO.

As the inventor of call tracking and the first call-data company to offer actionable analytics to monetize all inbound opportunities, CallSource understands the needs of the auto industry to drive and measure results. “This is very exciting. It’s been great to be back at CallSource and helping to reestablish the brand and winning our market back. This company has been built on customer service, focusing on bringing the ultimate value to dealers and people. We are going to stay focused on those three principles and stay true to the market place. We’ve recently launched our new EveryLead platform that’s giving dealers insight into key metrics, benchmarks, and conversion trends with both campaigns and appointments. We’re going to be the first company to truly complete the loop and help dealers and OEMs master the phones and increase conversions and appointment rates,” states Pogo.

CallSource is delighted to have Pogo drive his vision for the Automotive Division and provide the best possible experience to our customers. 
 

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 provide 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- and chat.

Car-buyers have more ways than ever to discover your dealership and contact you. Of all the ways they can reach you, the phone remains the second-most popular initial point of contact your dealership.1

Over half of all inbound calls to automotive dealers are revenue-generating opportunities, so it is vital your inbound calls are handled by trained and skilled employees.

The first impression of your dealership

The person who answers the phone is the caller’s first impression of your dealership. Good customer service skills and a positive tone will make a caller’s first impression of your dealership a good one. Without proper phone skills, a customer will be left with a bad taste in their mouth instead of wanting to buy a car.

The right first phone impression shows the customer why they should choose you over your competitor.  When call handlers are equipped with value propositions about your business and give your lead the help they need—your chances of booking the appointment and making the sale will increase even more.

Showcase your dealership’s superiority

By answering the phone quickly, answering the caller’s questions, and leading the conversation to get details, you increase your close rate. Confidence in your dealership and knowledge about what you sell and have on your lot builds trust with the caller.

When a potential customer has a great phone experience, they believe they are choosing the right dealership. By ignoring “your phone issues” and not providing great customer service from the first phone call means you are leaving money on the table.

You can’t close a deal if the lead doesn’t walk into the dealership. You need to pay attention to the phone.

Dazzle callers with superior customer service skills and they won’t go to your competitor

In a Box: Download “6 Perfect Phrases for Every Stage of the Sales Call” to start improving your phone skills today.

Getting the caller’s foot in your dealership’s door

Having great phone skills doesn’t mean answering questions and being respectful Great phone skills means you get a YES for an appointment.

A “soft appointment” is not a YES.  You should only consider appointments that specify a date and time as a “real” appointment.  

Customers who have called your dealership, made an appointment, and walk through your door are ready to buy! It is up to you to close the deal.

Improve phone skills & improve conversion rates

Better call handling skills means higher call-to-appointment rates, which means more sales for your dealership.

For help improving your team’s phone skills, check out CallSource’s custom employee scorecard and our over-the-phone or in-house call coaching. Schedule a time to speak to a specialist to learn more, or call us at 888-340-123.

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

Even in 2019, the phone is not dead.

While smartphones have become smarter and smarter, they are still being used to make actual phone calls – and consumers are calling auto dealerships as a part of the buying process.

In the brand new Automotive Inbound Call Data Report, CallSource analyzed over 106 million phone calls to auto dealers over a 4-year span. The report illustrates how vital inbound phone calls are to the automotive industry, and delivers key takeaways for dealers to keep in mind when prioritizing phone calls.

Take a look below for 10 of the most important stats from this study, or view the whole report in its entirety here.

The phone is paramount to auto dealers

1. 1. Over half (54%) of all inbound calls to automotive dealerships are revenue-winning opportunities.
2. 2. One in four leads calling a dealership is for sales – 75% of prospects calling in are for Fixed Ops.

Make all calls to the Sales department count

1. 3. Only about half (51%) of your sales calls in 2018 were viable leads.
2. 4. 80% of inbound sales opportunities are being missed.
3. 5. Less than a quarter of all sales opportunities (20%) are actual confirmed appointments.

Fixed Ops generate the majority of inbound call leads

1. 6. About ¾ of all inbound prospect calls to dealerships are for Fixed Ops.
2. 7. An average of 40% of calls to Fixed Ops have resulted in an appointment since 2015.
3. 8. 60% of Fixed Ops calls are missed opportunities – no appointment set.
4. 9. Appointment conversion rates to Fixed Ops have increased from 35% in 2015 to 52% in 2018.
5. 10. Almost 90% of parts calls don’t result in an appointment.

Service calls and appointments are increasing year-over-year

1. 11. Over half (58%) of calls to the Service department in 2018 resulted in an appointment set.
2.  
3.  
4. 12. Dealers are able to convert more calls to the Service department into appointments than they can in Sales and Parts combined.
5.  
6. 13. Service appointments have been increasing since 2015, but 40% of prospective service appointments are still booking with the competition.

Improve your inbound phone performance

Numbers don’t lie – the phone is vital to automotive dealers. It is imperative for dealerships to track phone calls and implement changes for performance increases.

Check out the full automotive report here to view the above stats and for advice to help your dealership improve.