Hunter Swift

Company: DealersGear

Hunter Swift Blog
Total Posts: 26    

Hunter Swift

DealersGear

May 5, 2011

Inbound Call Safety Net

I had to call a dealership recently about servicing my wife’s vehicle.  At 9:00 am I called the dealership’s main number and the phone rang eight times before it went to voicemail.  I called back and the same thing happened.  I needed an answer right away so I didn’t leave a message and called another dealership that was able to help me.

I understand that the receptionist may have been busy, but this got me to think:

  • How many calls does your dealership miss a day?
     
  • Does the customer end up calling other dealerships as well?
     
  • What do you have in place to insure that you don’t miss phone calls?

One way to fix this issue is to integrate an inbound Call Center.  Majority of dealerships wouldn’t want all of their inbound calls to go to a Call Center, most people think that Call Centers are for prospecting but, what about just the phone calls that don’t get answered?

If all of your calls get answered that’s great, but even if it is just one call a day or even once or twice a week, why not have a safety net or back stop in place, just in case?

If I was able to get someone on the phone to take my message and ensure me that someone would call me back, I would not have gone to another dealership.

What are your thoughts?

 

 

 


Hunter Swift is the Business Analyst at DealerSocket and specializes in Automotive/Dealership processes that help dealerships become more effective by maximizing their opportunity to improve all aspects of the sales cycle, including: driving traffic, marketing, proper sales, and demonstration techniques. He also specializes in helping dealerships increase their customer satisfaction, reduce their web-lead response times and to improve accountability. Follow Me: @HunterSwift

Hunter Swift

DealersGear

CEO

6225

No Comments

Hunter Swift

DealersGear

May 5, 2011

Inbound Call Safety Net

I had to call a dealership recently about servicing my wife’s vehicle.  At 9:00 am I called the dealership’s main number and the phone rang eight times before it went to voicemail.  I called back and the same thing happened.  I needed an answer right away so I didn’t leave a message and called another dealership that was able to help me.

I understand that the receptionist may have been busy, but this got me to think:

  • How many calls does your dealership miss a day?
     
  • Does the customer end up calling other dealerships as well?
     
  • What do you have in place to insure that you don’t miss phone calls?

One way to fix this issue is to integrate an inbound Call Center.  Majority of dealerships wouldn’t want all of their inbound calls to go to a Call Center, most people think that Call Centers are for prospecting but, what about just the phone calls that don’t get answered?

If all of your calls get answered that’s great, but even if it is just one call a day or even once or twice a week, why not have a safety net or back stop in place, just in case?

If I was able to get someone on the phone to take my message and ensure me that someone would call me back, I would not have gone to another dealership.

What are your thoughts?

 

 

 


Hunter Swift is the Business Analyst at DealerSocket and specializes in Automotive/Dealership processes that help dealerships become more effective by maximizing their opportunity to improve all aspects of the sales cycle, including: driving traffic, marketing, proper sales, and demonstration techniques. He also specializes in helping dealerships increase their customer satisfaction, reduce their web-lead response times and to improve accountability. Follow Me: @HunterSwift

Hunter Swift

DealersGear

CEO

6225

No Comments

Hunter Swift

DealersGear

May 5, 2011

Email Templates

I was asked recently to help a dealership with their email templates. Thought I would pass a long some of the tips I suggested:

  • The subject line is the single most important indicator of whether an e-mail message will be opened and read. Ensure that the subject line is clear, concise, and, if possible, contains personalization so the recipient will distinguish it as being unique.
  • Studies have proven that consumers are more responsive to e-mail communications when they are sent in a consistent format, with the same “look and feel” from one mailing to another.
     
  • Dealers are advised to develop an “e-mail template” which will allow their content to change from month to month but still be consistently identifiable, over time, as a message from the dealership.
     
  • Send information that is relevant to the customer.
     
  • Provide both sales and non-sales content.
     
  • Use Data-Mining tools in your CRM to market to the right people, with the right message, at the right time.
     
  • Plan e-mail marketing campaigns in advance.
     
  • Do not put critical text in images; many people will never see them as they have images off
     
  • Make sure you always have Dealership’s contact info on email.
     
  • Add any appropriate qualifying price criteria such as “* Your e-Price is valid ONLY on purchases made directly through our Internet Department. All vehicles are subject to prior sale and Price Quotes Expire in 48 hours. Your e-Price includes dealership discount, factory rebates, and online savings certificates.”

Tips for avoiding spam:

  • Never send just a picture
     
  • Never use all caps
     
  • Never use multiple exclamation points (!!!) or multiple non-alphanumeric characters ie: %* #:?.
     
  • Never use different colored fonts, Use Black for fonts only

 

What are your thoughts?

 
 
 
 


Hunter Swift is the Business Analyst at DealerSocket and specializes in Automotive/Dealership processes that help dealerships become more effective by maximizing their opportunity to improve all aspects of the sales cycle, including: driving traffic, marketing, proper sales, and demonstration techniques. He also specializes in helping dealerships increase their customer satisfaction, reduce their web-lead response times and to improve accountability.

Hunter Swift

DealersGear

CEO

5694

No Comments

Hunter Swift

DealersGear

May 5, 2011

Email Templates

I was asked recently to help a dealership with their email templates. Thought I would pass a long some of the tips I suggested:

  • The subject line is the single most important indicator of whether an e-mail message will be opened and read. Ensure that the subject line is clear, concise, and, if possible, contains personalization so the recipient will distinguish it as being unique.
  • Studies have proven that consumers are more responsive to e-mail communications when they are sent in a consistent format, with the same “look and feel” from one mailing to another.
     
  • Dealers are advised to develop an “e-mail template” which will allow their content to change from month to month but still be consistently identifiable, over time, as a message from the dealership.
     
  • Send information that is relevant to the customer.
     
  • Provide both sales and non-sales content.
     
  • Use Data-Mining tools in your CRM to market to the right people, with the right message, at the right time.
     
  • Plan e-mail marketing campaigns in advance.
     
  • Do not put critical text in images; many people will never see them as they have images off
     
  • Make sure you always have Dealership’s contact info on email.
     
  • Add any appropriate qualifying price criteria such as “* Your e-Price is valid ONLY on purchases made directly through our Internet Department. All vehicles are subject to prior sale and Price Quotes Expire in 48 hours. Your e-Price includes dealership discount, factory rebates, and online savings certificates.”

Tips for avoiding spam:

  • Never send just a picture
     
  • Never use all caps
     
  • Never use multiple exclamation points (!!!) or multiple non-alphanumeric characters ie: %* #:?.
     
  • Never use different colored fonts, Use Black for fonts only

 

What are your thoughts?

 
 
 
 


Hunter Swift is the Business Analyst at DealerSocket and specializes in Automotive/Dealership processes that help dealerships become more effective by maximizing their opportunity to improve all aspects of the sales cycle, including: driving traffic, marketing, proper sales, and demonstration techniques. He also specializes in helping dealerships increase their customer satisfaction, reduce their web-lead response times and to improve accountability.

Hunter Swift

DealersGear

CEO

5694

No Comments

Hunter Swift

DealersGear

May 5, 2011

Internet Process - Back to the Basics

With more and more customers originating from the internet, it is important that your dealership has a good internet process to respond to every lead quickly and efficiently. If a customer submits a lead on a Third Party site, that lead is often sent to multiple dealerships. This is one reason why response time is so important because most customers usually buy from the first person who responds to them. What are you doing to make sure your internet depart is doing the absolute best it can do?

One thing I have learned is not every customer that’s sends in a lead is in the market to buy a car right now. Often customers are online doing research and submit a lead or request a quote by mistake. For example, many customers don’t know that when they go to Cars.com or CarsDirect.com they are actually going to be sending a lead to a dealership. Often they just want to know if the car is in their price range. These customers are sometimes as much as six months out from buying a car. This is the leading reason, in my opinion, that sales people often are unable to connect with the customers or they don’t respond to your calls and e-mails. Do you have an internet follow-up campaign that goes out to six months?
 

  • It is important that your CRM/ILM handles your webleads correctly. How are the leads routed? Do they all go to one person, or are they distributed to a team? Do you have anything in place to only give leads to those who are working that day?
     
  • Are your leads being routed to the salesperson’s phone so they can respond quickly from their phone?
     
  • Does your CRM/ILM check for duplicates? Nothing is worse than having your internet department competing against your own showroom.
     
  • What is your ideal response time? Are your salespeople held accountable for their response times? Do you monitor reports that show this?
     
  • Do you have a process of escalating or transferring the lead to someone if the lead is left untouched?
     
  • Do you encourage your salespeople to call or e-mail as their first response?  Which type of response will foster a better relationship?
     
  • Do you have someone monitoring social media for leads and opportunities?
     

At the end of the day, it’s all about the relationships. Dealerships have the ability to choose and customize which process they use based on their own unique needs. Just remember that this industry is constantly evolving and what worked a year ago might not have the same success today.

 

 

 


Hunter Swift is the Business Analyst at DealerSocket and specializes in Automotive/Dealership processes that help dealerships become more effective by maximizing their opportunity to improve all aspects of the sales cycle, including: driving traffic, marketing, proper sales, and demonstration techniques. He also specializes in helping dealerships increase their customer satisfaction, reduce their web-lead response times and to improve accountability.

Hunter Swift

DealersGear

CEO

2878

No Comments

Hunter Swift

DealersGear

May 5, 2011

Internet Process - Back to the Basics

With more and more customers originating from the internet, it is important that your dealership has a good internet process to respond to every lead quickly and efficiently. If a customer submits a lead on a Third Party site, that lead is often sent to multiple dealerships. This is one reason why response time is so important because most customers usually buy from the first person who responds to them. What are you doing to make sure your internet depart is doing the absolute best it can do?

One thing I have learned is not every customer that’s sends in a lead is in the market to buy a car right now. Often customers are online doing research and submit a lead or request a quote by mistake. For example, many customers don’t know that when they go to Cars.com or CarsDirect.com they are actually going to be sending a lead to a dealership. Often they just want to know if the car is in their price range. These customers are sometimes as much as six months out from buying a car. This is the leading reason, in my opinion, that sales people often are unable to connect with the customers or they don’t respond to your calls and e-mails. Do you have an internet follow-up campaign that goes out to six months?
 

  • It is important that your CRM/ILM handles your webleads correctly. How are the leads routed? Do they all go to one person, or are they distributed to a team? Do you have anything in place to only give leads to those who are working that day?
     
  • Are your leads being routed to the salesperson’s phone so they can respond quickly from their phone?
     
  • Does your CRM/ILM check for duplicates? Nothing is worse than having your internet department competing against your own showroom.
     
  • What is your ideal response time? Are your salespeople held accountable for their response times? Do you monitor reports that show this?
     
  • Do you have a process of escalating or transferring the lead to someone if the lead is left untouched?
     
  • Do you encourage your salespeople to call or e-mail as their first response?  Which type of response will foster a better relationship?
     
  • Do you have someone monitoring social media for leads and opportunities?
     

At the end of the day, it’s all about the relationships. Dealerships have the ability to choose and customize which process they use based on their own unique needs. Just remember that this industry is constantly evolving and what worked a year ago might not have the same success today.

 

 

 


Hunter Swift is the Business Analyst at DealerSocket and specializes in Automotive/Dealership processes that help dealerships become more effective by maximizing their opportunity to improve all aspects of the sales cycle, including: driving traffic, marketing, proper sales, and demonstration techniques. He also specializes in helping dealerships increase their customer satisfaction, reduce their web-lead response times and to improve accountability.

Hunter Swift

DealersGear

CEO

2878

No Comments

Hunter Swift

DealersGear

Apr 4, 2011

Sales to Service, Service to Sales.

One of the biggest areas of improvement I often see at the dealership is fixing the disconnect, lack of communication and cohesiveness between the sales and service departments. How well is your dealership doing in integrating the two departments at your dealership?
 

  • Are you marketing to sold customers who have not been in for service?
     
  • If someone comes to your service drive with high mileage or is out of warranty, do you have a process of notifying someone in the sales department?
     
  • When one of their sold customers comes in for service, do you notify the salesperson to greet them in the service drive (and ask for referral)?
     
  • If a salesperson sells a vehicle, are they setting the customer’s first service appointment?
     
  • Do you send out sold anniversary letters and/or emails reminding the customer of their registration renewal, recommended services, their current trade-in value, and current sales specials?
     
  • Are you sending to your recently sold customers marketing regarding parts and accessories to customize their new vehicle?
     
  • Does your sales department market to your service customers who have never purchase a vehicle from your dealership?

If you answered “no” to any of these questions, you are missing an opportunity to drive more traffic to your sales and service departments.

What are your thoughts?

 

 

 

 


Hunter Swift is the Business Analyst at DealerSocket and specializes in Automotive/Dealership processes that help dealerships become more effective by maximizing their opportunity to improve all aspects of the sales cycle, including: driving traffic, marketing, proper sales, and demonstration techniques. He also specializes in helping dealerships increase their customer satisfaction, reduce their web-lead response times and to improve accountability.

 

Hunter Swift

DealersGear

CEO

3249

No Comments

Hunter Swift

DealersGear

Apr 4, 2011

Sales to Service, Service to Sales.

One of the biggest areas of improvement I often see at the dealership is fixing the disconnect, lack of communication and cohesiveness between the sales and service departments. How well is your dealership doing in integrating the two departments at your dealership?
 

  • Are you marketing to sold customers who have not been in for service?
     
  • If someone comes to your service drive with high mileage or is out of warranty, do you have a process of notifying someone in the sales department?
     
  • When one of their sold customers comes in for service, do you notify the salesperson to greet them in the service drive (and ask for referral)?
     
  • If a salesperson sells a vehicle, are they setting the customer’s first service appointment?
     
  • Do you send out sold anniversary letters and/or emails reminding the customer of their registration renewal, recommended services, their current trade-in value, and current sales specials?
     
  • Are you sending to your recently sold customers marketing regarding parts and accessories to customize their new vehicle?
     
  • Does your sales department market to your service customers who have never purchase a vehicle from your dealership?

If you answered “no” to any of these questions, you are missing an opportunity to drive more traffic to your sales and service departments.

What are your thoughts?

 

 

 

 


Hunter Swift is the Business Analyst at DealerSocket and specializes in Automotive/Dealership processes that help dealerships become more effective by maximizing their opportunity to improve all aspects of the sales cycle, including: driving traffic, marketing, proper sales, and demonstration techniques. He also specializes in helping dealerships increase their customer satisfaction, reduce their web-lead response times and to improve accountability.

 

Hunter Swift

DealersGear

CEO

3249

No Comments

Hunter Swift

DealersGear

Apr 4, 2011

If a person comes in looking for a vehicle you don’t have, what do you do?

I have been involved in the auto industry for many years and have encountered this situation multiple times: a person comes in looking for a used vehicle that the dealership just doesn’t have. Most dealers I know either try to change the customer’s mind to a vehicle they do have in stock or simply state that they don’t have the vehicle and let the customer walk away.

Some CRM technologies have a “Check New Inventory” feature which allows the salesperson to save the vehicle of interest, and the CRM will automatically notify the sales person when a similar or matching vehicle is received into inventory. Another feature allows you to pull a list of those looking for a certain vehicle which you can use as a “wish list” for purchasing vehicles at auction. Although these are great features, I have found there is a better way.

Your CRM should have a way to search your historic sold data through some sort of listbuilder. If a customer comes in looking for a specific vehicle which you don’t have, simply go to your CRM and create a search for everyone you have sold the exact vehicle for which your customer is looking. Search for a vehicle that your dealership has sold in the past 36 to 60 months. With this search you should have a large list of owners to call who have had their vehicle for some time and might be looking for a change.

Simply call on the list and state to them that you have a customer looking for the exact vehicle they currently own and you'd like to know if they are willing to sell it. Some dealers I know even look at the service history and state to the customer that the reason they are calling is because they know they take good care of their vehicle.

Remember, your goal is not just to sell the one vehicle but also to sell a replacement vehicle to the person who is getting rid of theirs. You might even luck out and get a trade out of the prospect.

You can also take advantage of a listbuilder every time you receive a trade. The moment you even look at a trade you should be building a list of all active prospects who are interested in this vehicle to gauge interest. This can help forecast if this vehicle is just going to sit on your lot. A good practice is to begin calling on these prospects before you even take in the trade. This can allow you to give more on the trade if you already know you have a potential buyer. And, again, you are hoping that they have a trade as well.

The dealerships I know who use this method are very successful, often turning a one car deal into two or three.

What are your thoughts and opinions?

 

 

 

Hunter Swift is the Business Analyst at DealerSocket and specializes in Automotive/Dealership processes that help dealerships become more effective by maximizing their opportunity to improve all aspects of the sales cycle, including: driving traffic, marketing, proper sales, and demonstration techniques. He also specializes in helping dealerships increase their customer satisfaction, reduce their web-lead response times and to improve accountability.

Hunter Swift

DealersGear

CEO

3855

No Comments

Hunter Swift

DealersGear

Apr 4, 2011

If a person comes in looking for a vehicle you don’t have, what do you do?

I have been involved in the auto industry for many years and have encountered this situation multiple times: a person comes in looking for a used vehicle that the dealership just doesn’t have. Most dealers I know either try to change the customer’s mind to a vehicle they do have in stock or simply state that they don’t have the vehicle and let the customer walk away.

Some CRM technologies have a “Check New Inventory” feature which allows the salesperson to save the vehicle of interest, and the CRM will automatically notify the sales person when a similar or matching vehicle is received into inventory. Another feature allows you to pull a list of those looking for a certain vehicle which you can use as a “wish list” for purchasing vehicles at auction. Although these are great features, I have found there is a better way.

Your CRM should have a way to search your historic sold data through some sort of listbuilder. If a customer comes in looking for a specific vehicle which you don’t have, simply go to your CRM and create a search for everyone you have sold the exact vehicle for which your customer is looking. Search for a vehicle that your dealership has sold in the past 36 to 60 months. With this search you should have a large list of owners to call who have had their vehicle for some time and might be looking for a change.

Simply call on the list and state to them that you have a customer looking for the exact vehicle they currently own and you'd like to know if they are willing to sell it. Some dealers I know even look at the service history and state to the customer that the reason they are calling is because they know they take good care of their vehicle.

Remember, your goal is not just to sell the one vehicle but also to sell a replacement vehicle to the person who is getting rid of theirs. You might even luck out and get a trade out of the prospect.

You can also take advantage of a listbuilder every time you receive a trade. The moment you even look at a trade you should be building a list of all active prospects who are interested in this vehicle to gauge interest. This can help forecast if this vehicle is just going to sit on your lot. A good practice is to begin calling on these prospects before you even take in the trade. This can allow you to give more on the trade if you already know you have a potential buyer. And, again, you are hoping that they have a trade as well.

The dealerships I know who use this method are very successful, often turning a one car deal into two or three.

What are your thoughts and opinions?

 

 

 

Hunter Swift is the Business Analyst at DealerSocket and specializes in Automotive/Dealership processes that help dealerships become more effective by maximizing their opportunity to improve all aspects of the sales cycle, including: driving traffic, marketing, proper sales, and demonstration techniques. He also specializes in helping dealerships increase their customer satisfaction, reduce their web-lead response times and to improve accountability.

Hunter Swift

DealersGear

CEO

3855

No Comments

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