Turn slow sales months into high revenue with CRM best practices.

Auto dealers, like most businesses, face months that are traditionally slow in sales. If you can predict sales downturns in advance, you are in an advantageous position to focus resources on other areas of potential revenue. You can create revenue during slow sales months by mining your DMS and marketing to customers who may be in a position to spend money.

The most productive non-sales searches include:

1. Sold, Not Serviced

2. Serviced, Not Sold

3. Declined Service

4. Lost Service

5. Unsold Follow-Up

6. Happy Birthday Phone Call

7. Lost Service Customers

8. High Dollar Customer Pay RO’s

9. Service Contracts or Extended Warranties

Dealerships can integrate these search categories into their annual business practices, implementing them when the traditionally slowest sales months inevitably rear their ugly heads. Use this calendar foresight to alert general managers, service managers and sales managers that the time has come to focus on bringing in revenue from the above non-sales categories.

Below are statistics and advice provided by Reuben Muinos, director of marketing of DealerSocket MarketPlace. Muinos has more than twenty years of dealership experience. 

Serviced Not Sold:

An average-size dealer can generate five to fifteen more deals per month when a dealer offers to purchase a prospect’s vehicle that was recently serviced but not bought from the dealer. Acquisitions of these vehicles can be far more profitable than buying the same model from an auction. This scenario is a win/win, benefitting the customer and the dealer.

Unsold Follow-Up:

I have observed an increase of 33% of be-backs when someone other than the salesperson from the dealership, or an outsourced third party, is used in the unsold follow-up process. Prices, products or salespeople are the most-often referenced issues cited by customers when a deal is not made. Customers are more apt to speak candidly with someone other than the salesperson.

Happy Birthday Call:

Although most salespeople fear this call, it is an effective way to reconnect with the customer. It’s important to make non-sales calls; it really does thrill the customer to get the call.

Lost Service Customers:

Marketing through multi channels (e-mail, mail, phone call) can generate $20 to $35 per customer record. Potentially, 1,000 lost customers brought in through multi-channel marketing can result in a $20,000 to $30,000 service revenue gain.

Greg Hammond, DealerSocket product manager, provided the following information from DealerSocket's CallCenter, based on typical results from a campaign list of 1,000 customers in each category.

No Service X Months

• 100-120 leads (appointments/hot leads/call backs)

• Service Revenues $50,000 within six weeks

• Retention of 15%Vehicle Buyback (Equity)

• 80-100 leads (50 appointments, the rest call backs and hot leads)

• 8-10 sales within six weeksServiced Not Sold• 100-120 leads (70 appointments)

• 8-10 sales within six weeksSold Not Serviced

• 160 leads (53 appointments)

• 15-20% retention within six weeksDeclined Service

• 130 actionable leads generated (28 appointments)

• $85,000 in service revenue generated within 6 weeks

Remember that implementing non-sales DMS-mining into your dealership’s annual business practices during slow sales months works. Now get back on the floor and make some money!

Hunter Swift is the Manager of Market Development at DealerSocket and has been with the company since 2005. In addition to his current role he has fulfilled the responsibilities of customer support, consulting, training, and sales. He specializes in helping dealerships improve processes through the use of CRM technology. Prior to DealerSocket he sold cars and is a graduate of Pepperdine University.

Follow him: @HunterSwift

• “Our people self-train themselves on how to use the MobileCRM.  It’s incredibly easy to use.” 
• "Managers are involved and logged into MobileCRM inspecting the sales dashboard which has added another level of accountability."
• “Salespeople no longer have to leave the customer to log information in the CRM.  Customers feel more comfortable giving information to someone with an IPad vs. someone sitting behind a desktop.”
• "Some of our stores have even replaced their desktop kiosk w/ an iPad."
• "Our solds have gone up because we have more people to follow up with… because more information is being logged in the DealerSocket MobileCRM App."

With the president election in full swing I have noticed that the majority of president hopefuls often use negative selling and mud-slinging attack campaigns. It has grown to something I expect from politicians but not from salespeople. Yet recently I experienced some negative selling tactics that I thought I would share.

The first occurred when I was a shopping for a new car a couple months ago. I had decided on what make and model car I was planning to buy but wanted reassure myself that I was making the best choice by looking at some other vehicles. When I visited a different dealership and I mentioned I was doing some research on two vehicles, I was surprised at the salesperson's approach. He immediately began to negative sell by talking about how bad the gas mileage was, that it didn’t score the highest safety ratings, and weaknesses in its performance while failing to point out any of the strengths of his brand. It was a big turn off for me and I ultimately bought the car I was original looking at.

I know this isn’t always a common occurrence but for some salespeople they get fearful and defensive as soon as the competition is mentioned.

It is ok to acknowledge that you have competition but there is a fine line between negative selling and pointing out differences between two products while focusing on your strengths. Knowing your competitions weaknesses is important, but this information should be used in a tactful informative way that is not offensive to your consumer. Too many sales people forget to focus on the strengths of their own product and services.

Salespeople that trick themselves into believing that they can make up negatives about a competitor are kidding themselves.

The second occurrence of negative selling happened last week in my own job. I work for a CRM company and often get the impression that some of our competitors negative sell on occasion. Recently a dealership I was working with was told by another CRM company that the integration we had with a particular DMS was not great. To resolve this concern, I immediately conferenced in a person from the DMS company that was referred to who reassured the customer of our great integration. We ended up getting this customer, but not because of our integration or us negative selling. The dealer said that the moment he knew the competitor had lied they lost all trust and began to doubt the positives of their product.

Spare the negative talk. Henry Ford said, “The competitor to be feared is one who never bothers about you at all, but goes on making his own business better all the time.” Focus on you, your company, your strengths and most importantly your customer.

My business and my reputation are built on ethical standards and selling my company’s superior service, not bad mouthing rivals. Just because you are my competitor doesn’t mean we can’t be friends either. We can chat and talk about industry issues at trade shows, conferences, and through social media. I have referred dealers to others when I thought they were a better fit. And in turn, other companies have sent business my way.

Strong competitors drive me to be even better at what I do. The automotive technology space is growing and I love the idea that more players are joining in. Yes, it is more competition, but I think there’s enough business to go around and it grows the overall performance of automotive industry. 

Hunter Swift is a Sales Business Analyst at DealerSocket and has been with the company since 2005. In addition to his current role he has fulfilled the responsibilities of customer support, consulting, training, and sales. He specializes in helping dealerships improve processes through the use of CRM technology. Prior to DealerSocket he sold cars and is a graduate of Pepperdine University.
Follow him: @HunterSwift

One of my first jobs out of high school was selling cars and I have worked as a vendor with a CRM company in the industry for 7 years.  I enjoy working in the auto industry and take pride in helping dealerships be more successful either through the products I sell or through the processes I teach from my experience.

About every three years, I find myself as a customer in the market for a new vehicle.  Recently, that time had come and I was looking for a new vehicle.  I am not loyal to a particular dealership, but I usually buy my cars from the dealership that has the vehicle I want, and at the best price.  Since I am only in this situation every so often I thought it would be wise to document my experience, with the hope that dealers and industry specialists could use it to improve their processes.

I sold my car to a private party and needed to buy a vehicle within the next day or two.  In deciding my next vehicle, I did my entire search online.  I looked at manufacture websites, read reviews from Car & Driver and other respected publications.  I searched videos on YouTube and jumped on vehicle-specific online forums where I could read what owners of the vehicle had to say, both positive and negative.

Once I knew the vehicle I wanted I went back to the manufacture’s website and built that exact vehicle.   An inventory search showed that five dealerships within a 50 mile radius had the exact vehicle (model, features, packages, MSRP).

The Phone Up

I began calling these dealerships, asking if I could get some numbers.  I knew that they would have to work on the numbers so I gave them my cell phone number and told them to call me back.  I was surprised by the following:

Dealership 1: Called me back two hours later.
Dealership 2: Called me back in twenty minutes.
Dealership 3: Called me back an hour later, only to ask what vehicle I was looking for again.
Dealership 4: Gave me my numbers over the phone.
Dealership 5: Never called me back with an offer!!!

It just amazes me that there are salespeople who don’t call customers like me back! What also makes me concerned is that not one dealership that gave me pricing has called me back since to follow up.

One dealership I called answered with an automated service, telling me that “the call might be recorded for quality assurance”, only to ring to another automated service “call is being recorded” two more times! By the time I got someone on the phone I was pretty sure I wasn’t talking with anyone at the dealership, but to someone at a call center.  I gave my information to them, only to be transferred to the actual dealership where I had to give all of my info again.

The Deal

I ultimately went with the dealership that offered me the best price, which happened to be located an hour away from my home.  An hour before I got off work, I told the salesperson at the dealership that I was going to come up that night.  He told me that he was leaving early but to talk to his counterpart in the internet department.  When I got off work I called and told him that I was planning on driving up and that I would have my two kids with me (3 year old and 8 month old).  I asked if I could give my credit info over the phone to get all of the paper work started, so my wife and I didn’t have to spend all night there with our kids.  I told him to also make sure I qualified (credit) and everything was good before we drove up.

We got the kids all ready and waited for the call.  An hour and 15 minutes later he called me to ask if I own a similar make product: No.  If I am currently leasing a vehicle: No.  If I am active Duty Military: No.  Then he says to me that the original salesperson misquoted me and included all of those rebates in my price he gave me.  Now my lease payment would be $120+tax more a month! This was higher than two other dealer’s quotes I had received.

I understand mistakes happen but I think the lesson I learned is about managing customer expectations.  If he originally told me a fair payment I would have been happy with it.  Instead, he quoted me a very low price and got me to expect a low payment just to get me in the store, and then at the last minute the price changed.  Now this may have been a mistake, but it also sounds like it could have been a dirty business tactic.  I was shocked to say the least.  I was sure glad I called ahead of time instead of driving all the way there with my kids only to find that the deal was too good to be true.

I ultimately had to call the manager at the dealership.  I felt uncomfortable by putting the dealer in this position but it seemed as though the dealer could honor the misquoted price and have a happy customer or not honor it and have an unhappy customer.  Unfortunately, it was only after a heated discussion, that the manager was willing to work with me.  We eventually meet at a price we both felt comfortable with and I picked up the car.

Looking back, it was an interesting experience. One I hope that by sharing others can improve their processes. I still am surprised, it’s been 5 days and I still haven’t received a follow up call from the dealership.

As a vendor, these last couple weeks were pretty busy as we prepared for NADA.  It is amazing how much goes into an event like this in order to be successful.  NADA consists of some very long days and my body is still trying to recover.  The show was very good for us and I imagine it was for others as well.

The first thing that stood out to me; unlike years past when the economy was worse and dealers were not spending as much; dealers had positive outlooks on the current and future conditions of the auto industry.  Dealers were eagerly looking for new and innovative products to buy.  There are sure a lot of vendors out there now.  Competition is good; it sparks innovation and keeps vendors having to improve in order to keep being competitive.

As dealers shopped different vendors it was interesting for me to hear what the technology, features, and benefits they liked.  But what was more interesting to me this year, was how many dealers seemed very interested in learning more about the companies, the leaders, the culture and its employees.

I heard multiple times dealers say they do business with people who they like.  I heard others say, it was important for them to really know and trust the people they give their money to.  Apart from technology, they also seemed interested in the customer service, the support and the company’s reputation in the industry and what their customers had to say about the company and its employees.

 I feel privileged to work for a company that prides itself for being a moral and ethical company.  A company that takes pride in offering services to dealers that they sincerely want to help be successful and works hard to make sure its customers can trust and respect them.  Working with people who have character, are trustworthy, honest, moral and ethical goes a long way and makes working with them a pleasure.  And these types of behaviors do not just come from how they perform when they are working but even when they are not.   This helps customers know that they can rely on us and we will be there for them when there is a need.

I think this can also apply to dealerships.  Apart from the design of the dealership, inventory, advertising and tools they use; customers also ultimately buy from those people who they like.  We need the customers to know they can trust and respect dealerships. This ultimately comes from their interaction with the people that work at your dealership.  Is moral and ethics an important part of your dealership and business model? Is it in-line with your personal morals and ethics?

This week I attended Digital Dealer (sigh!), the exhibitor room was full of vendors selling all types of technology.  I counted at least 7 booths that offer a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Tool.  As dealers visited each booth I noticed they were often comparing the different features each vendor provided.  One thing that stood out to me is for the most part all CRM companies offer the same type of technology.  They all allow you to input customers, receive leads, automate marketing campaigns, and reporting.  It is important that the technology isn’t the only thing that you are looking at.

Technology should enable processes.  Consistent processes create consistent business.

One of the ways to enable process is through the automation of business rules designed to target specific groups of people.  If the data is there, the technology should be able to enable processes like:

A customer life cycle (customer for life)
Finance termination
Extended warranty
We want your trade
Declined services
Aftermarket accessories
Customers in equity
Bought elsewhere, service introduction
High customer pay RO to new vehicle
Future model introduction
Lead escalation
Sales notification of a customer in service
And the list goes on…

This can also apply to the technology of Social Media.  Are you just using it or really using it to enable the processes?

Once you have the technology and the processes in place the last important part is the people.  I have seen time and time again where technology fails because either the people don’t use it or don’t know how to use it effectively.  Do you have the people to not only train you how to use and support the technology but also how to use the technology to enable the processes your dealership needs?

I am excited for the DrivingSales Executive Summit, where technology and innovation is discussed, something I hope dealers will use to enable more processes.

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

A couple months ago I came across an ad for the new Mercedes SLK. I was really impressed with the marketing campaign that Mercedes-Benz incorporated with some pretty innovative ideas and incorporating some new technology.

The ad was introducing the new SLK and although I wasn’t interested in the SLK I clicked on something called “Speed Date”, I invite those who haven’t done so to do it. http://www3.mercedes-benz.com/mbcom_v4/us/slk/en.html

What stood out to me was the integration with Facebook. As the movie begins, it pulls your image from your Facebook profile picture and inserts it in various parts of the film. In the movie you are stranded in the desert with an overheating car who hitches a ride with a beautiful girl (Ksenia Lauren) driving a SLK. Throughout the movie you can choose different outcomes and it shows off different features of the car.

The interactive movie really did a good job putting me actually into the movie and experiences it firsthand. It was something that I ended up showing to many people. Kudo’s for Mercedes for implementing a marketing tactic like this. But it did not stop here. After the movie you are invited to “like” the facebook page of the actress Kesnia Lauren https://www.facebook.com/ksenia.lauren.

Today she held a virtual autograph session. At first I was like what’s that? But it came out to be real enteraining. She had a streaming video on her facebook page that you could ask her questions which she would answer, and then she would sign a picture which was on her ipad with a stylus and that signed picture was then posted to her wall.

It was the first time I had seen something like this and made me feel good that the OEMs are getting creative and incorporating cool technology to help people get excited about their products which will only help dealers sell more cars.

Anyways, wanted to know what you guys thought and if you have seen any other creative and innovated marketing campaign that you would like to share.

I was recently in a meeting with someone from a popular 3^rd party lead provider who was talking about leads and the open rates of the AutoResponder emails compared to the open rates of first and second emails. I was unable to get a source of this data but it was something like:

Open Rates:

• AutoResponder: 97%
• First Email 56%
• Second Email: 20%  

This got me to think. We live in a society that people want their info now! Just look at the instant response with text messages, and instant access to the internet for info. People who are submitting a lead are on the computer and are requesting info that they would like as soon as the request it.

Most dealerships send out an AutoResponder. I advocate the use of an AutoResponder. It acknowledges that their lead has been received. It’s an instant personalized response that shows the dealership is quick to respond. It allows the dealership time to work on getting back to them, answer questions, etc. It is great for after hours where someone normally wouldn’t be able to answer their email.

But if the above statistics are correct, the email with the highest open rate is that first email. A huge opportunity that is being filled by an AutoResponder. This has got me to think, if the dealer can respond fast enough, could they send an actual email back versus an AutoResponder?

If the customer just sent in the lead they are still at their computer. If they have a question, want price, check inventory, etc,. For example, if a customer is looking for a vehicle and wants to know if the dealership has it in red. He sends in a lead asking about it and the email he gets back says, “Thank you for the submitting a lead.” Maybe adding something to like, “We are working on it”, or asking some follow up questions “do you have a trade?, what were you looking to put down? etc. How much better would it be if they were able to answer their specific question on the first email back to the customer?

I think that people understand that the first  response is just an automatic scripted AutoResponder. How much would it surprise them if you actual were responding to their questions instantly?

I know this might be a great idea, but how would you implement it? A salesperson  or other assigned person would have to be responsible and always be ready to answer the lead? If a salesperson didn’t respond within 5-10 minutes then an auto responder can go out? You could use a detail Internet Lead Response Time Report to make sure they are responding instantly and not missing any.

Anyways, what are your thoughts?

Do your customers know more about the cars you sell than your salespeople?

A couple of months ago, a friend of mine was in the market for a new car. He, like the majority of new car buyers, began his shopping experience online. He knew six months ago that his lease was ending and that he was in need of a new car. My friend looked at current models and then began to look at new model releases. He was interested in a car that was coming out about the same time he was going to be returning his lease. The next couple of months he was looking at spy photos, reading reviews, watching YouTube videos and he even went to the auto show to see the car in person.

Knowing that I am also into cars, my friend would forward things to me that he would find every once in a while about the vehicle, like “check out this…” or “did you know that…” I could see that he was really excited about the car.

The time had come when the new models began to arrive at dealerships. My friend called and asked me if I would look at the car with him. The car was everything he thought it would be. We were surprised though at how little the sales rep knew about the car he was selling. It was almost comical, but in the back of my mind I was thinking about how sad it was.

The demo and walk through, in my opinion, is the most important part of the sales cycle. The salesperson didn’t know anything that added value. Some may say that it is best when you have customers who are already sold and excited about the car, but this sales person lost credibility. When my friend had a question he didn’t ask the salesperson anything because he knew that the salesperson would not have the ability to answer.

In the end, my friend went to another dealership and got a salesperson that owned an older model and who was very knowledgeable in the new model. The salesperson even suggested things that he could do to customize the vehicle.

This experience has me thinking:

• Who is responsible for training your sales staff on the vehicles they sell, themselves, management or the manufacturer?

• What are you doing to ensure that your salespeople know the products they sell?

• Do your salespeople get excited for the cars that come to your dealership as much as your customers do?

• Do your salespeople see themselves as sales professional responsible to create as much value for the customer as possible?

Dealerships can spend tons of money on marketing, technology, and inventory but success often ultimately depends on the salespeople.  Training salespeople is crucial. Product knowledge is an important part. Knowing the vehicles they sell is just one part of it, they should also know the competition they are selling against.

What are your thoughts?

The last 2 months have been crazy for me. Between work, school, and my wife and I having our second baby, I have been very busy.  Because of my busy schedule, it has caused me to work more “mobile” than ever before. Almost every email I have read or responded to was from my phone, please excuse the brevity and any typos if you received an email from me recently.

This week DealerSocket had its annual User Summit in Dana Point, California  The summit was a great opportunity for users of DealerSocket to come together and share best practices and also learn how to better use DealerSocket.  My presentation at the summit was about how dealerships can better use mobile.  I thought I would pass along some of the things I discussed.

When I began my session I asked the attendees to raise their phones, I was very pleased to see that almost everyone had a smart phone; thank goodness I didn’t see any “Jitter Bug” phones.  In my research, I was amazed that there are 5.3 billion mobile subscribers in the world.  That’s 77% of the world population.  We are even seeing a big shift with the use of mobile phones; in fact 1 in 4 households have a mobile phone, but no landline.

Mobile, it’s the device we all have, it’s always on, it’s always within an arm’s reach, and allows us to have instant access to everything on Google. It’s no surprise why mobile phones are popular; they seem to do everything as the tagline says, “there’s an app for that”.  The real benefit of mobile is the fact that it is the world’s first personal mass medium device.  Never before has one person had the power to broadcast something that has the potential of reaching the whole world. 

It is important that we understand how dealerships can use mobile.

Mobile Marketing:

1. Texting:  Although I am against bulk text messaging,  having your salespeople communicate to their customers via text has its advantages.  Text messages have a 98% open rate and for the customer who aren’t returning your calls this can be a good alternative.

2. Email:  We understand how important email marketing is but, do we understand that 70 million mobile users access email through their phone? That 35% of mobile users check their email first thing in the morning before they do anything else?  This makes you rethink when the best time to send out an email is. Other questions I ask myself are, are your emails mobile friendly?  Do they look good on a phone?  Does it encourage people to access mobile content?

3. Social Media:  35% of mobile users use Social Media on their phone.  Are you using Social Media for Marketing, Public Relations, Branding, Product Knowledge?  Is your Social Media content valuable for your customers or are you always selling?  Are you monitoring what others are saying about you?  I love to use HootSuite to monitor Twitter and Facebook.

Mobile Website:

Do you have a mobile website?  It should be a condensed version of your website. With 24/7 access to key information like contact info, directions, special, and inventory.  It should be a medium that converts visits to leads.

Mobile App:

Having something that your customers can save to their devices is critical, even if it is simply a shortcut to your mobile website.  Are you giving your customers an incentive to access your mobile content?

One example, DealerSocket recently came out with the “Customer Mobile Portal” that allows the dealership’s customers to have access to key information that is similar to what they would see on a mobile website, but with the ability to be integrated with your CRM (DealerSocket) to see their service history, set service appointments (Pushing in to the DMS), and appraise their vehicle.  The customers have access to your specials and inventory including images of the vehicles.  It links with your social media.  There is even a way to push announcements and marketing to the device.  The best part is that it works on all devices (iPhones, iPad, Androids, and BlackBerrys) and not does not need to be downloaded.

Here is a screenshot:

Mobile Dealer:

Is your dealership using mobile to assist in processes?  Are leads being sent to phones so salespeople know instantly when a lead has been received?  If they respond to the lead on their phone does it stop the clock?  Make sure if there are interactions with the customer on the phone that info gets back into the CRM.  Do your salespeople have access to your inventory from their phone?

These are all things that can help your 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