In my previous post for DrivingSales, I discussed the importance of clarifying the “why” and “how” when integrating new lead generating technology onto your dealership’s website. One of the key points I made was that your sales team needed to be made aware of where to find this new information in order to use it for their follow-up efforts.

Now, regardless of the type or amount of information you’re able to collect (or even how you’re able to collect it), follow-up is arguably one of the most challenging aspects of a sales person’s duties. Often times, you’ll find that sales people will call a lead with the only goal being “I want to get them in the dealership.” And yes, while the ultimate goal is to get consumers to come into the dealership, no two consumers are alike.

Each individual consumer has their own specific wants and needs. Some folks are still in the research phase of their shopping journey ("I don’t know what type of car I want yet"), some folks are somewhere in the middle ("I want to know how much my trade is worth before I look further") and some folks are at the bottom of the purchasing funnel (“What special offers are available for this vehicle?”).

Basically what this means is that it wouldn’t be practical or effective to reach out to all of your consumers with the same type of sales pitch or follow-up approach. You literally need to cater to a consumer’s specific needs; or else your follow-up efforts are cold and one-sided.

Let me give you a specific example: There was a dealership who was getting consistent inquiries from the same consumer. The inquiries were all about different types of vehicles at the dealership they were interested in. Each time the consumer filled out a form to inquire about a different vehicle, they got a different follow-up call from the dealership.

This proved to be problematic because instead of linking all of these inquiries to the same individual, the sales team went on auto-pilot and didn’t pay attention to the fact that the consumer needed help choosing a vehicle. Each form-fill was followed up with a phone call as if these were several different consumers. Needless to say, this left this one particular consumer feeling rather frustrated.

Along with instructing your sales team on how to find onsite activity data and form-fill information, you absolutely need to coach them on how adjust their follow-up to the needs of the consumer. The FATWIN Web Engagement experiences that many of our clients leverage on their websites ask questions that would allow your dealership to properly filter through consumers at different stages of the purchasing funnel. Here are a few example follow-up scenarios that your dealership might encounter based on the questions in our experiences:

How Do You Prefer to be Contacted?

One of the first questions that’s typically asked in our interactive experiences is “how do you prefer to be contacted?” Often times, the options are: E-mail, phone and text. Depending on the chosen answer, your dealership’s sales team should follow-up with the consumer’s preferred contact method at least for the first 1-2 attempts.

If you call a consumer despite them telling you they prefer e-mail, they’re going to be irritated. Not only did your team completely disregard a simple request, but you likely contacted them in a way that’s deemed inconvenient for them.

The point of getting this information is so you can engage with your consumers on a deeper level. If your consumer prefers to be texted, a quick inquiry is more than sufficient. In fact, you might even ask them if they’d like to hop on a call. The point here is simply to listen to your consumer. It’s a soft skill that shouldn’t be ignored.

In an Ideal Scenario How Soon Would you Be Ready to Buy?

Another common question found in our experiences is “In an ideal scenario, how soon would you be ready to buy?” The answers often range anywhere from “NOW!” to 6+ months. This question is a little tricky because your follow-up greatly depends on the answer a consumer provides.

If a consumer tells you that they’re in the market to purchase a vehicle NOW, then possible solutions or next steps you’ll provide will need to coincide with their timeline. If they’re wanting to purchase right away, a member of your sales team might ask the consumer if they’d like to test drive a specific grouping of vehicles or work to leverage offers and incentives.

If a consumer answers that they’ll be ready to purchase within 90 days, a sales person might ask them if they’d like to check out additional inventory and test drive a few different vehicles. Not everyone wants to do the same things at each stage of the buying process, but this is the very reason why consumer follow-up is so important. It allows your dealership to ask additional questions so they can provide the best possible solutions for their personal needs.

What Best Describes Where You Are in the Buying Process?

“Where are you at in the buying process?” It’s an open-ended question, but it’s a “vague” enough questions that it almost forces your sales team to inquire further about what consumers think they need at that moment. For example: If a consumer says they’re “looking at different options,” it could mean a number of different things. In this type of scenario, your best bet would simply be to ask the consumer “what are the different options that you’re looking at?” It give your sales team an opportunity to have engaging discussions and build great relationships.

Another answer consumers could provide is “Still researching;” in which case, your sales team can offer a number of different inventory options to prospective buyers. This question is arguably the most effective for engaging consumers because it is so open-ended. Often times, questions that are too open-ended lead to confusion, but in this case, it allows your team to treat consumers like individuals.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned throughout my career, it’s that follow-up is an art form. It’s not one of those things where you should feel comfortable going on auto-pilot. Your sales team truly needs to make sure that it’s catering to specific consumer wants and needs. Outside of asking what they want, there’s no better way to engage prospective customers than to listen to them when they’re specifically telling you what they want.