A few weeks ago, I wrote a piece about creating an experience that doesn’t heavily rely on a salesperson. Although I made it pretty clear that eliminating the salesperson altogether is a bad idea (the salesperson is still an important part of the purchasing journey), not everyone wants to talk to a sales person right away — especially when they don’t know what they want.

One of the items I mentioned in my last piece was the concept of "automated responses." This was met with a bit of skepticism initially, until it was realized that I didn’t truly mean attempting to falsify human engagement. Such communications would need to be completely permission based — which is why these responses are so valuable to begin with. These are responses are typically generated by requests from the consumer directly.

There are a number of different ways to leverage an instant response in your website marketing efforts, without feeling as though you’re tricking the consumer (ex: getting a “personal” letter after a consumer receives their instant trade appraisal). Here are a couple of good examples:

Provide Consumers with Downloadable Resources

One of the best ways your dealership can leverage automatic responses is by having your website automatically send downloadable resources to consumers who request them. Regardless of whether they’re in the research phase or the the purchase phase, consumers are always hungry for more information.

Instead of having your consumers rely on a salesperson to get certain information (which wastes precious time and resources), why not have certain documents readily available for them to download? Place an experience on your dealership’s website that allows consumers to request certain documents. Upon request, that information (in the form of a document) can automatically be sent over to the requester.

Now, you’re probably wondering “what the heck can my consumers even download? What would they even want to download?” Well, believe it or not, there are plenty of downloadable items that your consumers are likely interested in.

Vehicle warranties, vehicle instruction manuals, financing information, terms of service and other miscellaneous legal documents are just a few examples of the extensive information that your consumer might want to have on hand. Why not provide that information to them immediately?

One last thing I should point out is that just because you’re automatically sending your consumers a downloadable item, that doesn’t mean you can’t personalize some aspects of your communications. Your consumers still crave a human element. And don’t worry — it doesn’t have to be that hard at all. A simple “Hi [Name], here’s the eGuide you requested.” would more than suffice. In fact, if you want to go the extra mile and ask an open-ended question at the end to encourage engagement, that’s even better!

Basic Vehicle Inquiries

Another fantastic way to leverage automated technology is by providing an instant response to questions like “is this available?” or “are there any additional offers available for me?” Questions like this can be immediately answered online using assessment or dynamic technology on your website.

I’m not talking about auto responders. It’s not about making it seem like a real person responded but rather letting technology provide the type of experience consumers are used to getting today. How many times have you been online shopping and without talking with anyone, found out basic information like availability, discounts, estimated shipping or even trade-in value of non-automotive products.

Many inquires that are specific to auto dealer websites can be leveraged without a required salespersons involvement to deliver back to the buyer. This means you can be more effective with our follow-up resources, provide instant value 24/7 to website visitors and engage consumers earlier in the buying journey by not forcing them to talk to a dealer representative.

Again, this doesn’t mean I’m saying not to have your salespeople to call these leads. They can and should still call/email to follow up with leads. It will just be something of an additional value to what a consumer was given instantly online.

Instead of your sales team having to handle document download requests and basic inquires, they can reserve their engagement for when a consumer really needs to talk to them — like when they have a specific question about their personal financing issues or about different service add-ons following a purchase. The point I’m trying to make is that automatic responses allow for your website to answer certain consumer questions while leaving your sales team to do what they do best: sell.