One of the objections we hear at Dealmatic is, "I don't need automate my BDC process because I have enough staff coverage throughout the day to ensure manual follow up." While it's good to hear that dealers out there are getting "through" all their work, the fact of the matter is that's just not enough anymore.

Say you're a dealer that gets 10 leads per day and have a couple BDC/Sales reps -- you're clearly calling all of them on the first touch already. At a per touch contact rate of 20%-30%, you'll only be talking with 2-3 shoppers on any given day. And, to take matters one step further, if a conversation takes 10 minutes you've used 30 minutes of your teams time. In other words, you're leaving a ton of free time on the table! Having basic treatment plans in place isn't enough anymore. Conventional dealer treatment plan only last about 2 weeks. The dealers that are going to prevail and continue to get better year over year in today's car shopping environment are the ones who know how to run well-calculated long-term follow up processes. 

What do we mean when we say "Long Term Follow-Up process?" We mean after the treatment plan ends, then what? 14 days went by, you engaged 60% of your leads, 40% didn't converse with your team, you set appointments on 30% of your leads, and 70% of leads didn't. Do you have processes in place to ensure you continue to nurture leads & reach out to ones that show promise of sale, or do leads just fall into the deep abyss that is your CRM? One way will yield better results than the other. I'm sure you can guess which one. The dealers that have calculated long term follow up processes in place for the 70% of leads that didn't set appointments usually have some sort of prioritization in place. Without it, it is figuratively and literally it's like working through no-mans-land. So how do you distinguish leads worth working in the long term and which ones not to work? By the way, remember your team still has a ton of time through the day to do this sort of work. 

Key signalers for lead prioritization include geographic indicators like proximity to your dealership (are you owning your area?); demographic indicators like age, gender, occupation, and income; socioeconomic indicators like credit tier, income bracket, and household type; and lastly physcographic indicators like personality type, interests, & readiness to buy flags... These all help us hone in on a "propensity to transact" score. Something we at Dealmatic have built right into our product. Remember, after 365 days of getting 10 leads a day you'll have 3650 new leads in your CRM, now the question becomes clear: who should we follow up with? Who should we put our effort into? At a 70% miss rate, you're still looking at 2555 leads that you didn't capitalize on the first time around.

General industry statistics tell us that every year 17 million Americans get a New car and another 23 million buy Used cars, totaling around 40 million cars sold per year. Since there are around 230 million people in the US over 16 eligible to drive and buy a car, 17.4% of Americans are looking to get into a new automobile every year.

Which 17.4% of your 2555 leads are worth reaching out to? That's a core 445 leads that can result in additional sales. At a conservative 8% close rate, that's another 36 sales per year by leveling up your follow up process. And that's just with 10 leads per day. 36 sales becomes 72 or 144 per year at 20 or 40 leads per day respectively. When we talk about lead scoring it's not meant to be some goofy fad, but a helpful tool that lets dealers ensure that long term follow up and mining processes yield the most fruit. If i asked you does your post 14 day follow up process yield any fruit, what would you say?

We want to help empower dealers to be able to confidently say "yes it does, here's how much, here's how we do it, and here's where it comes from." Enabling your team to pick apart worthwhile long term follow up prospects vs. ones that'll ultimately waste your time is the nail your team needs to hit. If you set up a process now, you'll get better and more calculated in time and you'll find you squeeze more juice out of your leads, especially in the long term, than ever before.

If you've gotten this far, thanks for reading. We always enjoy making content for you. If you ever want to talk shop about your dealership's sales process, feel free to hit us up. We always love talking to dealers and meeting new ones. Have a great day!