Joe,
I have copied and pasted your questions below and replied in-line.
(note to all: Joe Pistell [a DR Admin] has color coded the replies to improve the readability, no change in the replied text was made)
I have copied and pasted your questions below and replied in-line.
- [FONT="]Does AVA treat them separately?[/FONT]
- Yes, AVA recognizes leads without email addresses and treats them separately.
- [FONT="]If so how?[/FONT]
- If a lead has a phone number, AVA will ask if that is the best number to reach them on for the phone appointment. In about 50% of the replies, the customers provide an additional, better number to reach them on, usually cell phone.
- If a lead doesn't have a phone number, AVA will ask what number to reach them on for the phone appointment. Most of the responses from these customers contain a phone number. Sometimes, the customer will ask to be contacted by email only: in those cases, AVA sends an 'Action-Required' Alert to the salesperson, so that they can pick up the dialog via email.
- [FONT="]Does AVA require the rep to update lead status?[/FONT]
- No, AVA is designed to be hands-free/maintenance-free and doesn't require any action from the sales rep, except to call the lead when AVA sends them an Alert. In every AVA Alert (text and email), there is a 'Stop Messaging' link that allows the sales rep to take the reins and stop AVA from messaging that lead further. There is also a 'Stop Messaging' button next to each lead in the control panel that will stop AVA from sending any more messages to that lead.
- [FONT="]For example, I see if AVA does not get a reply, it follows a schedule to get the shopper to reply, what if the shopper has included a phone number and the shopper/sales rep has now moved past emails. What does AVA do in this example?[/FONT]
- [FONT="]AVA will continue to message the lead until they respond or the campaign is finished, unless the sales rep presses the 'Stop Messaging' button in the control panel or the 'Stop Messaging' link in an alert. AVA campaigns are designed with this possibility in mind and AVA's messages are innocent enough that there isn't anything for the customer to get upset about. It is extremely rare for customers to send angry replies to AVA. Usually, the customer will just reply that they are already talking to someone at the dealership. I see a lot of responses to the follow-up series, where the customer has previously talked to someone at the dealership but was waiting for a call back, circumstances changed, or something happened and AVA resurrects a deal that otherwise would have been lost.[/FONT]
- [FONT="]Things happen, like what if the shopper submits a lead, then calls the dealership 3 minutes later? Does the content of the automatic system look like "the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing"? (aka we look stupid). Does the rep need to interact with AVA?[/FONT]
- No, the rep does not need to interact with AVA. AVA campaigns are designed with this possibility in mind and messages are carefully constructed, so that you never look stupid. In some of AVA's messages deeper into the series, AVA's message contains something along the lines of: "...maybe you already talked to someone here; if so, sorry to bother you..."
- When we build an AVA campaign, we use three P's to guide the message construction: AVA is Polite, Pleasant, and Persistent. If the customer has already talked to someone when they read AVA's message, they just think that AVA didn't realize they had already talked to someone. The messages are innocent and friendly enough that customers won’t get upset if they have already talked to someone at the dealership and AVA contacts them.
- [FONT="]Duplicate leads Management?[/FONT]
- [FONT="]How does AVA recognize and manage multiple leads from a single shopper? Shoppers can send in 2-3 leads after hours (occasionally from multiple sources). Will it send the shopper the same message, or, does it recognize this and merge the replies into a single sdchedule, or, does AVA have a unique schedule for dupe leads?[/FONT]
- We use email address as the unique identifier for leads. One of the fundamental rules we try to follow is never to send the same message to the same email address twice. When AVA receives a duplicate lead, AVA sends an Alert to the sales person, so that they know the lead has come in and that AVA is not messaging that lead because it is a duplicate.
- [FONT="]Sometime dupe leads are not back to back, does AVA recognize a 2nd lead from an OLD unsold prospect AND how far back can it look?[/FONT]
- Yes, AVA recognizes a 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc. lead from on OLD unsold prospect. By default, AVA looks back 90 days; however, that range can easily be adjusted to 1 week, 1 year, or whatever you want.
- [FONT="]How many records are needed to line up for a match? Name only? Name and email? Email only?[/FONT]
- We use email address only. In some edge cases, the same customer may come through with a different email address, but that case is relatively rare.
- [FONT="]For these un-sold prospects that re-appear (often months later), Does AVA have a special schedule?[/FONT]
- If the un-sold prospect re-appears within the timeframe to be considered a duplicate, AVA will send an Alert to the salesperson so that they know the lead has arrived and that AVA is not messaging it because it is a duplicate.
- If the un-sold prospect re-appears outside the window to be considered a duplicate, AVA can treat it as a fresh lead or launch a re-engage campaign, depending on the dealer's preference.
- [FONT="]Prior Relationships[/FONT]
- [FONT="]And, what if the shopper has a prior relationship with the dealership/sales rep and we have the phone number? We have shoppers that have a working relationship with us that may take offense to AVA not knowing them and asking for their phone number. How does the wording of AVA fit this scenario?[/FONT]
- I'm going to shamelessly copy and paste from above
--AVA campaigns are designed with this possibility in mind and AVA's messages are innocent enough that there isn't anything for the customer to get upset about. It is extremely rare for customers to send angry replies to AVA. We could easily build a custom AVA campaign to deal with this scenario.
- [FONT="]Texting reps.[/FONT]
- [FONT="]How does AVA know who to send the text message to? Does it require the rep to "claim" the lead in AVA to make this work?[/FONT]
- No, it does not require the rep to "claim" the lead in AVA to make this work. AVA is designed to be hands-free/maintenance-free and does not require any action from the sales rep to work.
- In most cases, the leads are assigned by the CRM and we create a lead receiving email account for each sales rep. Reps just set the CRM to forward a copy of their leads to that email address, so we know who each lead belongs to when it arrives.
- In some cases, the leads are not round-robin’d by the CRM and the dealers will specify how they want them distributed: AVA can round-robin them or distribute to different reps based on time of day or day of week, or however the dealer wants them distributed.
- In some cases, the dealer may not want them assigned to any particular sales rep and AVA uses a more generic term to refer to the sales rep, such as 'The Sales Manager' or 'A Member of the Internet Department' or whatever the dealer specifies.
- [FONT="]What are the conditions needed to fire off a Text message? (are all replies texted to the rep?)[/FONT]
- By default, AVA sends the Text message when we receive a response to the phone appointment request, when we receive a response to the follow-up series, when we receive a duplicate lead, or when a response triggers an 'Action-Required' Alert (the customer asks a detailed question in the first response or request contact by email only). However, this is another preference setting that is easily adjusted: AVA can send an Alert for all replies and some dealers prefer this option.
- [FONT="]Fast Start Option?[/FONT]
- [FONT="]In 2010, We have 10,600 open prospects. Can your team create a unique import from our CRM where by AVA identifies and labels the status of all these prospects, puts them into groups (to run schedules that fit the group), and AVA takes over all correspondence?[/FONT]
- Yes, if you can export them to us, we can create groups: we would just need to know how you want the prospects categorized (grouped) and what campaigns you want run on each group.
- [FONT="]How does AVA handle long term idle leads?[/FONT]
- We have a re-engage campaign that will continue to ping long term idle leads until they get a response. We can also customize the campaign according to your preference.
(note to all: Joe Pistell [a DR Admin] has color coded the replies to improve the readability, no change in the replied text was made)
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