GM Internet Lead Response Time - OFFICIAL thread

[john.quinn]

Matt M -- you're too fast. I'd bet dollars to donuts that they are counting your responses as Auto-Responses, which do not stop the clock. I was in the same boat years ago -- had to appeal those "missed" leads with our rep. If I remember correctly, just about anything under 5 minutes is considered an auto-response, and the "clock" keeps ticking.

 

[chelliej]

Thank you so much, I will try that!

 

[ajholland]

So the SFE Digital Bonus is returning?

Is there a release on this I can look at?

 

[bustin dailey]

So the SFE Digital Bonus is returning?

I am curious as well. Haven't seen anything official here...

 

[ajholland]

I still haven't heard anything yet either

 

[isales]

So we just started using dealersocket to answer our Internet Leads. Our internet response time with general motors is horrible. There are other dealers using dealersocket and their response times are five min and under. To stop the clock using dealersocket a salesperson must hit a link in the new lead email notification for the clock to stop. An autoresponder in dealersocket will not stop the clock. However, the other dealers that are using dealersocket have "autoresponder response times". There is no way they have someone answering leads all day pressing that link in the email and keeping it under five minutes.

Now I do know of a company that you can pay around 500 to 600 a month to send an initial response to every lead 24/7 and it will stop the clock. Either they are using something like this, or they have it rigged someway with an autoresponder. Any thoughts and suggestions will be appreciated...

ps. I don't need explanations on how all this stuff works. I don't mean to be rude. I just need answers to solve the problem. If the only options are to have someone glued to their phone all day 24/7 or to pay the other company to do the initial response then so be it. The main thing I'm wondering is if there is a way to rig an autoresponse from your personal email account to stop the clock.

 

[Eley Duke]

ps. I don't need explanations on how all this stuff works. I don't mean to be rude. I just need answers to solve the problem. If the only options are to have someone glued to their phone all day 24/7 or to pay the other company to do the initial response then so be it. The main thing I'm wondering is if there is a way to rig an autoresponse from your personal email account to stop the clock.

Chris, no offense, but to solve problems, you should want to know how stuff works.

We are on Dealer Socket, I am not sure of any way to rig an auto response from a personal email account to stop the clock. I doubt that is possible since stopping the clock requires and action to take place that is not automated. We use an after hours service, and I could recommend them or even some others.

Do you have the Dealer Socket mobile app, you could stop the clock from there.

I'll see if I can get Hunter Swift on this to answer as well in case I overlooked something.

 

[HunterSwift]

In DealerSocket you can stop the clock by:

1. Completing the Weblead To Do.
2. Replying or Sending an email.
3. Completing an Outbound Call ToDo (or by just making an outbound call if you are using CTI).

The way to improve response times in DealerSocket:

1. Route leads by schedule, (Round Robin by Schedule) so leads only go to people who are working.
2. Text/Email Notification on phone notifying a salesperson when they get a lead even when they are not at their desk.
3. MobileCRM (Receiving lead, and working lead, follow up from phone).
4. Manager Alert, if a lead is untouched for 15 minutes notify manager.
5. Escalation, Round Robin lead to another rep if untouched by 25 minutes.
6. Reports: Look at Internet Lead Response Time Report to inspect salesreps with slow response times (Coaching Opportunity).


Also note (for others) DealerSocket is a GM Certified Lead Provider:
Automotive CRM Provider DealerSocket Helps GM Dealers 'Stop the Clock' and Respond... -- SAN CLEMENTE, Calif., Sept. 1 /PRNewswire/ --

 

[isales]

Eley,

I didn't mean to sound arrogant. I was frustrated when I posted that post. Knowing how it works is not the problem. I am very aware of how things work in Dealer Socket. Hunter, Thank you for the post. I think it's awesome you guys pay attention to these forums and try to help as much as possible. However, everything you posted I have discussed with the dealersocket sales rep, support rep, etc. Since we signed up with DS a couple months ago I have made sure to get the details on this.

The problem lies with GM. They have yet to switch to a "business hours" response time. Furthermore, last month my department received 254 email leads. Out of those leads 84 were received AFTER business hours. If your receiving half your leads after business hours it's impossible to have 2 min to 5 min response times.

However, when I got the report for the dealers response times in our local market more than half of them were between 2 and 4 minutes. I know many of them that use DS. Therefore, they had to be doing one of two things... Using an auto responder in some way that "tricks" the system... or using an overnight response team. If you go back to my original post you will see where I wrote about this ...

Since I posted the comment I have contacted one of the dealers and sure enough they are using a third party company to answer the leads coming in after business hours. In my opinion the $600 it cost is worth it since they use actual people to respond to the leads inside dealer socket. A quick and good quality response to these leads will produce better results and in the long run should pay for itself.

I love the tech side to this business and because of the way I am it was bothering me if someone had figured out a way to "trick the system" That's why I was wondering if anyone knew of a way to stop the clock with an auto responder OUTSIDE of DS since we all know the auto response won't cut it inside the DS crm. You know what's funny about all this....

General Motors offers a lead management tool that is ran by a company called SCI out of Canada. They have made improvements to the tool but it's nothing compared to DS and other crm's. It's just funny to me how you can stop the clock because it's GM's OWN TOOL! The system will send a salesperson a new lead notification to their personal email account. They have that notification sent with a reply-to address that is coded to send a response back to the customer and the SCI tool for reference. So if you have the personal email setup with a "vacation response" it will send the customer an auto reply and it will stop the clock. It's hilarious to me because GM has done all this work to make us manually stop the clock with a "human response" yet their own tool allows you to stop the clock with an auto reply!! Now that's typical...

 

[jscole86]

We use an after hours service, and I could recommend them or even some others.

We used to use an after hours service as well, but decided to cancel 6 months back. We used ONBDC. We had a pretty complex set-up that personalized the response pretty well, based on lead source and the vehicle they were interested in. But what irks me about GM, is that, if you have a quality CRM, you can set up an auto responder using the same "insert-tags" as the after hours response - it can personalize that email and accomplish just about the same as the after-hours response - it just doesn't "stop-the-clock". It's just annoying.