I absolutely suck before I get my daily dose of coffee.  I'm grumpy, groggy, and completely idiotic.  In one of my brighter before-coffee moments I decided I would work on quotes for my move from Virginia to Vermont.  I Google'd "Moving Company" and got something like "123movers" as the first result.  Being the ignoramus I am to moving I thought 123movers sounded pretty good.  I surfed around on the site and dropped a lead - that was around 6:00 AM.  Time to get some coffee, read some more emails, read the iPadPapers (news papers), and catch up on DealerRefresh - NOPE!  Within 5 minutes my phone started ringing.  It is now 6:05 AM EASTERN TIME, and this guy wasn't anywhere near Mumbai.  Even better, he wasn't from 123movers either.

Over the next week I received at least 6 calls a day with most days being more like 10.  Not a single one was from 123movers.  I went back to 123movers and realized that this is a third party lead generation site.  I'll take the big "Duh Alex" for that one because it says right on their homepage that they're a moving company comparing site.  So when I tell you I'm a huge moron before coffee, you should take me at my word.  However, I definitely made a mistake in thinking I was only contacting 1 moving company when I ended up speaking to 12.

I need to move, I need to speak to a moving company, and I need to understand how they charge so I can feel comfortable with my decision.  I know none of this.  I spoke to every single one of those moving companies.  Each initial call was about 15 minutes long as I tried to describe my "inventory" of furniture, clothes, and other junk.  Everyone quoted roughly the same pricing but varied their methods either by square footage of truck space occupied or the weight of the load.  But, they all had good reason to pre-qualify me before giving a quote, and they were all there to give a quote.  Absolutely none gave me a quote by email up front even though I asked for it from a few of them.  I didn't reply to most of their emails and noticed quite a few went into my junk mail due to big images and lots of links.

There was one company that spent the time to educate me on things and they even gave the highest quote - a good $800 more than the next highest.  I liked that.  They told a good story, understood that I didn't know anything about moving services, and quoted me higher - it made me think that they were based on quality.  But at the end of the day I didn't go with this company.  I got too many calls and emails and to be quite frank - I lost them in the shuffle because they never followed up after that one call.  The guy thought he had the sale in the bag I guess.

After all the frustration of dealing with so many companies I went back to the old fashioned way of doing things and asked my friends and family.  My dad convinced me to only talk to Mayflower or Allied Moving and I ended up choosing Allied because Mayflower never showed up for their scheduled appraisal appointment!  The representative from Allied knew a few of my high school friends and was very professional.  I feel good with my choice.

What can you learn from my experience?

1. Shoppers aren't always intentionally "shopping you".  Sometimes we get sucked into third party sites.
   
2. People who submit a lead are serious.  When they tell you otherwise it is because they've made a purchasing decision - you were too late.
   
3. Don't be afraid to quote high if your story is compelling.
   
4. Rapport-building still wins.
   
5. Fancy emails don't mean squat when they're in a junk mail folder.  I could have cared less about the fancy stuff anyway.
   
6. Fancy websites, on the other hand, definitely lend to credibility and perceived quality.
   
7. In an extremely competitive market you have to differentiate yourself.  Strategize for the niche and not the whole population - you ain't gonna get everybody.
   
8. Referrals are still the greatest advertising source.
   
9. Follow up, follow up, follow up!
   
10. Don't talk to me before coffee.

What if you had Superhero powers like Spider-Man, Batman and Superman? You could have an amazing gift to do the unexpected and save the day. Sure, you’ve been tracking calls from your dealership’s website for years. Your store may even be running an expensive pay-per-click campaign that is bringing well-qualified leads. That is what the average “Clark Kent” is managing for his dealership and probably getting praise for being on the cutting edge of internet marketing. Are you ready to be a Superhero? Get ready to switch from Clark Kent to Superman and unveil that special uniform under your suit. Extract the most out of your dealer website tracking with the following Four Superhero Powers.

Power Number One: Have x-ray vision. Find out which keywords are bringing you phone calls. Is it the term “Honda” or “Honda oil change coupon” that is generating leads? There are ways to track these calls back to the individual keyword without constantly monitoring the program, adding phone numbers and investing too much of your marketing budget. Proxy sites can create a bit of a mess for your SEO, so steer clear of this method. By using x-ray vision, you can tell your SEM to shift your ppc budget those terms that are actually selling cars.

Power Number Two: Try leaping tall buildings in a single bound. List one number on your dealership’s website with a greeting to connect callers with the right department. If there are 3-4 numbers listed, often times the caller will dial the first number listed anyway. Your customers will have a better experience, and the sales team will be happy when talking with leads that want to buy a car (not make a service appointment). Look at trend analytics of your inbound calls. What time of day or day-of-the-week are you getting an influx of leads? Are you staffed appropriately at these times? Features like scheduling and round robin will help the team to not miss an opportunity. More than likely, there is no additional cost to set this up.

Power Number Three: Use accelerated healing (think Wolverine). Don’t let those bad sales calls wound you or your sales team. Listen to call recordings and save a potential customer from calling your competitor, then play back the call in a training session. Everyone will learn quickly what they should be saying and how to close a sale faster.

Power Number Four: You’ve become immortal. Import calls from your website into your lead management tool, your CRM. This is your lifeblood and the place where you spend all of your time anyway. You shouldn’t have to log into another system to look at calls. Who has time for this? You are there to sell cars, not remember passwords and instructions on how to run a call report. Integrating your call tracking with your CRM will make your life easier.

You cannot deny the powerful gifts that you have been given to effectively manage your website and call tracking system. Be the Superhero that you were meant to be and start today with these Four Superhero powers. If you aren’t sure how to use these powers or forget what they are all about, contact your call tracking provider to help you get the most out of the service. Their job is to support the Superhero!

CarChat24.com is the premier US based provider of 24/7 fully staffed professional automotive live chat services. The Florida Company is welcoming Automotive Dealers from the US and Canada to try the company’s highly beneficial dealer chat support service with a 30 day free trial. This service is specifically designed to help dealers reach a much higher conversion rate of automotive sales leads from their existing website traffic. CarChat24’s Management Team has over 40 years of automotive experience, and provides its dealers with the ability to increase the amount of their auto sales leads by 50 to 60% from their own website.

CarChat24 is launching their 2nd two month dealer chat case-study for its service on June 1st 2010. The four participants involved in the study benefit from free 24/7 fully staffed automotive live chat support and automotive sales leads. The CarChat24 case study will be for a period of two months. In order to keep the study completely public and to give the participants the opportunity to voice their opinions, CarChat24 has decided to present all the findings live on a forum for car dealers, DealerRefresh.

The four automotive dealers participating in the dealer chat case study are as follows; Toyota of Irving of the U.S. in Texas, and Barrie Ford, Toyota-Town, Richmond Hill Toyota of Ontario Canada. You can review the results posted by the four participants on the DealerRefresh forum. Automotivemarketing.ca will also be posting results for the Canadian Dealers on their site.

About the company: CarChat24.com is a Florida based company that offers 24/7 fully staffed automotive live chat services and software to automotive dealers throughout the United States and Canada. CarChat24 clients take advantage of their professional 24/7 dealer chat support and the high quality automotive sales leads created by the CarChat24 service.

For more information and details about CarChat24 and its case study, please visit: www.carchat24.com,
forum.dealerrefresh.com, or automotivemarketing.ca.

OAK BROOK, IL (May 21, 2010) – vAuto, Inc. announces its used car inventory management system is now available as an application for the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch.

“We recognize that our dealers need the ability to access our real-time market information wherever they are,” says Keith Jezek, president and CEO. “We decided to develop our mobile application initially for the Apple devices because they are the preferred mobile devices for web searching activities.”

Live market appraising is the first vAuto module developed as a mobile application for no additional monthly subscription charge for vAuto users. It is available for download from the App Store on iTunes.

All vAuto customers now have the opportunity to utilize the fully integrated market based appraising functionality from their Apple touch device. In addition to traditional third-party guidebooks and auction values, the application features vAuto’s exclusive rBook, which allows customers to appraise with the mindset of “how to get out of a car before you get in.” The mobile application functionality also includes the proprietary barcode VIN capture method that automatically decodes and uploads to vAuto.

“The vAuto mobile application saves me a tremendous amount of time while at auctions,” notes Bill Pearson, owner of Finishline Ford in Peoria, IL. “Its design is consistent with the Velocity Method of Management – access to live market data down to the level of trim and equipment combined with used car market days supply, allowing us to make the critical decisions on what to stock and how much to pay.”

Click to expand...

Headquartered in the Chicago suburb of Oak Brook, IL., vAuto also maintains a research and development center in Austin, Texas. The company’s “Live Market View” technology currently allows more than 3,000 dealers to manage their used-car inventories based on comprehensive supply-and-demand information mined by vAuto for their specific market area. Details on millions of pre-owned vehicles are maintained and updated on a daily basis within vAuto’s database.

The nation’s five highest-volume franchised dealerships by brand currently use vAuto pricing, appraisal, stocking, and merchandising systems. vAuto was recently ranked number 22 in Inc. Magazine’s 2009 annual ranking of the fastest- growing, privately held companies in America. The company’s chairman and founder, Dale Pollak maintains a blog for the discussion of used-car trends at www.dalepollak.com. More information on vAuto is available at www.vAuto.com.

Redwood City, CA, May 25, 2010 – Dealix, a Division of Cobalt and the leading provider of automotive customer leads for new and used cars, announced today additional features for its award-winning Hassle Free Lead Return program. Features included in the upgrade, Hassle Free Lead Return TM 2.0, include enhancements that respond to dealer requests for longer periods in which to submit leads and easier ways to return leads.

Dealix launched the Quality Pledge in September 2009. The Quality Pledge specifies that dealers should only receive leads that can result in a car sale, and is backed by a feature set – Hassle Free Lead Return – that allows dealers to return leads that do not meet a criterion of the Quality Pledge. Collectively, the products allow dealers to make sure their lead baskets are optimized during the course of the month, and provide Dealix real-time data with which to manage its lead supply. The popular program was honored with a Market Innovation award by TargusINFO and has seen widespread adoption. Nearly 2,000 dealers are now returning leads each month. Key enhancements in version 2.0 of Hassle Free Lead Return, which were the result of dealer feedback, include:

Increased the time frame for returning leads from seven to 14 days. This gives dealers more time to work and close the leads; Reduced the amount of documentation required to prove a duplicate return. Dealers no longer need to provide a copy of the original lead when they submit a lead for return. They just need to provide original lead date, time and source; and Added ability to enter comments with lead returns, allowing dealers to provide more information about their experience with the lead which enables Dealix to process the lead faster

“With the Quality Pledge, we sought to place the bar for a qualified lead very high. We knew the program was unprecedented and that we would learn how to enhance it as our customers used it and told us about their experience,” said Egon Smola, vice president, New & Used Car Leads Business. “It’s really important to us that the program works for our dealers – fits in with their workflow and, in the end, saves them time and allows them to make more money.”

Click to expand...

The program is having a positive impact on sales for Dealix customers. In a recent survey of dealers using the Hassle Free Lead Return program 86% reported that they are able to realize a higher ROI with the Hassle Free Lead Return program because they’re able to replace returned leads with new ones without increasing their spend.

In addition, the Hassle Free Lead Return program is changing dealers’ expectations around what level of service they should receive from lead providers. Nearly seven out of 10 respondents said they will not use a service in the future that lacks a Quality Pledge or robust lead return program.

“The Quality Pledge represents the best offering in the industry and is why I went with Dealix,” said Michael T. Halloran, E-Commerce Director, The Napleton Dealership Group. “I have dropped all other lead providers because of the Dealix Quality Pledge.”

About Dealix
Dealix, a division of Cobalt, is the world’s leading provider of quality leads for new and used cars for dealerships, dealer groups, and automotive manufacturers. Dealix is the only Internet marketing company that backs its new and used car leads with the Dealix Quality PledgeTM: a distinct set of criteria that defines a quality lead and an invitation to use Hassle Free Lead ReturnTM if a lead lacks any one of those criteria. The company can offer this Pledge because it has the broadest reach and the highest quality lead supply network in the industry, including Yahoo! Autos, Kelley Blue Book, Edmunds.com, AOL Autos, MSN Autos, and others. Dealix powers the dealer selector and price quote platforms on Yahoo! Autos, AOL Autos and MSN Autos; represents Edmunds’ Premier Dealer Program; and places dealers’ used inventory in the Kelley Blue Book The Trusted MarketplaceSM. Dealix connects dealers with the millions of car shoppers who prefer independent Internet sites when shopping for new cars and used cars online. Dealix’s all new Leads Platform quickly matches thousands of serious new and used vehicle buyers to the most appropriate dealers daily, delivering a quality car buying experience for consumers and providing dealers with one of the most efficient methods available today for marketing and selling cars.
CONTACT: Ellen Perelman Vice President, Marketing
Dealix 650.599.5416