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10 Tips to Improve Internet Response Times in 2010

mattwatson81

Getting Refreshed
Apr 10, 2009
334
10
First Name
Matt
To start 2010, how about 10 Tips to Improve Internet Response Times in 2010!


1. Text messages and email alerts - Immediately notify yourself when new leads are received
2. Manually sending an email or logging a phone call attempt counts as a response. (Auto-responder emails don’t count.)
3. Respond to leads from your smart phone if your CRM supports it
4. Lead “buckets” - Don’t assign leads to any particular person but instead put them in a bucket and whichever sales rep gets to it first, gets it!
5. Use a fully mobile enabled CRM system that allows you to view complete lead details, send emails and log phone calls.
6. Unresponded lead alerts - Setup your CRM to email a manager if leads aren’t responded to within a certain timeframe.
7. Alert prompts within your CRM – Receive popup notifications automatically when new leads arrive.
8. Use a phone calling service that can instantly call the customer when a lead is received. Response times can be <5 minutes!
9. Netbook – Use a netbook or laptop on to the go to respond to leads
10. 3rd party monitoring services – They can ensure all leads are being responded to on time. (Some even offer 24 hours monitoring.)
 
Matt,

All great ideas!

4. Lead “buckets” - Don’t assign leads to any particular person but instead put them in a bucket and whichever sales rep gets to it first, gets it!
I have been preaching this for YEARS now, yet alot of dealers are still on the old round-robin. They want to be "fair" to their salespeople. That is just BS. If a dealership gets XXX number of leads and is on round robin, the salespeople all know that they will always get XX number of leads.

Want your salespeople to show up on time? Start a lead bucket - the leads that came in overnight will become hot commodities.

Want your salespeople to stay a little later? Start a lead bucket - they will stay to see if anymore leads come in.

Want your salespeople to stop taking 2 hour lunches, and 30 min smoking breaks? Start a lead bucket!
 
I agree with both of you guys. There is one thing that the dealership should be watching for, and that's if you get one person who starts hogging the bulk of the leads. If they get too many leads they won't be able to properly follow-up with them all. They become fat dumb and happy and start picking the low lying fruit.

I like to see the managers be in control of the lead bucket. When one comes in, they decide who to give it to. This way they can make sure the person is ready, willing and able. Plus they can maintain a somewhat even distribution amongst the team.

Did you get a haircut Matt, something seems different about you today?
 
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Matt,

All great ideas!

I have been preaching this for YEARS now, yet alot of dealers are still on the old round-robin. They want to be "fair" to their salespeople. That is just BS. If a dealership gets XXX number of leads and is on round robin, the salespeople all know that they will always get XX number of leads.

Want your salespeople to show up on time? Start a lead bucket - the leads that came in overnight will become hot commodities.

Want your salespeople to stay a little later? Start a lead bucket - they will stay to see if anymore leads come in.

Want your salespeople to stop taking 2 hour lunches, and 30 min smoking breaks? Start a lead bucket!

What if your mobile CRM supported the lead bucket and you could claim the lead on your smart phone and then respond to it?

Now you have a bunch of salespeople that can jump on a lead very quickly. ;)
 
I mentioned this in another thread. My dealership has 2 dedicated internet managers that handle the leads. Increases response time and gives sales people more floor time. The other thing to help increase sales is mystery shop. The service that Jerry offers is a very good thing to keep your people on their toes. I am trying to get our general manager to budget for a company to shop our competition.
 
What if your mobile CRM supported the lead bucket and you could claim the lead on your smart phone and then respond to it?

Now you have a bunch of salespeople that can jump on a lead very quickly. ;)

And if you have one guy/gal that's faster than everyone else, he/she will still possibly take more than they can handle. That's why management should be keeping an eye on this.
 
I agree that a Lead Bucket is necessary. I was involved with the implementation of one some 5 years ago, and through trial and error, we found that making the leads competitive in some way, drastically improved our response time. We monitered the response times for the whole sales staff, and then dropped off those that did not preform as well. Once we did that, the ones left were all over the leads, and by default we created a "lead team". We also monitored the content of the replies for grammar, spelling etc. Our lead bucket did not allow more than one lead to be worked at a time, and you had to complete a response and reply before taking another one. We made the lead bucket web-based, and then allowed the salespeople to access it, and the inventory from home. Hungry salespeople gave live responses, at all hours of the day and night.
 
I agree with Jerry. The lead bucket addresses the "time for initial reply" metric, but, beware the smart and aggressive rep prowling for laydowns and brooming anyone that is hard to reach.

Another point of measurement are the thankless hours of working the idle-lead list. Most of this grunt work is off the radar. I have been thinking of ways to rev this difficult part of the business up.
 
Another point of measurement are the thankless hours of working the idle-lead list. Most of this grunt work is off the radar. I have been thinking of ways to rev this difficult part of the business up.

I have experimented with a few of the following, each work differently depending on the total process and the store buy-in.

1. Every XX days have another salesperson contact the customer. If the customer is appt and sold, the original salesperson still gets 1/2 deal (as long as there is consistent follow-up logged in the CRM)

2. All stall/old leads at XX days go into bucket. Make the bucket a reward type system and let those salespeople call on these people.

3. Manager call on EVERY customer that gets marked as lost / old / no response / bought elsewhere / etc.

Just a few ideas.

--Drew