Hello all. I just stumbled upon this site the other day and have been lurking ever since. I was hoping maybe I could get a little feedback from some of you. I've just become the ISM at a dealership that basically had no internet department before. I was hoping I could get some advice on some steps I could take to help make this a success. So far I've been in contact with both my Cars.com and AutoTrader.com reps and Im reviewing our performance and plans. I've made sure we have a presence on facebook and our "likes" are growing daily. I've gone through and made sure we are pricing cars online, before I arrived we had the dreaded "Call for Pricing" on all of our cars. Any ideas on other things I can be doing?
Advice for a new ISM?
- Thread starter NickHolloman
- Start date
- Mar 7, 2012
- 158
- 34
- First Name
- Mike
Welcome to Dealer Refresh Nick. You're question is good, in that it's important to know you need help, but this forum will better serve you if you can work through one specific issue at a time. We don't know what you are doing, what your authorized to change, what your not doing, what you process is, etc. That said, the first thing I would do is make sure you have baseline metrics on all the data you intend to improve. Cars.com and Autotrader reports are great, but they're only a small piece of the puzzle. You need to know what your current web traffic is from month to month, what your vistor conversion rate is, your average lead count, lead to appointment percentage, appointment to show percentage, and overall internet based lead close rate. Once you know where you are in all these areas, you can begin improving them. If there is a specific area you feel you need some help, let us know and we'll gladly chime in. Are you solely responsible for the internet, or is there an internet sales director that you report to? Basicly, do you have to ask someone before purchasing a product for your department, or do you manage the budget?
Thanks for the reply. Im in charge of all aspects of our internet, though spending has to be approved by our owner right now. She has been in the car business all of her life and definitely has that old school mentality, though she is realizing she has to change with the times. I've run successful internet departments in the pass for corporate stores, but so much seems to have changed with the addition and popularity of mobile shopping and what not. I guess Im just looking for that little something that I may be missing, I have so much free time in the day that I feel like I could be utilizing to grow our online business.
- Feb 11, 2012
- 12
- 4
- First Name
- Sarah
Mike brings up some very important topics that you should be reviewing to get a good feel on how your store is doing. Do you have a designated Internet Team, or structure for your Internet Department and lead handling process?
- Apr 1, 2012
- 144
- 35
- First Name
- Cody
Do some keyword research, and make sure that you are ranking as high as you could be. One of the best ones to move the needle is "used cars city," as in "Used Cars Boston." Ranking #1 for that search term can definitely impact your sales. If you are already #1, then look at your Webmaster tools, and see how often you show up #1. Sometimes that number is shocking.
- Mar 7, 2012
- 158
- 34
- First Name
- Mike
Without knowing anything about your process or progress, I would suggest the best way to make an impact with a lot of extra time on your hands would be to involve yourself more in each lead. Set up a task to fire in your CRM system that requires you make a day 2 or day 3 phone call, then follow it with a personal and unique email. Customers like to hear from someone in management, and a "from the internet manager" email can sometimes go a long way. Set up alerts that will draw your attention if an email goes unresponded for x amount of time. Make sure nothing is slipping through the cracks. Improving your current close rate will have the most immediate effect on the bottom line. Spending time getting facebook likes and updating your twitter feed is something that will help in the long term. I would think that being new, you would want to first make a good impression. Step two would be find a way to get more leads and keep your close rate the same. In your eyes, what do you feel is the biggest area of opportunity? Is there something that you feel is really being done wrong?
