Floor traffic sales ratio question....

[Chris Vitale]

Working to confirm something and hoping for some insight from the community: Does anyone have their sold ratio for appointments that show up in person vs. those individuals which do not have an appointment but they still show up in person and buy?

With most dealers in my market not picking up the phone for web leads and business practice tweaks with COVID it's my stance that customers do in fact have appointments, the dealer just doesn't know about them. As such, the sold rate for appointment vs. non-appointment customers physically in the store should be fairly similar IF the dealer has a rock solid up process in place comparable to a rock solid appointment process.

Similar to the "kitchen table budget," customers have their "kitchen table appointment" and that's where they plan on shopping on a particular day and the spouse, kids, significant other, etc. knows about it and may even come with but the person received all necessary information without giving any information back and never set a "dealer" appointment.

Thanks in advance!

 

[shaughnessy2323]

Working to confirm something and hoping for some insight from the community: Does anyone have their sold ratio for appointments that show up in person vs. those individuals which do not have an appointment but they still show up in person and buy?

With most dealers in my market not picking up the phone for web leads and business practice tweaks with COVID it's my stance that customers do in fact have appointments, the dealer just doesn't know about them. As such, the sold rate for appointment vs. non-appointment customers physically in the store should be fairly similar IF the dealer has a rock solid up process in place comparable to a rock solid appointment process.

Similar to the "kitchen table budget," customers have their "kitchen table appointment" and that's where they plan on shopping on a particular day and the spouse, kids, significant other, etc. knows about it and may even come with but the person received all necessary information without giving any information back and never set a "dealer" appointment.

Thanks in advance!

I feel that this question cannot be answered based off what you just said, if they aren't picking up the phone for leads and general best practices they clearly don't have a "rock solid appointment process" in place. I am also curious as to what you mean by a "rock solid up process" reason I ask is every store I walk in I'm generally there 5-10 minutes walking around before I have to ask someone for help. A customer has an "appointment" when they have specific time, date, and person to meet at a store. Yes a customer may have a day(s) picked out they are going to shop for a car but I wouldn't call that an appointment. I see all of those marked as "walk-in" who had done research online (like most) prior to making dealership visits for the final steps of buying (test drive, numbers presentation and delivery) It's not like a doctor where they ask "did you have an appointment?" and if not they wont be helped. Because we both know that we would never turn down a potential buyer if they didn't have an appointment. Our business has always given that choice "Drive by" or "Appt" not to mention what if they used a fake name and number on their initial request then just show up? Is that because they didn't follow or have a process in place?

 

[Dan Sayer]

Working to confirm something and hoping for some insight from the community: Does anyone have their sold ratio for appointments that show up in person vs. those individuals which do not have an appointment but they still show up in person and buy?

With most dealers in my market not picking up the phone for web leads and business practice tweaks with COVID it's my stance that customers do in fact have appointments, the dealer just doesn't know about them. As such, the sold rate for appointment vs. non-appointment customers physically in the store should be fairly similar IF the dealer has a rock solid up process in place comparable to a rock solid appointment process.

Similar to the "kitchen table budget," customers have their "kitchen table appointment" and that's where they plan on shopping on a particular day and the spouse, kids, significant other, etc. knows about it and may even come with but the person received all necessary information without giving any information back and never set a "dealer" appointment.

Thanks in advance!

Not sure I follow. Are you basically asking about the differences in close rate for:

Appointments that show at the time agreed (whether phone, internet, or be-back)
Visits from Leads that submitted a lead but then just popped in with no two-way contact with the store prior
Visits from Leads that submitted a lead or called, had two-way contact, but didn't have an appointment and just popped in
Visits from Shoppers that didn't raise their hand prior and their first contact is on the lot or showroom

Oh, don't forget the Shopper set an appointment then popped in a day or several hours early

 

[Chris Vitale]

I feel that this question cannot be answered based off what you just said, if they aren't picking up the phone for leads and general best practices they clearly don't have a "rock solid appointment process" in place. I am also curious as to what you mean by a "rock solid up process" reason I ask is every store I walk in I'm generally there 5-10 minutes walking around before I have to ask someone for help. A customer has an "appointment" when they have specific time, date, and person to meet at a store. Yes a customer may have a day(s) picked out they are going to shop for a car but I wouldn't call that an appointment. I see all of those marked as "walk-in" who had done research online (like most) prior to making dealership visits for the final steps of buying (test drive, numbers presentation and delivery) It's not like a doctor where they ask "did you have an appointment?" and if not they wont be helped. Because we both know that we would never turn down a potential buyer if they didn't have an appointment. Our business has always given that choice "Drive by" or "Appt" not to mention what if they used a fake name and number on their initial request then just show up? Is that because they didn't follow or have a process in place?

No, you're misunderstanding what I'm asking. You can answer it because X percent have a scheduled appointment the dealer knows about and X do not but both people are walking in the front door. So, in a nutshell what I'm asking is what's the true and honest floor traffic closing ratio for non-appointment customers vs. appointment customers.

I'm not disagreeing on the other items you're talking about, I'm saying it's too deep in the weeds for most systems and most people. Think about it like this, when entering a customer and asking "how'd you hear about us" some dealers actually expect their people to find out the exact radio station they hear their a commercial on. Uh, yeah, okay.... Not only is that worthless info because they'll never remember it but for the stupid small percentage of the people that do, who cares? It's not a good representation of anything. My solution is to simply ask "radio" and "newspaper" vs. listing 12 radio stations and 3 different newspapers with the varying days of the week, etc.

People are "too" caught up in data and have no freaking clue how to take action on it anyway.... There, I said it, fight me. But, back to my original query, appointment sale percentage vs. no-appointment floor up sale percentage. That's all I'm looking for.

 

[Chris Vitale]

Not sure I follow. Are you basically asking about the differences in close rate for:

Appointments that show at the time agreed (whether phone, internet, or be-back)
Visits from Leads that submitted a lead but then just popped in with no two-way contact with the store prior
Visits from Leads that submitted a lead or called, had two-way contact, but didn't have an appointment and just popped in
Visits from Shoppers that didn't raise their hand prior and their first contact is on the lot or showroom

Oh, don't forget the Shopper set an appointment then popped in a day or several hours early

Yes and no, more no

I don't believe that level of detail is accurate nor actionable in a real honest to goodness forward environment. Here's what I'm looking for (and I am doing a bad job of asking it):

1. How many people buy that have an appointment.
2. How many people buy that don't have an appointment.

That's it. My basis is this theory, example and outcome:

Theory: everyone today has an appointment. You (the dealer) just don't know about it. Similar to the KTB (Kitchen Table Budget), just because you don't know about it doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Example: my wife and I are car shopping and I didn't schedule appointments at each dealer we plan on visiting (different makes). But it's on our calendars and we're blocked off this weekend to purchase a car.

Outcome: we're buying a car, price, experience, comfort, etc. are all contributing factors. So is efficiency. Nothing is any different than if I had an appointment which the dealer knew about. The important part, the only important part, is the fact WE know about our appointment. We've scheduled to do this and accomplish this.

So, remove what you know, think, are told or suspect and simply look at a 40 car Saturday. How many of those deals had an appointment to come look at a car and how many bought without having an appointment.

Now, if your store has a solid "fresh up" or "unscheduled visit" process which mirrors that of a customer with an appointment then my contention is your numbers should be about 50/50.

 

[Dan Sayer]

Yes and no, more no

I don't believe that level of detail is accurate nor actionable in a real honest to goodness forward environment. Here's what I'm looking for (and I am doing a bad job of asking it):

1. How many people buy that have an appointment.
2. How many people buy that don't have an appointment.

That's it. My basis is this theory, example and outcome:

Theory: everyone today has an appointment. You (the dealer) just don't know about it. Similar to the KTB (Kitchen Table Budget), just because you don't know about it doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Example: my wife and I are car shopping and I didn't schedule appointments at each dealer we plan on visiting (different makes). But it's on our calendars and we're blocked off this weekend to purchase a car.

Outcome: we're buying a car, price, experience, comfort, etc. are all contributing factors. So is efficiency. Nothing is any different than if I had an appointment which the dealer knew about. The important part, the only important part, is the fact WE know about our appointment. We've scheduled to do this and accomplish this.

So, remove what you know, think, are told or suspect and simply look at a 40 car Saturday. How many of those deals had an appointment to come look at a car and how many bought without having an appointment.

Now, if your store has a solid "fresh up" or "unscheduled visit" process which mirrors that of a customer with an appointment then my contention is your numbers should be about 50/50.

It may be a stretch to simplify down to those two as data points in day-to-day retail use. I mean as an analogy, kinda like I use "an internet and phone up are just lot-ups you get to talk to before they come in", your KTB may be something I use.

As to the numbers, I have VinSolutions so reporting isn't as easy for what you are asking (if you consider unique verses total):

In the last 90-days as a group, we had 2,266 Appts Shown and 1,149 Appts Sold. Vin doesn't allow for separation of Unique Appts so there are probably some Be-Back Appts in there. Talking totals though, we sold 50.7% of Appts.

Also within 90-days as a group, we had 4,391 Visits, with or without an Appt. That leaves 2,125 Visits with no Appt. We sold another 545 units to that segment. That would give us a 25.6% close rate on Visits with no Appt.

For good measure I'll thrown in that we had 3,502 unique individuals with at least one visit and sold 1,694 for an overall actual unique close rate, regardless of source, of 48.4%

Your 50/50 guess would be spot on (51.6% of Total Visits had an appointment) but that doesn't consider unique counts and I don't have a way to find unique Appt counts to put against unique Visits.

Oh, and I'm in search of phone training and tracking so give me a shout...

 

[CoachWilliam]

Yes and no, more no

I don't believe that level of detail is accurate nor actionable in a real honest to goodness forward environment. Here's what I'm looking for (and I am doing a bad job of asking it):

1. How many people buy that have an appointment.
2. How many people buy that don't have an appointment.

That's it. My basis is this theory, example and outcome:

Theory: everyone today has an appointment. You (the dealer) just don't know about it. Similar to the KTB (Kitchen Table Budget), just because you don't know about it doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Example: my wife and I are car shopping and I didn't schedule appointments at each dealer we plan on visiting (different makes). But it's on our calendars and we're blocked off this weekend to purchase a car.

Outcome: we're buying a car, price, experience, comfort, etc. are all contributing factors. So is efficiency. Nothing is any different than if I had an appointment which the dealer knew about. The important part, the only important part, is the fact WE know about our appointment. We've scheduled to do this and accomplish this.

So, remove what you know, think, are told or suspect and simply look at a 40 car Saturday. How many of those deals had an appointment to come look at a car and how many bought without having an appointment.

Now, if your store has a solid "fresh up" or "unscheduled visit" process which mirrors that of a customer with an appointment then my contention is your numbers should be about 50/50.

Stimulating article, Chris. Love the dialogue!

 

[Baron Ringler]

Working to confirm something and hoping for some insight from the community: Does anyone have their sold ratio for appointments that show up in person vs. those individuals which do not have an appointment but they still show up in person and buy?

With most dealers in my market not picking up the phone for web leads and business practice tweaks with COVID it's my stance that customers do in fact have appointments, the dealer just doesn't know about them. As such, the sold rate for appointment vs. non-appointment customers physically in the store should be fairly similar IF the dealer has a rock solid up process in place comparable to a rock solid appointment process.

Similar to the "kitchen table budget," customers have their "kitchen table appointment" and that's where they plan on shopping on a particular day and the spouse, kids, significant other, etc. knows about it and may even come with but the person received all necessary information without giving any information back and never set a "dealer" appointment.

Thanks in advance!

It's a differentiation between 'soft' and 'hard' appointments. Reps usually don't put in the soft ones because next thing you know a manager is hammering them because the customer didn't show up.

Personally, I like having the soft ones logged, so I know what the communications are. But the show to appointment ratio is a means to an end, not an end. The only number that is truly important is the sold of opportunity. Of course, you are likely to sell more with solid appointments (means to an end), but it isn't necessarily a pre-requisite to good results.

 

[Marc Lavoie]

I dug up an old LinkedIn post of mine. Here's how we count these in my VBDC. There are many ways to do it, and it's also far from perfect but as long as it makes sense and you can improve on these numbers, I think it's a good starting point. @Baron Ringler your comment makes a lot of sense, log everything and deal with them accordingly.

 

[J Picciotti]

It's a differentiation between 'soft' and 'hard' appointments. Reps usually don't put in the soft ones because next thing you know a manager is hammering them because the customer didn't show up.

Personally, I like having the soft ones logged, so I know what the communications are. But the show to appointment ratio is a means to an end, not an end. The only number that is truly important is the sold of opportunity. Of course, you are likely to sell more with solid appointments (means to an end), but it isn't necessarily a pre-requisite to good results.

You are right that it is not a prerequisite. However, most of these buyers do bring some emotion to the table when it comes to a purchase like this. When we start them off of the right foot by building that relationship on the phone. Were likely to have a positive outcome at the end of the day. First impressions are huge and if we can get off on the right foot then were in a way better place.