Increasing Lead Responses

[boconnor]

Hey Everyone,

I've been reading the articles and forums for a while and have learned a good amount about the car sales industry.

I am six months into my job working at a dealership in the internet sales department which currently consists of myself and another salesman. However, I have a few questions. In what way to you measure your success in internet sales? Is it simply by how many deals you deliver a month, or just how many people you make contact with and get through the door?

Also, I have had some weeks where I schedule four or five appoinments and others where I can't even get a response from my leads. My main question would have to be; Do you have any strategies or techniques you use to help ensure that your internet leads respond to your emails and calls?

Thanks for your help in advanced, and sorry if I am unclear in certain parts. I am still learning the "lingo" of the car business.

 

[JesseJ]

How's it going? I'm in a nearly identical position to you. I've now been at my dealership for nearly 6 months as well. First time in the car business. The previous internet department was atrocious so by comparison I've done an exceptional job but I'm still learning as well. By internet department, I really just mean me. I can share some of the tips I've found helpful.

Regarding a best practice timeline, I do the conventional auto reply. Mine is customized, written in a very casual tone and encourages the customer to contact me even before they get my response. They rarely do, but sometimes they take action (About 1%). Next step is of course your personalized response which I can usually get sent within 5-10 minutes. Two key aspects to that are that you provide the quote, options, and details upfront. I usually link to the window sticker as well. I also usually throw in a used option. I'd say about 15% will respond to this within an hour, but ideally you want to call them within 15 minutes to half an hour. I can usually generate some sort of contact with 50% of leads the first day. That includes individuals who respond to my email or voicemail at night after work.

The important thing about the upfront quote, information, etc is that some people feel they have the info they wanted and will actually just show up even if they don't respond. Again, it's not a huge percentage but it helps. The other important thing is to keep your email simple with a very brief introduction of a sentence or two which concludes with a call to action. Would it be alright if I give you a call in about 15 minutes? What day and time works best for a test drive? Etc. These things aren't gold mines but you want as many different tactics as possible utilized to provoke a response.

A little about my phone process too. Rarely do I leave a voicemail on the first call. I usually note that I called, try to decipher if it was a cell, work, or home phone and try again in a few hours. If a leads received in the morning, I'll call three times (assuming it isn't a cell) and leave a message on the third. If it's a cell. Once when I get it and then again at the end of the day at which point I leave a message. I've called people five or six times over a week and a half before finally getting a hold of them and learned that they weren't avoiding me, they were actually just unavailable. It's worth it to persist.

Anyway, much of this is probably stuff you already know, but I figured I'd start the conversation. I have been able to consistently average just over 10 appointments a week out of about 100-150 leads/month.

 

[Jerry Thibeau]

Rarely do I leave a voicemail on the first call. I usually note that I called, try to decipher if it was a cell, work, or home phone and try again in a few hours. If a leads received in the morning, I'll call three times (assuming it isn't a cell) and leave a message on the third. If it's a cell. Once when I get it and then again at the end of the day at which point I leave a message. I've called people five or six times over a week and a half before finally getting a hold of them and learned that they weren't avoiding me, they were actually just unavailable. It's worth it to persist.

Call four times a day.

1st Call: Leave the following voice mail. "Hi this is (your full name) from (dealership name). I have some great news for you, please call me at your earliest convenience. If I don't hear from you this morning, I'll try again later today."

2nd Call: Try around lunch, try calling from your cell phone. Do not leave a message on this one. People get curious and will hit the redial button to see who called them. I want this call coming to your cell and not the operator.

3rd Call: Try in the afternoon from your cell phone again, this time before dialing the number, place a *67 in front of the number you are about to dial. This will block your caller ID. Some people take blocked calls out of curiosity. I do since a lot of dealers who call me have blocked numbers as do a few of my friends.

4th Call: Try in the evening since it might be a home number you are dialing. This time I will leave a second message similar to my first message, but at the end I will say, "if I don't hear from you tonight, I will try you again tomorrow."

Persistence does pay off and I would pat any guy on the back if a customer ever called to complain that a salesperson was hounding them too much.

I have been able to consistently average just over 10 appointments a week out of about 100-150 leads/month.

Your growth will come from scheduling more appointments with the leads you are already getting, and that can be accomplished with good phone training.

If you gentlemen would like a professional opinion on your Internet lead process, just go to my website and fill this form out: Mystery Shop Give me a couple days since I'll be on vacation soon, but I'll get it done.

 

[JesseJ]

Jerry, I just learned quite a bit from your phone ideas. I do always make the second call from the cell phone. The *67 idea is interesting. Doesn't leaving two voicemails over the course of a day seem like overkill? Out of curiosity Jerry, do you ever have customers who express agitation at this? I wonder only because this is a concern I likely need to get over.

 

[JesseJ]

Also, I think I will go ahead and fill out your mystery shop form.

 

[Jerry Thibeau]

Also, I think I will go ahead and fill out your mystery shop form.

One exception, you must be willing to share with the community so we can all give you feedback. I will post the results here in this thread for all to see and comment. You good with that?

 

[JesseJ]

Yeah that's fine. I'll also go ahead and bite. I use the good news line too from time to time but no one has ever actually called me out on it. What is a good response to what is the good news? A simple we have the vehicle in stock? We have a low price, etc?

 

[Jerry Thibeau]

Yes the great news can be anything you want to tell them, like what you mentioned above. A lot of time they never even ask. I had a dealer caller me back the other day when I used this technique on him. Heck I had a dealer use this on me recently and it worked.

 

[JesseJ]

I was thinking about doing the mystery shop awhile ago but at that point I was worried I'd fail miserably (which is why I should have done it). I think the phone skills have improved a bit, especially with blind leads from 3rd party sites. I've gotten good at extracting information.

 

[Jeff Kershner]

Would it be alright if I give you a call in about 15 minutes?

Right on Jesse. I have been training on this A-action for years. I believe some of my training and email "templates" have made their way into the hands of other trainers out there - but hey that's OK. As long as it helps the ones looking for help to improve. So why not place this U-urgency to serve the customer into your auto-responder?

Brian - This is question that gets answered in a book or here on the archives. I do encourage you to use our new Power Search for questions. There's 5 plus years of information on here between the blog and forum.

For a quick overview in tracking progress.

Lead Response Time
Lead to Contact
Lead to Appt
Appt to show

I also track Lead to Show.

Many times we do everything right but still get no response, no phone contact but your works still influenced the consumer to SHOW. You might not get paid on the Lead to Show but is a measurement I recommend tracking.