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Internet Lead Follow-up

To Brian's original post, I would be very concerned with a salesperson who thinks a call a day is too much.

I have several clients in the midwest doing significantly more than that and the results have been staggering in a positive way.

Two metrics that you should look at, but are somewhat difficult to generate, as most CRMs don't offer them, are "days to contact" and "days to sold".

A lot of these posts are referencing the old best practice of a 90 day buying cycle. With all due respect,this is a myth. If you have a dialed in process for the first 5 days, you'll find the overwhelming majority of your buyers will be contacted in the first 5 days.

All the data I'm seeing recently tells me that if a prospect is contacting you, by phone or email, they are interviewing salespeople/dealerships. They are not researching.

In the end, it's up to the individual dealership. Do you want to be reactive or proactive?
 
All the data I'm seeing recently tells me that if a prospect is contacting you, by phone or email, they are interviewing salespeople/dealerships. They are not researching.

In the end, it's up to the individual dealership. Do you want to be reactive or proactive?

What data would you have to support this 5 day claim. From my dealership statistics we see a large percentage of customers who buy right away AND a bigger percentage who buy from us 30,60,90 days down the road.

Uncle Joe spoke about this recently when he said that Internet leads are down across the board. Customers are doing research online and visit 20-ish sites before visiting a dealership.

Let's think about this...if they only visit 1.8 dealerships before buying and leads are down we can conclude that the shopping wars are being waged with web content. Customers are shopping on their timeframe NOT ours. They may go online to a site, submit a lead for info and vanish off the face of the earth. It's amazing how many customers come back months later after many unanswered attempts to contact - ready to buy.

We can no longer assume that customers follow a linear path to purchase. Customers have gotten smarter and demand more of the dealership they will spend money with.

Thanks Joe for bringing this up last week. IMHO, we either adapt or die. Let's hope our OEMs get on board and let us make the content changes to promote increased short/long term contact.... If Acura is listening it'd tell them to add "MY CARS" to our sites and give the customer what they want.

EASY shopping involves great content. Great content promotes contact. Good contact turns into appointments. I like my chances to close a deal if I am part of the 1.8 stores my customer visits. 'Nuff said.
 
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...Uncle Joe spoke about this recently when he said that Internet leads are down across the board. Customers are doing research online and visit 20-ish sites before visiting a dealership.

Let's think about this...if they only visit 1.8 dealerships before buying and leads are down we can conclude that the shopping wars are being waged with web content. Customers are shopping on their timeframe NOT ours. They may go online to a site, submit a lead for info and vanish off the face of the earth. It's amazing how many customers come back months later after many unanswered attempts to contact - ready to buy...

...EASY shopping involves great content. Great content promotes contact. Good contact turns into appointments. I like my chances to close a deal if I am part of the 1.8 stores my customer visits. 'Nuff said.

You nailed it Grant. This is EXACTLY why I fell in love with Lings Cars years ago.

Only Ling would say "to hell with the corporate thinking" and lets have some fun with a front page lease promo of a Delorean DELOREAN DMC-12 LEASING 2.8 i V6 (170bhp) Gullwing Coupe (2-seat) 2dr 2849cc Petrol Manual contract hire & Car lease offers at LINGsCARS.com

Love her disclaimer.

p.s. This need for "great content" is what drives social. BUT... our stores operate under a "corporate persona". For me, this is yet another reason why Social Efforting for car dealers will always have a sh*tty ROI.
 
EASY shopping involves great content. Great content promotes contact. Good contact turns into appointments. I like my chances to close a deal if I am part of the 1.8 stores my customer visits. 'Nuff said.
Like Joe said, "you nailed it". I haven't heard anybody challenging the 1.8 stores but when you ask what their closing ratio should be you get a blank stare. This is where processes and having trained professionals come into play.
 
@Grant...month in month out our clients find well over 90% of their sold internet leads are contacted in the first 5 days. Once contact is made its all about urgency and giving the customer the reason to use one of those 1.8 visits with you.