A friend asked me to take a look at their internet operation. I was given remote access to their CRM. I couldn't believe was I was seeing. Most of the functions within the CRM hadn't been set up. Many of the reports including ROI were not functional. They just need to call their rep to resolve that.
The first thing I noticed was a terrible closing ratio. No matter what source, nothing closed at an acceptable ratio. They don't have a call monitoring program, so you can't listen to calls. The ISM can just mark that they made a call but there is no way to verify it. Obviously, you can't listen to it. They don't use automated responses. I picked an ISM and started looking at the initial response. They were all the same. They all thanked the customer for the inquiry and complemented them on their choice of vehicles and showed a picture of that model and said, we have this one. That is it. No description. No price. No call to action ....nothing! I thought that I can't judge their department by one ISM but they were all doing the same thing. This was followed by another email saying to expect a call from their assistant for addition information. The name of the assistant was the Internet Director for the store. I saw another email that asked to we have the correct email address? These two emails were sent over and over.
After thinking back over recent conversations, I decided that they are trying to work internet customers like retail, walk-in, customers. They are purposely avoiding giving the customer any information especially price.
Not having a dog in the race, I really don't want to discuss this with them. I haven't seen anyone that was able to work internet customers like walk-in customers and do it effectively. If this is their philosophy, I'm at a loss. Diplomacy has never been my strength and I can only see this causing hard feelings.
The first thing I noticed was a terrible closing ratio. No matter what source, nothing closed at an acceptable ratio. They don't have a call monitoring program, so you can't listen to calls. The ISM can just mark that they made a call but there is no way to verify it. Obviously, you can't listen to it. They don't use automated responses. I picked an ISM and started looking at the initial response. They were all the same. They all thanked the customer for the inquiry and complemented them on their choice of vehicles and showed a picture of that model and said, we have this one. That is it. No description. No price. No call to action ....nothing! I thought that I can't judge their department by one ISM but they were all doing the same thing. This was followed by another email saying to expect a call from their assistant for addition information. The name of the assistant was the Internet Director for the store. I saw another email that asked to we have the correct email address? These two emails were sent over and over.
After thinking back over recent conversations, I decided that they are trying to work internet customers like retail, walk-in, customers. They are purposely avoiding giving the customer any information especially price.
Not having a dog in the race, I really don't want to discuss this with them. I haven't seen anyone that was able to work internet customers like walk-in customers and do it effectively. If this is their philosophy, I'm at a loss. Diplomacy has never been my strength and I can only see this causing hard feelings.
