No scheduling apps for sales? ‍

[Ryan Everson]

You make a great point, and I think this will become a lot more important in the coming years as more of a "sales operations" tool. Right now the flow might be lead comes in, BDC schedules appointment, sales floor takes it. In the future, it might be more direct; lead comes in pre-qualified, with a timeframe, car(s) to view are selected, porters are dispatched to have vehicle ready and conditioned by appointment, customer info already in the system and numbers already prepared. Customers aren't coming in to look, they're coming in to close. The whole process can tighten, and allows more time for sales people to deliver a vehicle and improve customer sat scores.

Tesla lets customers schedule a test drive based on live appointment availability, and then they schedule another appointment for vehicle pickup or delivery based on available timeslots.

Even though most dealers don’t have a coverage or sales appointment capacity issue, what would a more formalized calendly-like appointment booking process do to appointment set and show rates?

 

[Chris Cachor]

Tesla lets customers schedule a test drive based on live appointment availability, and then they schedule another appointment for vehicle pickup or delivery based on available timeslots.

Even though most dealers don’t have a coverage or sales appointment capacity issue, what would a more formalized calendly-like appointment booking process do to appointment set and show rates?

Yea, that was mainly our experience. My wife bought a Model 3 in December last year, but we know the GM at the Tesla location by us, so things were tweaked a bit.

But I was impressed with the delivery experience, app integration, and overall process. They've polished it to remove whatever friction they can. I think that last part is long overdue for dealers. I think the delivery took us all of 20 minutes. We got there, all docs prepared, we inspected the car and signed. They had the car ready with a bow on it. We had a trade, they didn't even look at it. Tesla quotes wholesale for trades, so I think they just ship them right to auction.

I don't think my wife will buy a car any other way again. It's not a deal breaker for me, but I definitely walked away thinking about what can be tightened up and how.

 

[Alex Snyder]

Thank you, I'll see if this works.

Last time we tried adding a dynamic link like this, we ran into an issue where VinSolutions was encoding each URL with their own link structure, which ended up breaking the URL.
@Alex Snyder — didn't you run into the same issue with FrikinTech early on? How did you work around it?

We had to build an entire Chrome browser plugin to remove Vinsolution's bug. We haven't needed our plugin in a while, so they may have fixed it.

 

[Rick Buffkin]

Does Vin send out automated appointment confirmation reminders via text? We use ELead and for unconfirmed appointments, Customers get a Appt Confirmation text the day before, another the morning of and another and hour before the appointment. If the customer no shows / misses the Appt, a missed appointment text goes out with a link for them to reschedule the appointment themselves. Right now, the textbot is confirming about 40 - 45% of our appointments.

 

[joe.pistell]

Related: My pilot store just got a bad review. Shopper makes appt with rep, the next day they drive 2 hrs, land in the store, the store is packed, they wait 45 mins to find someone else bought the car.

Store is super busy (going to break a 10yr sales record).

Takeaway: Appointment system needs to be 'VIN aware' and communicate to all parties.

THIS IS EASY FOR AI TO DO.

 

[Rick Buffkin]

Related: My pilot store just got a bad review. Shopper makes appt with rep, the next day they drive 2 hrs, land in the store, the store is packed, they wait 45 mins to find someone else bought the car.

Store is super busy (going to break a 10yr sales record).

Takeaway: Appointment system needs to be 'VIN aware' and communicate to all parties.

Eleads has this built into text message notifications as well to the customer.

 

[willandre]

You make a great point, and I think this will become a lot more important in the coming years as more of a "sales operations" tool. Right now the flow might be lead comes in, BDC schedules appointment, sales floor takes it. In the future, it might be more direct; lead comes in pre-qualified, with a timeframe, car(s) to view are selected, porters are dispatched to have vehicle ready and conditioned by appointment, customer info already in the system and numbers already prepared. Customers aren't coming in to look, they're coming in to close. The whole process can tighten, and allows more time for sales people to deliver a vehicle and improve customer sat scores.

Yeah, it feels like we're finally heading in that direction. There's so much digital retailing firepower prequalifying/research happening now it seems like inspection >> test drive >> F&I >> delivery could be a really pleasant dealership experience if executed right.

 

[Chris Cachor]

Yeah, it feels like we're finally heading in that direction. There's so much digital retailing firepower prequalifying/research happening now it seems like inspection >> test drive >> F&I >> delivery could be a really pleasant dealership experience if executed right.

I think it's important this can either happen in-app or on the dealer's website. Right now dealer sites are just marketing tools but I think they'll become better integrated with the sales process, ex: trade offers, as well as uploading any documents required for pre-sales.

 

[Marc Lavoie]

Maybe I totally missed the point of this thread but booking appointments for sales is quite easy. We've been doing that for more than a year now 100% with AI.

Since Jan 1st 2025, 42% of inbound leads have been booked to sales appointments within the first 15 minutes, applies to sales & service.

Check out these AI car dealership case studies if you're curious.

 

[willandre]

Maybe I totally missed the point of this thread but booking appointments for sales is quite easy. We've been doing that for more than a year now 100% with AI.

Since Jan 1st 2025, 42% of inbound leads have been booked to sales appointments within the first 15 minutes, applies to sales & service.

Check out these AI car dealership case studies if you're curious.

My point is there is a puzzling (pardon the pun ) lack of adoption of common scheduling tools in sales. Something as simple as "Schedule an appointment to see this car, and here is your calendar invite" is not widely embraced.