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Orphaned Owners

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#2
First off, DO NOT send an email to customers every time their salesperson changes. I get these from multiple dealerships, and I can say two things about it:

1) I don't give a shit that my subpar salesman left, and now you want to give me an even more subpar one
2) When it happens enough to be memorable, it leaves the impression you can't retain employees, and something is wrong

I think removing this practice alone would make your dealership superior to so many others.

Instead of having an orphaned process, I'd prefer to see a long-time ownership cycle process that works with the service department. I may or may not know of something that does help in that endeavor ;) ...with plans to get supremely enhanced.

But think of ditching all the orphan stuff in favor of something that provides relevant communication to customers who have been driving their cars for less than 18 months and have zero sales focus. People mostly like their new car for 18 months. After 18 months, you can begin soft-selling.
 
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#3
Alex Snyder said:
First off, DO NOT send an email to customers every time their salesperson changes. I get these from multiple dealerships, and I can say two things about it:

1) I don't give a shit that my subpar salesman left, and now you want to give me an even more subpar one
2) When it happens enough to be memorable, it leaves the impression you can't retain employees, and something is wrong

I think removing this practice alone would make your dealership superior to so many others.

Instead of having an orphaned process, I'd prefer to see a long-time ownership cycle process that works with the service department. I may or may not know of something that does help in that endeavor ;) ...with plans to get supremely enhanced.

But think of ditching all the orphan stuff in favor of something that provides relevant communication to customers who have been driving their cars for less than 18 months and have zero sales focus. People mostly like their new car for 18 months. After 18 months, you can begin soft-selling.
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Definitely like having your service for those customers since there isn't much better of a repeat customer than one who is also a service customer (as long as your service department doesn't suck :lmao:)

We never quite did the merry-go-round of salespeople, but I did try giving them to my most long-term people. That didn't work either. I tried doing it myself, but that's too much. So right now, I don't have one at all really. So my process REALLY sucks. :rofl:
 
#6
BillKVMotorCo said:
Ha ha. I just hate that they get 0 after the sale follow-up after the salesperson leaves. We pride ourselves on service after the sale.
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I hear ya. I'm partially joking. All I'm asking is to consider not thinking "Orphans" and start thinking "Long Term Customers." This mindset will help you think about everyone instead of a minor subset that was beaten into us because CRM systems suck.
 
#7
Alex Snyder said:
I hear ya. I'm partially joking. All I'm asking is to consider not thinking "Orphans" and start thinking "Long Term Customers." This mindset will help you think about everyone instead of a minor subset that was beaten into us because CRM systems suck.
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I completely get what you are saying. I definitely value them as long-term customers which is why I don't piss-pound any of our guests with anything that I don't believe adds value to THEM.
 
#8
This whole process exists purely from nostalgia when sales people sent out physical mail and managed their customer lists. When I first joined the industry I remember seeing how everyone did this. I think it is from a fear the sales person would take the dealership's customers with them to their next store. So this got added to CRMs and the dealers would yell at managers to email customers before they went to _____ down the road.

The avg sales cycle time > avg employee retention time and no one is staying loyal because a FNG sent a sick intro email. A lot of these lists were invented just to keep sales people busy during slower times. Anyone that's actually called/emailed a ton of orphaned owners knows there are 50+ more productive things to spend time on.
 
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#9
jon.berna said:
This whole process exists purely from nostalgia when sales people sent out physical mail and managed their customer lists. When I first joined the industry I remember seeing how everyone did this. I think it is from a fear the sales person would take the dealership's customers with them to their next store. So this got added to CRMs and the dealers would yell at managers to email customers before they went to _____ down the road.

The avg sales cycle time > avg employee retention time and no one is staying loyal because a FNG sent a sick intro email. A lot of these lists were invented just to keep sales people busy during slower times. Anyone that's actually called/emailed a ton of orphaned owners knows there are 50+ more productive things to spend time on.
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Can't disagree with any of this. I just can't stand the idea of someone thinking we just forgot about them after they bought. Maybe I just need to let it go.
 
#10
Another key element is that orphaned lists were created in the 90s to 00s before dealerships considered the difference between a marketing qualified lead and a sales qualified lead. So everyone was just considered a sales qualified lead and blasted.

As a prior customer they are in the middle so you can be personal but you can't just start selling a car or ask to come in the dealership without first giving them a reason why. From a sales person's perspective they want to talk to warm SQLs not cold MQLs. Alex already hit on tactics for this, audience based campaigns really shine here and after the customer identifies themselves they pass into SQL and the new sales person can roll.
 
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