What happens when the customer says no to your equity offer?

[Alex Snyder]

We keep running into the same story. A dealer has been on an equity mining or service drive tool for about a year. The first few months looked great. Now results are dropping fast, and text opt-outs are climbing.

No wonder... the customer comes in for an oil change and gets an upgrade offer. The monthly equity email shows up. On the next visit, there’s another offer. Most people ignore the text, but the system keeps firing the same message later. They finally opt out.

We have found that 1 in 8 service customers buy in the next 12 months. The other 7 are going to say no, and a lot of them hear the pitch every time they come in. The tool counts the deals it finds. It doesn’t count the customers it wears out. When those customers text STOP, your service reminders usually stop going out to them too.

• Are you tracking opt-outs to your equity texts? Have they climbed since you started?
• Does messaging change on subsequent customer visits?
• Is the tool only focused on trades/acquisitions? Does it present other options for the customer?

 

[Chris Apostalides]

I feel there needs to be more thoughtful targeting if you are mining from the service drive. Using a tool that automatically texts every opt-in as soon as an RO is opened can quickly be overwhelming for customers. Blanket targeting is no better than EDDM mail. It's just throwing a bunch of shit at the wall and hoping something happens.

Dealers should target based on specific criteria.

• What is the age and mileage - how much work does the vehicle need?
• Do you have data on how many months left on their loan?
• Is it a vehicle you can sell vs. sitting on the lot?

It would be more productive to look at all the vehicles that come in and decide which ones you want to make an offer on. Tell the shopper you want to purchase that vehicle.

• Sally, you're 2021 Honda Accord is in high demand. We'd love to purchase it from you. Would you like us to send you an estimated offer? Reply with Yes or No.

I understand the broader picture is lead volume and selling vehicles, not only bringing in resalable units. But if you make an offer on 100% of people that hit your service drive you are going to start burning your DMS.

 

[Alex Snyder]

I think most systems have logic to determine which cars and customers to target based on age, mileage, and potential equity.

The problem is that they lack logic or paths for customers who aren't interested today. And many dealers don't think about that.

 

[ASNSoftware]

Disclosure up front: I work at ASN Software — we build the DMS/CRM a lot of independent and BHPH stores run on, and our AI Collector lives or dies on this exact problem, so this is from lived experience, not theory.

You're right about where the real cost lands. The STOP doesn't just end the pitch — it ends the service-reminder channel too, and that customer is still a service customer. Counting deals found while ignoring customers worn out is how a tool looks great for a year and then quietly burns the base.

Three things we'd fix before blaming targeting:

1. Separate the streams. A "no" to a sales offer should never kill service reminders. Marketing and service/transactional messages need separate consent and separate STOP handling, so opting out of one doesn't nuke the other. If your tool can't do that, that's the first gap to close.

2. Give "no" a path, not a loop. When a customer declines, log it as a decision with a date — then suppress the pitch for a real interval (next visit or two, or 90 days) and switch that customer to service-only messages. A "not interested today" should change what happens next, not just get re-fired on the next RO.

3. Measure the burn alongside the wins. Track opt-outs per campaign and per visit, not just deals closed. If opt-outs climb while deals flatten, the campaign is eating the base it feeds on — that's the number that should decide whether a sequence keeps running.

The 7 of 8 who say no today are still worth keeping in the service lane. The stores that do this well treat the decline as data: record it, respect it, and let the next message be about the car they already own, not the one you want them to buy.