Automotive Internet Technologies

Imagine standing in a bright and clean dealership showroom. The display vehicles are glistening, without a single fingerprint. You’re approached by several neatly dressed salespeople who welcome you to the dealership, introduce themselves, and ask how they can help you. A factory trainer is standing off in one corner, helping a new salesperson develop her product presentation while several veteran Salespeople (who are taking a break from making follow-up calls) are encouraging the novice. “Approach every customer who comes into the dealership just like they’re ready to buy right now,” one of the seasoned pros says, “and if you ever start to get down in the mouth, let me know and we’ll work together to get you pumped back up!” In the write-up lane, Service Advisors are politely explaining the value of additional maintenance items to enthusiastically nodding customers. The nearby service waiting area is clean, and offers a plethora of current periodicals. The factory rep has just made a fresh pot of coffee, and is wiping up around the brewer.

Isn’t that just how you would want your dealership to be? Knowing what you would like to accomplish is never a problem for savvy auto retailers, their challenge is finding a way to get to where they want to be, from where they are today. Internet sales departments aren’t any different than the rest of the dealership, and many dealers and managers are missing an important opportunity to increase their sales by not taking the time to make sure their Internet salespeople are doing the basic things that turn Internet prospects into buyers.

Manufacturers have unleashed a torrent of new, and theoretically improved, Internet sales initiatives recently. This has pushed many dealers into a whirlwind of choices and decisions, most of which they don’t feel completely qualified to make. But what they need to remember is that these factory driven technology changes can’t replace the basic tenets of the Internet sales process that are so important to selling cars to Internet shoppers. Yes, making sure your Internet salespeople have the right training, tools, and support is important, but making sure they are using these all these things properly is the best thing you can do to insure Internet success. It’s also very easy to accomplish, because Internet inquiries and salesperson responses are almost always tracked in a prospect management tool. This gives dealers and dealership management a great opportunity to see a detailed record of everything that their salespeople are doing with these prospects.

One trait that we see shared by all of our top performing clients is an unwavering adherence to the processes proven necessary to achieve the highest Internet closing rates. As outsiders looking in, we continually offer suggestions for improvements in salesperson performance, but the dealers and managers who react to these suggestions as opportunities to improve, as opposed to criticisms to defend are the ones who perform at the top of our achiever list. And the only additional investment they have to make is a few minutes of their time every day.

Here are three simple things that dealers and managers should check every day, and why they are important. Try it for 2 weeks and see if you don’t accomplish measurable improvements in your Internet appointment, and sales numbers.

1. Was every new lead and email you received yesterday responded to in less than one hour? By both email and telephone when a phone number is available?

Internet shoppers begin the shopping process much earlier than traditional showroom prospects, and have a much longer purchase cycle than we are used to, but this does not negate the need to make the first impression that they form of your dealership a positive one, with a strong “we want your business” message.

Our surveys of Internet shoppers show a clear trend over the five years we have been doing them; more and more active Internet shoppers want, and expect immediate attention. If you wait a day to respond to the initial request, there is a good possibility that they will have already started a relationship with another dealership.

2. Were the response emails that were sent by your salespeople specific to the prospect’s inquiry? Did they address any direct questions the prospect asked?

Prospects who are actively shopping do not want, and will not accept generic responses that are generated automatically by the contact management system. Internet salespeople should be responsible for building the relationship that converts an Internet prospect into a showroom buyer, and the first step in this process is to establish sincere credibility with the prospect. This cannot be done with a “canned” email that ignores the prospect’s unique needs and concerns. Would you have an answering machine take all your inbound sales calls? Of course you wouldn’t.

Internet salespeople are going to spend a lot of time writing emails to Internet prospects that might not respond right away, but that’s their job. It’s the same thing as making a product presentation to a prospect that comes into the showroom; they don’t all buy, but you put forth your best effort with all of them. Salespeople don’t have psychic ability that allows them to determine which new prospects are most legitimate, and which ones aren’t.

3. What has been done with the Internet leads you received 10 days ago, since the initial response was sent? There should be at least 4 more emails sent, and at least 3 more phone calls made when a phone number was provided.

Too many salespeople worry about “over-contacting” their Internet prospects. The typical Internet shopper has evolved significantly over the past few years. Early Internet shoppers tended to be introverted, and even intimidated by the dealership experience. Today’s Internet shopper is much closer to being a traditional buyer. They will rarely be offended by a salesperson’s genuine offer to assist them with their vehicle shopping, but they will always be offended if they don’t feel a dealership wants to help them. A well-trained Internet salesperson should be able to send 5 emails to a new prospect, and make 3 phone calls without having to repeat themselves.

Developing a top performing Internet department doesn’t have to require an ever-expanding technology budget. First, you have to develop a firm set of expectations for your sales team. Not expectations of results, but expectations of efforts. Then you need to make sure they are consistently meeting those expectations, and confront the issue when they aren’t. The highest paid professional athletes still require good coaching to achieve peak performance, and the same is true of salespeople. That responsibility falls on the dealers and managers, and they would be wise not to take it lightly.