Creating an Appointment Culture – Part 11

Creating an Appointment Culture – Part 11

TRANSCRIPT: Let’s talk about what some of these voicemails that we leave for prospects might sound like in an appointment driven culture. The following is an example of what a day five after an internet appointment or a “be back” might sound like. They were looking at a 2014 Camry on our lot.

“Hello again, Bob. This is Steve Stauning calling back from Century Toyota. I wanted to let you know that the current factory incentives on the Camry expire at the end of the month. We are not sure what Toyota is going to do after that, as the inventories appear to be coming down. Anyway, Bob, please call me back so we can schedule a test drive on the Camry. Then we can look at how these incentives might make a difference. My number is 555-1212. That is 555-1212. Don’t worry if you can’t reach me right away. I am going to try to get ahold of you later. Thanks and talk to you soon.” See, appointments happen on the phone.

That was a quality call even though it was a voicemail. I did lots of things in that call. One thing I did was create a sense of urgency. That is critical. We’ve got to get Bob off of his couch. You can leave that voicemail at the first of the month or the thirty-first. It doesn’t matter. Even though that voicemail said the incentives expire at the end of the month. Let me tell you about your prospect. He isn’t doing the math. He isn’t going to try to figure out how many days he has until the incentive is gone. We have created a sense of urgency because, as is always true in the automotive business, the incentives end at the end of the month, and we don’t know what the manufacturer is going to do next month. We truly don’t. In fact, lots of the manufacturer’s people don’t know until they are announced. Because of this, we can create that sense of urgency. We also gave him a call to action. “Call me back.” More than anything else, and this is critical to leaving a quality voicemail, we let him know our persistence. We highlighted our persistence. We let him know that we are going to call him back.

See, we leave a voicemail one hundred percent of the time. We need to make it compelling. In this case, we created a sense of urgency. Then we give them a “call to action”. Lastly, we highlight our persistence. The reason for this is that when he listens to his voicemails later, he is not going to be happy that it is Steve again. It is only fifteen seconds long, so he listens to it. The phone call gave him something compelling. Maybe he cares about what those incentives are. Maybe he doesn’t, but in the end I tell him I will call him back. He knows that the next time I call, he will have to take the call.

See, we have got a goal for our voicemails. Our goal is to get them on the phone. Once we have got them on the phone, we have another goal: To get an appointment that shows.