How to Create the Best Automotive Internet Sales Process Ever! – PART 2

How to Create the Best Automotive Internet Sales Process Ever! (PART 2)

The Automotive Internet Sales Process for Today’s Customers

TRANSCRIPT: All right, we’re gonna through seven sections today. We’ll take a break in the middle, as I said. We’re gonna dive right in. The first section is the internet sales process evolution, and how it’s changed over the years. Now for the basic internet sales process for traditional leads, my process in 2006 was 150 days long, and we made phone calls through day 60 of the process. Just so you understand we’re talking about customers who’ve sent in a lead but have not connected with us. That’s the entire internet sales process. So back in 2006 we were making phone calls for 60 days to what we call non-responsive prospects. These are people who’ve submitted a lead and we’ve left voicemails and we’ve sent emails, but they haven’t responded.

So in 2006 the leads were high funnel. And so we had to make calls through 60 days and we had to send emails through 150 days. By 2011 we shortened that process down to 120 days, and we only made calls through day 30. In 2016 we shortened the process again, the traditional process, down to 90 days, and we made calls through day 23. And then in 2018 our process that we’re giving to you for 2018, our traditional process is only 45 days long, and we make 0 calls after day 15.

But the real question is why did we have to evolve? Now there are four reasons that you have to evolve your internet sales process so that you’re not sending emails 150 days. You know what? I actually know of an OEM that wants you to send emails for 120 days in your internet sales process to non-responsive prospects. Let me tell you what’s happening in that process. You are being labeled a spammer by every single person who gets an email from you after day 90, I guarantee it. That process also asks you to make calls for 60 days. We know your team’s not doing that.

So let’s talk about the four reasons that we have to shorten our processes for today’s prospect. First the customers have evolved. They have all of the information, and today’s leads are really orders. They’re no longer inquiries for more information. Second, if your emails are being read at all they’re mostly being read on smartphones. This means most of your images and links that you have are absolutely worthless. It also means that your emails need to be much, much shorter than they were in the past. Number three reason that we need to evolve is when you follow up forever, as some people will tell you to do with a non-responsive prospect, you have a 100% chance of being labeled as junk or spam by that prospect. They won’t opt out of your emails, they’ll just put you in their junk folder.

This is why so many of you are ending up in spam even with customers who want to hear from you. You’ve gotta stop spamming. You’ve got to stop sending these people email after email after email. The fourth reason that we need to evolve our processes is none of your sales people, none of them are calling your non-responsive prospects for 60 straight days. Most don’t call after day two. Let’s be real about that. And let me give you the reality of phone calls. You want to be first and you want to be fast. According to CraftJack, the first dealer to connect with a customer with a prospect sells that prospect 238% more often than the dealer who connects second. That’s important to understand. We have to be the first one to connect with a prospect.

Now Velocify did a study that shows there’s absolutely no ROI in making more than nine calls to any non-responsive prospect. In fact by the time you’ve made nine call attempts you’ve connected with 97% of the people who are willing to reconnect with you. There truly is no ROI after nine calls. The goal, by the way, whenever you are trying to respond to internet leads should never be to stop the clock. I know that our OEMs want us to stop the clock. We need to stop worrying about that. We need to call first even though it won’t stop the clock in your CRM. If you’re the first one to call we know, if we’re the first one to connect rather, we know that we’re 238% more likely to sell that person a car verus the dealer who connects second.

Now lets talk about how you can always be first. Let me give you a little background on my experience with Web Control. We use them as our internet lead management tool back when I was with Asbury. I left Asbury in 2009, since then they’ve changed CRM tools. I absolutely love, loved Web Control back then. I did. It was a great CRM, so easy to use. And I actually love it now. I reconnected with them recently because my dealers were having a problem with the big three CRM tools. And I needed to know if there was something else out there that I could start to recommend. There were problems with the reporting, you know what I’m talking about. Problems setting up processes.

But here’s one of the best things that they’ve changed at Web Control since 2009 is they integrated a tool called Calldrip. And Calldrip ensures that you are always the first person to get ahold of the customer, to get ahold of the prospect. It’s a rapid response tool that connects you with prospects in about 60 seconds. And here’s how it works. The lead comes into Web Control and immediately Calldrip calls your sales people. So your sales people, they pick up their phone, right, they got their mobile device, and they talk to the customer … or not to the customer, they hear Calldrip telling them, “Hey, Barbara Jones is on the line. She’s interested in a 2018 Camry. Hit one to accept.” All they do is hit one on their phone, and now it rings Barbara Jones. Plus, after you’ve completed the call, when you were the first person to finally get ahold of this prospect and now you’re 238% more likely to sell them a car, all the data flows like a standard lead right back into Web Control, including the call history and the recorded call.