How to Create the Best Automotive Internet Sales Process Ever! – PART 4

How to Create the Best Automotive Internet Sales Process Ever! (PART 4)

The DISC Test and The DIR Test: Keys to the Internet Sales Process

TRANSCRIPT: The reconnection is the primary goal, but what are some of the secondary goals, Steve? Aren’t there other goals of our process, the internet sales process?” Yes, there are. For example, we may want to create some excitement, right. If we can create excitement, we can help them confirm their choice, because they’ve made a choice before they ever contacted us. Another goal might be to build trust, so that they’ll choose us first, right. Another goal could be to create some urgency so that they’ll choose quickly. See, one of the problems with the internet sales processes that go off for 180 days, is make no mistake. That customer has lost their new car fever six months after they’ve submitted the lead.

All right. Listen. Whatever we do create, whatever processes we create, we have to make sure that these processes pass two tests. The first test you’ve probably heard of. It’s called the DISC Test. D-I-S-C, Does It Sell Cars? Okay, that’s an important test to pass in any part of your process that you put together. Now let me give you a new test for all your communications to non-responsive prospects, people who’ve submitted a lead, but we haven’t reconnected yet. And that’s the DIR Test, D-I-R, Did I Reconnect? DIR, right? That’s our goal.

And so two tests for all of our processes, for all of our templates, for all of our voicemails. Does It Sell Cars and Did I Reconnect? All right. We’ll talk about both of those, but let’s look at the DIR Test and the DISC Test. See, I can drive a reconnection today by texting this, and we’re going to talk about this process twice today. I have some clients whose salespeople will text from their mobile device outside of the TCPA, the Telephone Consumer Protection Act. They’re basically sending a text that violates that, but it generates a high reconnection.

Here’s what they do and I am not recommending this. I want to make sure you understand that, because this passes the DIR Test, but fails the DISC Test. And that is this. Lead comes in from Robert Smith. I get my mobile device out, right, and I text back to Robert. I type, “Is this Bob?” And I send it off, so he gets a text from somebody he doesn’t know, but someone with the same area code, right. And he’ll respond, won’t he? Did I reconnect? Absolutely. He’ll reply back with, “Yes. Who’s this?”

This violates the TCPA and it can turn off some prospects, which results in no sale. So while it passes the DIR Test, Did I Reconnect, it fails the DISC Test, Did I Sell a Car? So, while this drove a reconnection, it broke trust, it does result often in a lost opportunity. So let’s use what we know so far and create a template based on those goals. The DIR Test, Did I Reconnect and today’s customer.

So let’s do a sample template, where we going to work on getting a reconnection. We may even create some urgency or some excitement. But let’s start with the most important email template in the entire process. And some of you aren’t going to agree with me, but that’s the auto response. Don’t overthink this. The auto response is not optional and it’s not spam. The auto response is like Amazon’s order confirmation. It’s actually welcomed by the buyer’s, right.

When you order something on Amazon and they send you an email that says, “Hey, Steve. We got your order.” Are you mad? Are you thinking, “Is Amazon spamming me? I’m a customer?” No, you’re like, “Great. They got my order.” All right. Here’s our auto response that you’re going to get in the process, the traditional process. Confirmation from Steve’s Ford.

“Thank you for contacting Steve’s Ford. This is an automated response to let you know we’ve received your online request for the 2018 F-150, and an appointment coordinator will contact you shortly. We’re genuinely excited to help you in your vehicle search. At Steve’s Ford, we’re well-known for providing a true no-hassle buying experience every time. If you’re ready to schedule your Priority Test Drive now, please respond to this email. Otherwise, we will call you, if you provided a phone number, to help you schedule this. If you’d prefer, you may call us at any time at 888-318-6598. We look forward to assisting you. Thanks.”

Now don’t overthink this. This is an auto response. Now there are stats out there, mostly given to you by your OEM that say, “An auto response sent during working hours is unnecessary, because your team should answer right away.” Well, we should answer right away. But remember, we want to be the first to reconnect. Now our data shows that sending a bad auto response at any time is a bad thing. But even if you call in five minutes or less, even if you’re using Calldrip through Web Control and you’re connecting in 60 seconds, the right auto response can set up that call.

Now I don’t have the template to show you right now, but I’m going to take you through some things that we did on that template. Remember, our goal one is a reconnection. Did you know on that auto response, we told them that was our goal four times? We really did. We told them we were going to do that, that that’s what we were working on. We told them that goal one was a reconnection and here’s how we told them that. First we said, “An appointment coordinator will contact you shortly.” Sounds like this dealer wants to reconnect.

We also said, “If you’re ready to schedule your priority test drive now, please respond to this email.” We asked for a reconnection, didn’t we? We also said, “Otherwise, we will call you.” We’re trying to connect, aren’t we? And finally we said, “If you’d prefer, you may call us.” We told them about our reconnection goal four different times. Now if you’re the prospect, what do you think the prospect expects here? Number one, the prospect expects to communicate with someone, whether email or phone. And make no mistake, if you are set up to text via your CRM, then include that option in your auto response.

Number two, guess what they expect? They expect to skip to the test drive. And number three, they expect a no-hassle experience. That’s what they got out of that auto response. We were able to set those expectations because we sent an auto response. Something that we couldn’t do if all we did was wait, lead comes in, we read the lead, we stop the clock with a phony email going out that’s meaningless to them, and then we get on the phone 25 minutes later.