How to Gain an Undeniable Advantage: Drive More Sales, Leads & Calls from Your Existing Website Traffic! (PART 14)

 

How to Gain an Undeniable Advantage: Drive More Sales, Leads & Calls from Your Existing Website Traffic! (PART 14)

TRANSCRIPT: Let’s talk now section six, pricing transparency and conversion.

This is important because 61% of buyers don’t connect with us today before they come in. Why? Because they got all the information that they needed. They didn’t need to get any more information from you. When we talk about trust and pricing transparency we’re not just talking about sales, by the way, this is about service as well. For example, do you offer free inspections at your dealership? Do you offer life time tire rotations? Then say it.

Consumers don’t know it unless you say it on your website. There are lots of consumers who go off to a tire store because they think they’re the only ones who offer life time tire rotations. You may be offering that, make sure you that have that transparency out there. Do you have competitive pricing for basic services? Then show that price on your site.

Cars.com and GFK USA did a great study on consumer behavior and dealers service departments. They found that more that 67% of consumers avoid your service department because they think it’s the most expensive option out there. And you’re usually not. In fact, more consumers are willing to pay more at dealers. The problem is that they think your prices are extravagant, so have pricing transparency not just in sales but also in service.

Alright, when we talk about pricing transparency and trust. Let’s talk about the sales department. I know you know this, but when you display your selling price online right now it doesn’t mean you’re one price store but it does drive traffic. There are a lot of people out there putting their selling price online, and then they end up giving up free discounts and I talk about that on stevestauning.com. We won’t talk about it today.

When you have your selling price online you need to understand if your priced to market, you’re going to drive your share of that 61% that are unwilling to put leads through your website. And so I recommend I highly recommend being price transparent online today. And price verification tools those can be good, but you want to limit your third party price verification tools unless you’re on the right side.

Here’s one that I just want to show you. This is kind of an oops, and listen I love this price verification tool from KBB. The problem is for this dealer, for this vehicle for this dealer, they’re priced at $9700 for this vehicle which is way outside the fair market range from Kelly Bluebook. In fact, they tell the consumer right there on the dealer’s site, its priced above Kelly Bluebook suggested retail. It’s priced above Kelly Bluebook fair market range.

What I want to be able to do is something like this is I want to be able to… I want to be able to have control over this price verification tools and when I’m not on the right side, I want to make sure they don’t show up on my site. Here’s another one. Price verification tools have to be loyal to you. Now I like a lot about Car Gurus. I love the leads that they generate for dealers. I really do but this dealer is using Car Gurus price analysis tool on their website where the consumer can see that it’s a good deal.

When they click on that price awareness… price analysis tool they’re taken to this extra page that you see. The one that you see on the top right. The Car Gurus price analysis page, and they can complete a lead form here. Sounds great, there’s nothing wrong with that is there?

Well, yeah here’s the problem when they complete that form there which by the way we’re dealer friendly so far, the problem is it becomes un-dealer friendly pretty quickly because then they email your customer. So throughout the process of your team trying to connect with someone who’s submitted a lead from your site, throughout that process is someone trying to submit a lead for your site Car Guru is also emailing your team.

They send your team an email and your team sees your prospect, the person who came to your website to see your lead, the person who got to your website to see your cars and submitted a lead through Car Gurus that person gets an email from Car Gurus that says we’ve got more in the market for you to look at. And look at the top right, they want your consumer. The person who you attracted to your site and then converted through a Car Gurus site. They want them to sell their car on Car Gurus to another dealer.

They also want the consumer to be able to see all the vehicles in the market and to subscribe to any matching vehicles that show up. That’s not a good thing for you. And it actually gets a little bit worse than that. In this form you can see eventually Car Gurus emails your consumer, your customer and they say, “Hey why don’t you review this dealer?” You might say, “Steve why is that a bad thing? We’re trying to generate reviews online. We’re a great dealer.”

Because it is too easy for me to give you a negative review, okay. It’s too easy for me to give you a negative review on this and here’s why, we’ve talked about this. The average dealer closes 20% of their website leads. Average dealer closes 20% of their website leads. That means for these Car Gurus leads that I’m getting from my websites four out five people who submitted a lead didn’t buy from me. Do you want the 80% of people who submitted a lead to your website but didn’t buy from you, do you want them reviewing you online? The answer is no.

There are a lot of reasons why this customer didn’t buy from you, okay. There’s a bunch of reasons why they didn’t fill out that form. Why they didn’t complete the deal with you, but now they’re going to blame you. And they’re going to give you a bad review online.