How To Set & Sell Owner Marketing Appointments – PART 11

 

How To Set and Sell Owner Marketing Appointments – PART 11

TRANSCRIPT: Alright, the second step for the perfect appointment is called ‘appropriate appointment confirmation’. Now, this one is on the managers. See, the goal is an appointment that shows, but we need the managers to make these confirmation calls. For a lot of reasons. One, they can uncover soft appointment setting, and save your deals. Two, they can bring that 80% show to near 90% if they will just make these calls.

Now, we want to use our gut. We don’t want to spam people.

Every appointment doesn’t need a confirmation. For example, I told Mr. Jones that I had a buyer and an immediate need. I told him I had two appraisal times, one at 12:15 and one at 12:45. He says, “I can actually be there in 15 minutes.” I say, “Great, you’re in luck. I do have an 11:15”. I’m going to put him down for an 11:15 appointment. It’s a little silly if it is 11:00 now, and I’ve scheduled him for 11:15, and your manager calls and wants to confirm that appointment. The gentleman is on his way. Our only goal is an appointment that shows. This appointment is going to show. It would be silly to make this call. So, let’s remember that.

Now, I’m not asking you to do a lot of work on these appointment confirmations but I do want managers to understand one thing – we’re not confirming an oil change. “Hi, Mr. Jones. Steve Stauning. I’m the sales manager here at Stauning Jeep. I just want to confirm your 5:15 appointment, blah, blah, blah…” No. This is not an oil change we are confirming. We’re confirming that we have a buyer and an immediate need for his vehicle and we’re going to do a proper appraisal on it. So, what we want to do is make just one call even if we get voicemail. We do this generally two to four business hours before their appointment.

The call is just going to be something like, “Hey, Mr. Jones. This is Steve Stauning. I’m the sales manager here at Stauning Jeep. I understand I get to see your Grand Cherokee here today at 5:15. I don’t know if Bob told you or not, but, we’re going to be standing by, ready to appraise it right away, and we do have a buyer and an immediate need for that vehicle. So, if for some reason you can’t make it, I would hope that you would let us know in advance and if there is some reason we won’t be ready for you at 5:15, we will let you know well in advance so you don’t waste a trip down here. Again, this is Steve Stauning and I look forward to seeing you at 5:15. Thanks, bye”. That was a voicemail. That’s it.

Easy as pie, but the customer will feel guilty if they no-show. See, the sales person told them we were going to be ready for them. I just told them we were going to ready for them. If they don’t show up at 5:15 though, we’ve got to investigate no-shows AT the scheduled appointment time because we just made them feel guilty. We might find out that they are on their way. They are simply stuck in traffic, or they are just pulling in. We might find out that they’ve been here for 30 minutes and that our ‘friendly’ sales partner, Jeff, has been helping them (“Oh, I work with Steve”). See, we’re being ‘skated’. Or, we might find out that they are across the street and we’ve got to get them over to keep their appointment with us, and we do that at the scheduled appointment time.

Don’t wait until tomorrow to call them to try to reschedule that appointment. Call them at the scheduled appointment time.