As a customer, there’s nothing worse than being ignored or getting a response to your inquiry
that doesn’t answer any of your questions. Before the world of Covid, many dealers heavily
focused on answering leads in a timely fashion. Heck, even most, if not all, of the OEMs had
standards in place to ensure that all leads were answered within a certain time frame. Yet
during the height of Covid, when supply and demand weren’t equalizing, some dealers just
didn’t answer their leads. Or if they did answer leads, it certainly wasn’t within ten to fifteen
minutes. In fact, it was actually noted in a study that dealers slid significantly in 2021 in both
response time and actually responding to a customer inquiry.
So, what happened if we know that it’s important to respond to leads and answer the customers’
questions? Well, we can’t fix what didn’t happen, but we can fix how we’re going to respond to
leads today. To start, one of the best things you can do is review your CRM workflows. When
was the last time they were updated? If it takes you a minute to think about it, it’s time to give it
a look. After you’ve completed a check-up on your CRM workflow, take a minute to review the
automated emails. Are the signature lines complete? Do your automated emails still make
sense? Do all of the social media links work? It sounds simple, but some dealers are still
sending out automated responses regarding Covid-19 and store hours!
Once you tackle the core basics with your CRM, meeting with your BD agents and Sales
Consultants is best. A quick refresher never hurts. Once you’ve gone over what best practices
are for responding to leads, it’s important that they’re held accountable. To hold your teams
accountable, you can simply use CRM reporting to check on response time. The other thing to
review is the actual response. We can all easily stop the clock. But we’re not all sending out the
best response to the lead. Let’s ensure we’re answering the customers’ questions and providing
the next steps for the customer. The end goal is to build rapport with the customer to increase
the chances of earning their business. But we can’t do that if we’re not responding to the leads
or if the responses we’re sending out don’t answer the customers’ questions – failing to provide
the next steps.
If your teams are still struggling with word tracking or how to best respond to customers’
questions and objections – we can help with that. Knowing what to say and when to say it can
make or break the chances of your dealership earning that customer’s business.
If you’re still on the fence, take a minute and submit a request for a FREE Stealth Test! Once
we’ve completed your stealth test, we’ll be in touch with very detailed results. Here’s to getting
back to the basics and ensuring we’re proactive instead of reactive. Let’s start 2023 off on the
right foot.
As the COO | Partner of Phone Ninjas, Chris delivers leadership, coaching, and mentorship to 55 team members providing software sales and phone skills coaching. He fosters powerful partnerships and collaborations with leaders across various business sectors, establishing expectations, communicating vision, and escalating performance to maximize productivity and effectiveness.
Chris is an innovation-driven business executive with over 25 years of experience delivering leadership to teams of up to 75 overseeing development, launch, and sale of website lead acquisition, reconditioning process software systems, and technology that support automotive dealerships across the U.S., Canada, and Europe.
