Marketing is to Bull Riding...

One of my less-than-popular opinions is that I don't believe in leads.

I'm so strongly vocal about this opinion that conversations about leads often get me in trouble. Yes, I can completely understand the utilization of leads to measure success, and quite frankly, it is the easiest way to rationalize and compare website traffic in relation to sales.

Yet, according to Google* , only 29% of customers will submit a traditional lead, and 41% of customers will show up at the dealership without making any previous contact. These facts tell us two things:

1. By designing our conversion strategies around leads, we miss out on a significant portion of consumer intent.
2. Most dealerships will win more by simply ensuring customers get what they need quickly and seamlessly.

That being said, the reality is that persistent, consistent, strategic marketing drives consumers to our sandbox and leads are the metric we use to gauge that effort.

And all these efforts are statistically wasted without proper follow-up and effective lead response times.

The Customer Experience

You're on your digital device—most likely a mobile—scrolling through social media. Its 45 minutes into your lunch break. As you mindlessly swipe up a car ad slides into view. You stop scrolling.

Maybe it's blue, and the top comes down.

Maybe it's white and has that 8th seat you have been needing.

You weren't quite planning on looking for a vehicle, yet you decide to fill out the accompanying form anyway. This becomes your last lunchtime action, and with the final bite of sandwich lodged between your teeth, you begin to pack up--the laundry list of afternoon tasks popping into your head.

Our imagined scenario is akin to a 'Choose-Your-Own-Adventure' book from the '90s.

Suppose our lunch-eating self were to receive a phone call while packing up. The likelihood of engagement is exceptionally high—the apparent reasons being you are available, relaxed, directly thinking about vehicles, and you just ate.

Everything changes if our imagined self does not receive that call for 30-minutes or longer. Now you are back at work, task-focused, time-constrained, and inconvenienced by a phone call that includes a sales pitch.

A 1-minute response time can lead to 391% more conversions.*

That is not a typo.

Timing is everything.

Eight Seconds

Let's look at it another way. If you have ever been to a rodeo, you know that the star of the show is the bull-rider. Rough and rugged cowboys with questionable senses of self-preservation willingly slide onto the backs of bulls in the hopes of holding on for 8 entire seconds.

For that time frame, the rider is pummeled from every angle as the animal below him violently kicks, runs, and turns in a single-minded effort to be free of its passenger.?

Similarly, the consumer of today is bombarded with information. From the visual, tactile, and audio impact of our mobile devices, the typical consumer is experiencing a multitude of competing sensory inputs at any given moment.

This all boils down to one stunning statistic--the online attention span of a consumer is 8 seconds* .

Marketing is to a consumer what a bull is to a rider.

Let's play with this idea for a moment.

If the bull rider began shouting his name and phone number from astride the bull. Your response would need to be timed perfectly, correct?

Consumers are equally pummeled with information, yet they have rewarded you with their name and phone number. The responsibility of ensuring that the customer is taken care of promptly is the priority of a BDC or Internet team.

Unfortunately, the tools we have in our belt are not in our favor on this one, and lead response times face two distinct stress points:

1. Most CRMs have a lag time of 15 minutes from web submission to lead. Although leads often come into the CRM faster than this, the platforms are set up for a 15-minute buffer window.
2. Due to the high amount of customer inquiries, even a top-performing Internet/BDC team will allow for a 3-10 minute response time.

This disconnect between customer needs and dealership capability is why we partner with Calldrip . Implementing their tools into your processes can make your response time near instantaneous. In many cases, Calldrip can react faster than a CRM.

By utilizing Calldrip, your lunchroom customer receives a call mid-sandwich, and the bull rider is possibly still mid-ride. It is one of the most effective tools to connect your team to your customers.

Interestingly, one of the biggest complaints you might hear about Calldrip is they are 'too fast,' and in my opinion, that is an excellent problem to have.

Calldrip Suite of Services.

Another element of the Calldrip platform is its scoring system. A good BDC Manager should have ongoing team training protocols in place. A great BDC Manager will also be utilizing role-play in that training. The scoring system offered by Calldrip gives you the ability to do this.

By creating industry-specific and customizable KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) tracked through call recording and scoring, your teams will become directly accountable for their success and performance.

Furthermore, their key performance indicators work in conjunction with tried-and-true industry-tested scripts tailored to the specific needs of your dealership. It is said that the strength of your phone script directly correlates to your sales conversion rate. If this is true, measuring your scripting is crucial for increasing sales. Calldrip's scripts are proven to increase conversion rates on phone calls, and they have the data to back that.

Remember

If your dealership has chosen to focus on leads, then answering leads in a quick, efficient manner is how you will succeed. You must inspect what you expect. Calldrip can be the difference. Click here to schedule a demo today.

Herb Anderson/Charity Ann