Are Your Dealership Telephones Obsolete?
Whether your dealership uses digital or traditional marketing, or a combination of both, the fact is that your marketing plan is only the first touch-point in building a relationship with your customers and prospects. The bad news? All of the readily available digital marketing information you put out is easily used by potential clients to shop your dealership against your competition without your knowledge. On a positive note, a well trained staff can stop that shop in its tracks by turning exploratory digital and telephone inquiries into an in-store appointment.
Many dealerships apply their training resources primarily to face to face training (walk-arounds/demos etc.). The very thing that can bring the prospect into the dealership, the initial contact, is often ignored or at best undervalued. Every initial contact should be an information gathering opportunity for the dealership, turning that inquiry into a phone call that leads to an appointment. Whether the initial contact is an email, text or chatbot you always want to respond with a well scripted phone call, because that shows genuine interest in the customers request and begins building the trust relationship required for conversion. People generally place a higher value on a voice call than a digital message. If the initial contact is via telephone you need to have a properly rehearsed, scripted response ready to turn that call into an information gathering opportunity and an appointment. You would therefore want to have your staff prepared and trained to equally handle face to face sales and those telephone inquires.
The motivation of most customers is to initially and predicatively reach out with a telephone call to confirm availability and to avoid wasting time and money by just showing up. Dealers often spend big dollars to train staff for face to face sales and neglect telephone training where the majority of initial contact begins. Many sales staff are not prepared to stop the customer from shopping you. Online script training would essentially prepare and develop sales staff telephone skills and make effective use of the training budget. Prepare and train your sales staff to stop the customer from shopping you, and bring the prospect into the store for an appointment.
Lisa Kerr