Almost all dealerships get e-mail leads in some fashion, whether it’s through a 3rd party lead aggregator, OEM or through their own website. Many of the same leads your dealership gets, your competitor gets also.
Every dealer I’ve ever known has an auto-responder attached to their CRM or ILM that goes out to the customers upon receipt of the leads. Many of them are generic and very similar.
Something to this effect:
“Hi Bill,
Thank you for your inquiry on a [insert year, make, model]. We appreciate the opportunity to earn your business and want you to know that we look forward to assisting you with the purchase of your new [insert year, make, model].
Someone from our internet staff will be in contact with you as soon as possible. In the meantime, feel free to give us a call at 888-555-1212 if you’d like to contact us faster.
Best New Cars has been in business for 25 years and you can have confidence that we’ll give you the personal attention you deserve.
Thanks, Internet Manager”
Usually this e-mail is in a nice-HTML rich template with the dealership’s banner, some pretty pictures, links, etc. Sometimes they include an initial quote, many times, they don’t.
The problem with this is:
- Every dealership is sending the customer the same thing so it is quite impersonal and the customers know its an auto-responder.
- These e-mails are hard to read on mobile devices like Blackberries, etc.
Here are two easy tweaks that can give you an edge.
Tweak #1: Change your auto-responder to a short message, ideally 1-2 sentences in a non-HTML email with an important twist in your signature.
Example:
“Bill,
Thanks for the inquiry. I apologize that I can’t call you immediately but I promise to get in touch with you as soon as possible.
Thanks, Internet Manager
Sent from my Blackberry”
This accomplishes a few things. It makes your auto-responder different than your competitors, is easy to read no matter how they’re accessing their e-mail and they believe it was sent by you personally from your cell phone rather than recognizing that the e-mail they got was computer-generated. The customer will get the impression that you stopped what you were doing and acknowledged their inquiry while they are getting obvious e-mail templates from your competitors.
Tweak #2: Change the timing on your auto-responder. Most e-mail readers default from “newest” to “oldest” in the order in which the emails are displayed. Most dealership’s have their auto-responders set-up to email the customer immediately upon receipt of the lead. If you delay the sending of your auto-responder by 5 minutes, now where is your e-mail in their in-box? At the top and likely to be the first one that the customer reads.
In automotive internet sales, we’re always looking for an edge over our competition. Anything you can do to set yourself apart from your competition and make you more memorable will increase your chances of success.
You only get one chance to make a first impression.
(Note: I learned this technique from Joe Webb at one of his sessions at a Digital Dealer Conference awhile back. Joe is a good friend of mine and is a very knowledgeable, progressive thinker and strategist. At the time, he was on the retail side of the business but now he is the President of DealerKnows where he consults with dealerships on internet marketing tactics and best practices. If you need some help, I definitely recommend him and his services. Also, if you’ve never been to a Digital Dealer Conference, you’re missing out on a wealth of information.)
