When Answering Customer e-mail, Don't Just Work Fast-Work Smart!
By Mike Bowers
It's Monday morning. For most of us in this business, that means we are just returning from a peaceful Sunday away from the dealership. If you're lucky, maybe you were able to string two days together to enjoy the family. But now you are paying for it. You open your e-mail inbox and there sit thirty-three unopened messages from potential customers.
This is a scenario that plays out in most of the dealerships that actively seek Internet leads, whether purchased from a lead provider or generated from your own web site. It is also clear from the statistics that as an industry, timely and effective response to this abundant flow of e-mail purchase information requests is still elusive.
Last October at the fifth Auto Retailing on the Web Conference, Paul Rogers, senior training manager for the Cobalt Group, shared some thoughts about improving closing ratios from Internet leads. Now I cannot share everything he said in the three-hour session, but I do want to pass on some of his comments about handling the Monday morning e-mail pile.
Paul offered some of the J.D. Power and Associates statistics covering e-mail response times at auto dealerships:
- · 8% of all dealerships respond to e-mail purchase requests in less than one hour
- · 18% respond in one to six hours
- · 31% respond within the first day
- · 13% take two days
- · 15% use three days
- · 15% never answer at all
Everybody knows that a fast response improves closing ratios. But Paul recommends working smart as well as fast, and he had these concrete suggestions for dealing with the Monday stack of e-mail messages.
"LIFO"
I am sure we all know that when applied to inventory management, this means Last In-First Out. However, when it comes to dealing with a backlog of messages of any type, our human nature usually makes us take a "FIFO" approach– First In-First Out. This idea, Paul indicated, is just wrong.
The idea is to exceed customers' expectations; in fact we should be trying to blow them away. Now if someone sent a message on Saturday night after you left the dealership, he has already entered day two of his wait. On the other hand, if one of those messages just came in thirty minutes before you arrived at work, you still have an opportunity to "blow him away" with a very prompt reply. The Saturday night message is still important, but your opportunity to impress him with an instant answer has passed. Later in the day will normally be quite sufficient in those cases.
Prioritize your e-mail
In describing this process, Paul likened it to picking the low-hanging fruit. The idea is to put your e-mail messages in an order that will place the most likely prospects at the top of the pile.
New vs. Used
For instance, if one e-mail message is for a new vehicle and another is for used, which one is more likely to produce a closed sale? Experience shows that new vehicle requests will close at a higher rate.
Phone Number vs. No Phone Number
Even though you may only be replying via e-mail at this point, the lack of a phone number should indicate a lower potential for closing. Take the message with the number ahead of one without.
In-Stock vs. Out-of-stock
Clearly you will have a better chance of closing the prospect that is inquiring about a vehicle that you actually have in inventory. Yes, you may be able to locate the vehicle they are interested in, but this takes more steps in the process, each reducing your potential for a close.
Distance from the Dealership
Again, studies show that you are more likely to close an Internet purchase request from customers close (within 10 miles) to the dealership. Clearly, someone in your prime market area has a higher potential for closing than someone from a town fifty miles down the road.
Taking all such factors into account, you can then place relative value on each and then order your e-mail messages for response.
Not only does this system give you a mechanism for creating an order of response, it also can dictate how much time and attention you give to each. An e-mail message with a very high potential for closing should demand a higher degree of attention from the Internet sales representative. With high potential leads, more care should be taken to ensure that you personalize your responding message.
Mike Bowers is managing editor of WD&S Publishing, Metuchen, NJ. WD&S is a provider of information services for the automotive retail industry. Publications include Dealer's Edge, Warranty Dollars & Sense, Auto Retailing on the Web, The Parts Manager and Fixed Coverage. mbowers@dealeronline.com
