I’d like to think that by now most dealerships have a written Internet sales process to handle Internet leads effectively. As the documented, researched and confirmed driver of “lead quality,” an established process is the key to obtaining a maximum ROI from Internet leads. Though many dealers are allocating a substantial portion of their marketing budget to attract Internet leads, many are still not achieving the recommended minimum of five times their ROI on those dollars spent, even with a “good process”. Why not?

 

Very often, accountability is the missing link between a written process and lack of desired ROI. How easy is it for an Internet salesperson to check off tasks as completed when they are not, or to say “I’ve tried calling that person three times and they haven’t called me back. What’s the point?” A good process that isn’t followed is the same as having no process at all—both salespeople and managers must be held accountable to following that process.

 

Here are a few tips to help weave accountability into your processes:

 

Does Your Team Own It? Accountability is about ownership – do your salespeople own the process? Ownership means more than just knowledge of the process, it’s belief in the process and its consistent execution. As a manager, if you want to hold people accountable you have to reinforce WHY they should be following the process and instill the belief that their personal results will improve. Call out individual successes that reinforce that following the process yields personal returns.

 

Review the Internet Sales Process.  Does it mirror the showroom sales process? In the showroom process, there’s always room for interaction with management. Salespeople have check points throughout process; the test drive, desk log and the write-up. In many stores, managers walk the lot and showroom and inject themselves in the process to ensure everything stays on track. Is management involved throughout your Internet sales process, only at the end, or not at all? Create availability of management to the Internet team and reinforce the need for manager involvement.

 

Openness and Competition. Nothing breeds accountability like visibility. Show the whole team where all of them rank in your key performance areas and include the steps of the sale (i.e. contact rate, appointment rate, show rate), not just sales volume. Regularly review team results in a group, calling out the best at execution, and schedule individual meetings for coaching and personal accountability.

 

What are your tips for improving accountability? What tips do you have for managers and for salespeople? 

Since more than 80% of your customers are likely to finance or lease a vehicle, when is the right time to bring up this potentially touchy subject? Is it better to pre-qualify or not to pre-qualify your Internet leads? Josh Vajda, Director of Inside Sales for AutoUSA, shares some tips. www.autousadealers.com

A long time ago, back when we used paper desk logs to track our showroom traffic, our salespeople were asked to complete a “source” box. We wanted to know how our customers heard about our dealership. Strangely, “Location” was the overwhelming favorite; according to our salespeople, very few customers came into the store because of our advertising. Of course, the phone calls and Internet (and fax, back then) leads we received told a different story. We just weren’t asking the question the right way - or at all, in some cases.

 

We know that knowing how your walk-ins find you is critical if you are tracking the return on investment (ROI) of your marketing dollars. If one advertising source is driving twenty walk-ins a week and another is driving only two walk-ins per week but costing you just as much, wouldn’t you want to know which one is which? While most dealers have a method in place to ask customers how they heard about their dealership, many times this important question is overlooked in the more immediate quest to sell a car.

 

Take a look at your sales log and see how many source boxes are filled out. If it’s less than 90% or “location” is the only answer, I’d recommend an immediate action plan to get those numbers up.

 

Here are a few tips for implementing a process that will accurately track the ROI from your showroom visitors:

 

1)    Start with the buyers. Customers waiting for the finance process to start typically have a few minutes of down time. Ask that they fill out a short survey, including what advertising source brought them in. Have the F&I Manager collect the surveys in case the salesperson didn’t record it in the sales log.

 

2)    Leverage your managers. If your store requires that there is a manager involved in every deal, make it the manager’s responsibility to source every customer, and make them accountable in some way. Since your managers likely have more of a direct role in advertising decisions than your salespeople, they’re more likely to make it a habit.

 

3)    Analyze your digital ad sources for ROI. Your CRM can show you by lead source the contact, visit, appointment and sales rates, and many ad sources are able to give you view and click-through reports that show their effectiveness. Invest more in profitable sources and cut the duds.

 

4)    Make it a priority. Train your sales associates to include “what advertising brought you in today?” or a similar question into their needs discovery. You can even run a monthly contest for salespeople. Every month, whoever has the highest percentage of source boxes filled out, wins a prize.

 

 

Not every customer will remember where they first heard about you, but most will. Capturing lead sources for your walk-ins will go a long way towards determining which lead sources – both digital and traditional advertising – are delivering customers to your showroom.

 

How do you source walk-in customers? What works and doesn’t work, and why?