I always found it puzzling that even the most adept ISMs in this industry seem to think their view of the store’s Internet operations are mirrored on the customers’ side. My conversations at dealerships usually go something like this:
- “Have you shopped your own dealership recently?”
- “Well I know what we’re doing… we’re good.”
- “Yeah but it only takes 2 minutes to send a lead to yourself.”
- “Well whatever, like I said, I know what our process is.”
Why put up such a fight about this? I can’t emphasize enough the importance of shopping yourself just once or twice every few months - especially via a third party lead that your competitors can touch as well. Your 30-minute initial response time might look okay on paper and keep your GM happy, but what’s your competition’s response time? Fill out a third party lead and see who calls you back first. Furthermore, use this as a way to keep track of your third party’s delivery performance… note the time you submitted your lead, and see what the timestamps are on the follow-up. Did your CRM tool pick the lead up 20 minutes after it was submitted? If so, what the hell’s up with that? I’d be on the phone to my lead provider if that was the case. And even worse, what if your competitor contacted you inside of that 20 minute window? Now you’ve got a real gripe.
And howsabout those autoresponders? Ever actually check them to ensure they’re not going to the spam folder? Use an email address from a Yahoo, MSN, or Gmail account and see where your autoresponders get delivered. And check out that email once you get it… are the pictures or links broken? I’ve seen too many dealers with weekend warrior HTMLers on-staff who mistakenly link a photo to their local computer instead of a public URL… one of my competitors once sent me four email blasts in a row consisting of a single image, and it was broken all four times. Pathetic.
Beyond that, playing the part of the Internet shopper helps to give you a fresh perspective on the issues - and may I add, it’s the customer’s perspective that matters… not yours. You submit a lead, and play around on the site for a few minutes. Then you get up and go to lunch. Then, a few hours later, your store or your competitor’s store calls you on the phone. Are you even interested anymore, especially if you’re busy and the number ringing on your phone is one you’ve never seen before? Exactly. Makes you think twice about your approach to response times and techniques.
The first rule of Internet Sales is to think like the consumer. If you’re not doing that, you’re not doing your job.
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