The Other Side of the Fence
by Gilbert A. Chavez
Over the last month, I have spent several hours evaluating numerous CRM, ILM, and web site tools. It is truly amazing the advancement technology has made since I started selling cars online in 1995. Back in the day, we used AOL because company wide e-mail did not exist. The capability of several of these tools is inspiring. Some of these tools are very work intensive and the sophistication level can be a little overwhelming for even the most advanced Internet manager to manipulate to their fullest capability. During one of the many conference calls I was on, my mind began to drift. I was thinking of the consumer on the other side of the fence. What truly are their expectations when they submit a purchase request online?
I asked one of my colleagues to mystery shop one of our stores. I asked him specifically to ask a question that the store had to answer to earn his business. The specific question he asked was, “What is my out the door price for this vehicle I want”. I also wanted to see the response time, the automated response, and the content of their initial e-mail response to see if he answered the question.
The automated response included all the pertinent information that an automated response should. Some OEM’s have gone as far as to mandate that dealers turn off their auto response e-mails in their ILM tools. I really disagree with that mentality. The OEM’s contention is that the customer is already receiving an automated response from them. So what if the OEM has an automated response? Furthermore, so what if a third party lead provider does, they did not get my automated response with my contact information on it. An automated response is nothing more than just an acknowledgment that the customer submitted their lead and that they receive my contact information. Other content can be in there, but the contact information is paramount.
The response time was outstanding, almost immediate. The format of the template was excellent; however, he did not include the, “out the door price” that the customer specifically requested. Furthermore, there was follow on text for examples of other vehicles that were not included. Often times we fire off templates that we have built without checking out their content. We let the technology take over and do not pay attention to the detail that the consumer requires. By not answering the customers question and the absence of other example vehicles, made this response lack credibility. The Internet sales representative immediately set himself up for failure with the customer.
I talked to him later and he did not realize that he did not answer the specific question that the customer asked and that there was follow on text about other vehicles. I asked if he had ever seen any of his templates other than in the back of his tool and his answer was, No”.
One of the most important things Internet sales professionals can do to assist themselves in making a successful online sale is shopping your self. With all the high tech tools, we utilize as Internet sales people we need to know what our stuff looks like on the other side of the fence. Moreover, check out how your templates look in AOL mail, Hotmail, Yahoo mail, gmail, Outlook, etc... Also, look at what the template says. I have gone as far as to going to a customer’s office to look in their e-mail to see how my templates look. Because it looks good in the back of your tool, it might not necessarily look that good in your customers e-mail. Additionally, read and acknowledge what your customer is saying and reply to all their wants, needs, and most importantly answer all their questions.
Fantastic tools can only do so much. It takes diligence and attention to detail to ensure credible communication with your customer. For the most part, we only get one chance to “brand” ourselves to our customer. Response time and follow up are essential in “hooking” the customer. That makes it even more important to ensure that our e-mails are crisp and concise and that our content is meaningful and accurate.
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Gilbert A. Chavez can be contacted at gchavez@phillong.com
