A positive engagement experience with a dealer early in the buying journey is essential to earning loyalty from car shoppers.
Car dealers that use call tracking can understand what messaging resonates with buyers and how to coach their teams better. This allows them to maximize their ROI.
Improved Sales Performance
Car dealerships that rely on phone calls to manage customer relationships must be able to quickly resolve questions, address customer concerns, and turn shoppers into buyers.
For example, when customers call with questions about trade-ins or financing, they don’t want to be put on hold. Every minute on hold gives the shopper time to think about the dealer down the street or a new model from another brand.
Fortunately, call analytics solutions help solve some of the top frustrations buyers experience when shopping for cars.
Moreover, a business intelligence (BI) solution with call tracking and analytics capabilities can help dealerships make critical decisions that improve operational efficiency, reduce hidden costs, and boost profit margins.
For instance, a dealership might uncover that its salespeople lack the skills to develop customer rapport during phone conversations and thus must receive additional training. A BI solution can also help dealerships track performance over time and identify trends like whether certain service technicians are more productive with specific vehicle makes or models.
Increased Customer Satisfaction
The customer experience is a crucial part of the auto-buying process. If a buyer is disappointed with a dealership, she can take her business to a competitor. Marketers can use data analytics to improve the quality of customer interactions and drive better car-shopping experiences, increase dealer loyalty, and improve their ROI.
For example, one standard metric is the number of calls answered by a person and not routed to voicemail or abandoned. When a call is left unanswered, the lead is lost, affecting a business’s marketing and sales performance. By using call analytics for car dealers to identify the source of these missed calls, businesses can take action to prevent them from happening.
Another way to use call analytics to improve the customer experience is to measure how well a business’s employees handle calls. Businesses can identify how to improve their processes by analyzing audio recordings of phone conversations. For instance, if many calls are being interrupted by people asking about the status of a vehicle’s repairs, it may be a sign that a business needs to train its service advisors to proactively communicate with customers when vehicles are in the shop.
AI-powered conversational intelligence software helps marketing, sales, and CX teams mine and act on first-party data from phone conversations with consumers. It offers accurate 1:1 attribution, technology integrations, and a level of process automation that traditional call-tracking solutions cannot.
Increased Customer Loyalty
Getting customers to commit early in the car-buying process is an essential goal for dealerships. If they cannot convert a caller, that customer can quickly shift her business to a competitor. Fortunately, data analytics tools can help dealers uncover roadblocks that impede the sales process and help dealership employees improve those all-important first calls with shoppers.
For example, dealerships can analyze data to determine how many calls go unanswered, how long customers spend on hold, and who answers the minor calls. This information can refine marketing campaigns, improve hiring practices and training programs, and increase the effectiveness of inbound sales and service calls.
In addition to identifying the most and least effective calls, dealers can use call tracking data to identify busy times of the day. Then, they can schedule staff members to be available during those periods. This can reduce costs, improve efficiency, and improve callers’ experience.
A good call monitoring and analytics partner can provide accurate, human analysis of dealership phone conversations with shoppers. This differs from automated solutions that may only provide basic call summary statistics. Dealerships should choose a solution that prioritizes client relationships and provides a level of support that makes sense for their dealership business.
Increased Profits
When you are spending tens of thousands of dollars per month on advertising and leads, it’s critical to remove any potential bottlenecks that can prevent you from turning sales opportunities into deals. Real-time call analytics reporting is a powerful tool to help you optimize call conversions, understand customer intent, and identify critical issues in your dealership.
Many dealerships need more consistency in their phone handling process. This is often due to a need for more training and accountability. An automated system to monitor and coach your team can make the difference between success and failure.
One dealership used call tracking to discover that their receptionists were transferring calls too quickly or failing to listen to caller intent. This led to missed sales opportunities and a poor customer experience. They implemented a new process to improve their phone handling, which involved routing all calls after two rings to the BDC. This improved call conversions and created a better experience for customers.
Dealerships must be constantly analyzed and measured to ensure they maximize their profits. Predictive analytics allows for a deeper understanding of customer needs and helps close more sales by providing dealerships with insights into the best car deals to offer their prospects. These insights allow the dealership to engineer an optimal deal against competition and minimize costs.
