Let’s face reality…
Google ‘Car Salesman’ and this is the first image that pops up:
This is how a majority of consumers feel about you and your dealership.
No one wakes up early on a Saturday morning with a HUGE smile on their face excited to spend their day off at your dealership…no matter what event or promotion is happening.
No one wants to see or hear your TV, radio, or newspaper campaign. The noise created through these channels is the reason why the Internet has taken off. You use a Tivo/DVR to record TV, your iPod to listen to music in your car, and you’ve canceled your newspaper subscription. Your customers have done the same. Don’t kid yourself…
You have a website (effective or ineffective?), you subscribe to multiple 3rd party lead generation services (AutoTrader, Cars.com, Dealix; what is working today?), and get leads from the marketing efforts of whatever franchise your dealership represents. A name, email address, and telephone number are provided with (maybe?) a vehicle of interest and a hope and prayer that they will hear back from a professional that will give them the information they’ve asked for. They are contacting you because they’ve hit a dead-end online. They’ve drummed up enough information to get to this point, now they are ready to take the plunge into your dealership for a test drive, product pitch, comparison, or professional advice outside of cyberspace.
You’re going to (hopefully?) provide each and every prospect that the information they’ve requested in a timely manner. Some of you will answer a prospect’s questions out-of-the-gate, others will use practices that have proven to be effective in generating interest through elusive questioning that will eventually compel the prospect to come into your dealership for some good old-fashioned face-to-face interaction. Most of these interactions will be recorded and noted through a CRM/ILM tool that will monitor your dealership’s activity with this client until they’ve purchased something from you, someone else, or have let you know that they are no longer interested.
You aren’t the only dealership the prospect is talking to. Often times they have shotgunned their contact information out to multiple dealerships with similar requests. In most cases, you are using the same CRM/ILM tool as your competition and your customer is receiving the same auto-generated emails from you as they are from other dealerships in the area.
You are a car salesman. Consumers do not trust you or your dealership unless they know or have experience working with you or your dealership. The reason prospects have contacted you through email vs a phone call vs face-to-face is because they don’t want to have to go through the pain of showing up at your dealership only to experience a scene out a Hitchcock film, sales vultures circling around, waiting for the next piece of fresh meat.
The question lies…HOW DO I BUILD A RELATIONSHIP WITH MY PROSPECTS IN ORDER TO BUILD TRUST?
It’s time to start utilizing the same relationship channels as your customers to build trust. Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn have given us the ability to break down barriers through faceless interaction online. Your customers are using these online services to build relationships and you should leverage this vehicle to do the same.
A few weeks ago, I was speaking with Tracy Myers of Frank Myers Auto Maxx about how he is using social networking to build his dealership’s brand and sales departments. He spoke of a recent example of a 22 year old woman that was at his dealership, looking for a car with a friend. This woman seemed to be scared to death being at his store, so much so that she took off during the initial pencil and ran away. The salesperson in this case only got the girl’s name. Having no email address or telephone number to reconnect with this prospect, Tracy did a search on MySpace, found the girl, and sent an email letting her know that he was there to help and wanted to answer any questions she might have regarding the car buying process. The woman immediately opened up through this channel. The barriers had been broken and after a few emails back-and-forth through MySpace, she came in and purchased a car.
Eric Miltsch of Auction Direct USA feels that using social networking as a way to connect with customers has been underestimated. The idea of connecting via a computer is still fairly new, but it is another tool like the telephone, email, or snail mail to interface with your customers. Your dealership could be wasting as much time on the phone as they are on email or social networking. Don’t be scared of the tools. The key is being efficient with everything in your toolbox to crank out information and quality content that people like.
The key is using social media to spread the good word of your dealership and change the way people buy and service cars through a different style of marketing and self-promotion. Do you have any examples of your dealership using social networking or any of the above practices to build relationships with your community or customers?
Share This
