The Complete Guide To Preventing Dealership Lead Loss

Anyone who’s been in the auto sales business knows what it’s like…one of your sales team has got a prospect who seems interested and engaged, maybe even zeroed in on one particular vehicle on your lot. And then, that lead just fades away and disappears, never to be heard from again. It’s a huge frustration for everyone, so how do you keep that from happening?

Let’s talk about lead loss prevention.

Where Dealerships Lose Leads (And Why)

A whole lot of leads disappear due to poor follow-through:

• Slow answers to new sales inquiries
• Calls and after-hours leads that get missed or dropped
• Sales followup that’s slow, disorganized or inconsistent
• Messages that are too generic, uninspiring and bland
• Leads in the CRM that are inactive and end up ignored
• Customers who are interested but the sales team doesn’t engage in a timely manner

Sometimes, these are things that happen due to oversights or the ball being dropped. Customers can fall through the cracks when the sales team isn’t communicating with each other well enough, or for any number of reasons. The message that the customer gets, though, is that your sales department is lazy or disorganized or just disengaged and doesn’t care enough to close a sale.

When customers get that impression, they move on and once people have that idea in their heads, they’re likely to write your dealership off forever. Worse still, they might tell their friends about that experience, and bad news travels faster than good news.

Faster Responses By Themselves Aren’t The Answer

So your dealership gets a call:

And that’s as far as it goes. No followup, no invitation to set an appointment for a test drive, no answers for any questions the customer might have. Again, that’s another customer who falls off the radar screen.

Now, let’s talk about how conversational AI from Matador can help head off these missed opportunities.

Conversational AI and Preventing Dealership Lead Loss

AI Engage

Timing is everything in these situations, and AI Engage is ready to connect with customers on their schedule. That means getting back to a customer in secons after-hours, or it can be set to a 10-15 minute lead time during business hours so that your staff can have the first shot. As soon as that lead is qualified, AI Engage then bows out and hands things over to AI Reply for a dialogue that can answer specific questions.

AI Reply

At this next stage of the sales funnel, AI Reply picks things up to handle customer questions or concerns, connecting with customers on specifics about a vehicle or multiple vehicles they might be interested in. It’s conversational and up to date on your inventory and info like dealership hours, specific trim levels and year/make/models. What AI Reply won’t do, though, is discuss pricing or financing – instead, it will silently flag a manager to hand that off to a person on the team.

AI Follow-Up

If you’ve got a lead that’s gone a little cold or didn’t commit, AI Follow-Up kicks in after 12 hours to offer specifics like trade-in bonuses or price drops on a vehicle. It can automatically detect whether a customer prefers email, SMS or voice calls, and hands the conversation back over to AI Reply (or a human agent) as soon as a customer responds.

Call AI

Nobody can be available 24/7, but Call AI can. This customizable conversational phone agent can help qualify leads with more details, set appointments, answer questions, book service appointments, read schedules and availability and even book loaner cars. It can even be set up with a regional accent (think New England or Southern accents) or designed to interact with Spanish-speaking customers.

Chat AI

Chatbots for websites have been around for a few years, but Chat AI has an advanced toolkit that can help gauge customer interest, answer specific questions and engage visitors in ways that the stock, canned responses of other older chatbot models.

One Message Isn’t Enough

Let’s just be clear: getting a single message or a generic response isn’t going to be enough to close a sale. Every customer’s different, with different preferences, needs, budgets and interests, and your responses should be mindful of that. Conversational AI can be what your team needs to help use that customer information and tailor the followup, setting things up for your sales team and freeing them up their time so they can focus on that customer relationship face-to-face.

The results are in, and dealerships that use the Matador AI platform show a 25% hike in pipeline conversions. It’s designed to make sure that engagement, followup and qualification of leads stays consistent, and it delivers results across the board. Book a demo with Matador and let’s explore what it can do for your dealership.