Performance improvement expert Douglas Stafford offers a scheme which helps dealerships to reconnect with hot prospects who didn’t actually buy.
The company’s Lost Leads Initiative helps dealerships to ensure that every sales opportunity is followed-up effectively and, although the emphasis of the scheme is focused on trying to re-initiate a sale, it also provides an analysis of the reasons why a customer didn’t buy, which is a vital tool in helping to close a sale next time.
A typical dealership may get about 40-50 potential customer enquiries each week but figures suggest that just one in four people will make a purchase – so finding out the reasons why the other 75% didn’t buy is crucial to increasing sales.
It might have been down to vehicle price or part exchange valuation or it could have been because of the experience the potential customer had at the dealership. Knowing the reason gives dealerships a way of reopening negotiations or at least having the chance to get it right next time.
“Dealerships have all the best intentions when it comes to following up on lost sales,” says Douglas Stafford’s Contact Centre Manager Madelaine Cook. “After all, they’ve invested time with a customer and it makes sense to follow them up.
“Our experienced customer service advisors will contact a dealership’s lost sale customers and try and get them back into the showroom. We find out why they didn’t purchase and if they are still in the market.
“Our advisors will find out what the customer would like the dealership to do to get them to come back and look at the vehicle again. This could, for example, be something like giving them a better deal on a new vehicle or a higher price for their part exchange.
“Obviously we’ll do our best to get customers back into the dealership in order to increase sales, but there’s also an important customer services improvement element to this initiative. So if we contact someone who went into a dealership last week, didn’t buy and then ended up buying somewhere else then we would try and find out why that was.
“We’ll ask questions like how customers felt about the level of service they received, if they were offered a test drive, were they followed up, what were the reasons for them not buying and have they purchased elsewhere and, if so, why?
“At the very least, we will find out some vital information so that a dealership’s management team can adapt its sales processes to give them a better chance of increasing sales.
“So much information can be gained from this type of lost sale analysis and, of course, there is a high likelihood that it will result in customers returning to buy – and if they do, sales staff will be equipped by us with the sort of information they need to know in order to be able to close the sale.”
The majority of the charges for Douglas Stafford’s initiative are performance related so it provides dealerships with a much needed, cost effective, extra resource to increase sales.
The scheme complements the company’s hugely successful Showroom Appointment Initiative, which is producing excellent results for the dealerships currently participating and bringing in one sale for every four appointments made by Douglas Stafford’s contact centre team.
For further details on how Douglas Stafford can help your dealership reconnect with hot prospects who didn’t actually buy call Madelaine Cook on 0800 783 1913 or email: [email protected]
www.douglasstafford.co.uk
