Attention car dealerships . . . listen up! When Mick Jagger shouted this statement to the world in 1969, while prancing full speed across a stage and simultaneously getting more cardio exercise performing one song than I would in a month, did the famous big mouthed lead singer of The Rolling Stones ever believe that his words in this classic hit would apply to so many things? Being some of the more well-known lyrics in Rock n Roll history, this phrase obviously resonated true for many people seeing that this song was named as the 100th greatest ever by Rolling Stone Magazine in its 2004 list of “500 Greatest Songs of All Time.” How does one Rolling Stone’s perspective relate to your business and more specifically how can you, the car dealership, “get what you need” out of call tracking?
Recently, I have been traveling around the Dallas/Fort Worth area to various car dealerships, specifically with the intent to grasp a better understanding of how dealerships operate on a daily basis and more importantly how call tracking can improve their store overall . From the sales managers and client advisors on the floor, to different service departments and beyond, I have witnessed firsthand a small glimpse of the everyday flow at a successful dealership. Even though a dealership may sell lots of vehicles, retain a high number of appointments booked or their service drive is busier than Keith Richard’s guitar pick with customers waiting for tune-ups, maintenance, or scheduled RO’s (repair orders), does not necessarily mean there isn’t room for improvement.
Century Interactive offers simple, but effective analytical tools that record and manage call data and allow for dealerships to determine where their calls (leads) are originating from. All of these tools can be applied to any phone system out there today and can be easily accessed through our online dashboard interface. Some might argue otherwise, but from what I have gathered throughout my training process, the most important tool that dealerships have at their fingertips and should implement daily is “Outbound Call Tracking.” Outbound Call Tracking is one of the many features that Century Interactive offers our clients and its simplicity is what makes it such an effective resource. Here is why:
- Utilize an outbound call tracking # to record and manage ALL calls made from your dealership
- Associate and direct 100% of call traffic through your CRM and tie the entire sales/service process and the customer relationship together
- Organize how many outbound calls a dealership is making by team, department and individual
- Hold your sales staff accountable and monitor all employee productivity
- Call recordings can be taught as a training tool and as a set standard of performance
- Quickly understand what your customers are saying and improve their overall experience
- Become more efficient at handling your leads and converting them into business opportunities
- Review calls for lost information, correct bad phone conversations, capture missed leads
- Prevent bad reviews of your store resulting from a bad customer call
- Set up automated daily and/or weekly reports, missed call alerts and email notifications
Sounds awesome, but how can all of the calls get associated with your dealership? Simple . . .
We assign a 4-digit phone code that is specific to an individual at the dealership (whether it is the General Manager or front desk agent) and in return that 4-digit phone code is ideally used by that individual when making any and every call to a client. When making a phone call from your store, dial the call tracking # (set up as a speed dial # for a quicker call), enter in your 4-digit code and then dial the customer’s 10-digit phone number. For an in depth analysis of how this outbound call tracking process can be numerically represented and applied to your dealership, please click here Outbound Call Tracking Study-Selling Cars .
If Mick Jagger was a general manager at a car dealership, his fluorescent red suit may not help him win the respect of his colleagues, but at least he would know that implementing outbound call tracking lines would improve his store’s performance as a whole. So in hindsight, after closely monitoring the integration between a dealership and its clients, I have discovered how valuable this concept is to the growth and success of a dealership’s structure internally and externally. Now all you have left to do is turn up the VOLUME on your numbers so to speak, get what you need out of outbound call tracking and start selling more cars.
Tags: call recording, call tracking, car dealership, crm integration, lead optimization, outbound call tracking