In my work with dealers one of the most common complaints I encounter is this:

“My sales people don’t follow up. We have less foot traffic, and the salespeople won’t call their customers back or try to get referrals to get more sales.”

As with anything, there are exceptions to the rule, but in most cases, dealers and general managers are correct on both points. Statistics relating to shopping and buying behavior highlight that customers are visiting less dealerships than ever before: from an average of 4.5 visits to stores just a few years ago, some data suggest customers now visit, on average, 1.2 dealerships before making a purchase decision. That means fewer bodies in your showroom and on your lot, less opportunities to use your human resources and physical facility to encourage purchasing. When a prospect leaves your dealership, the imperative actions then become to stay in contact, provide excellent customer service by phone and email, ensure that customers understand the offers made while they were in store, present enhanced offers if needed, and verify that the roadblock preventing the sale is not in the salesperson’s approach.

I have a habit of secret shopping my dealer customers, in order to understand how a customer experiences shopping at that dealership. Usually this involves an email lead submission, sometimes a phone in lead, with both methods of contact provided for follow up, and a question on a specific used inventory piece on the lot.  I then track and evaluate the quality of the response and subsequent follow up. Results from a recent secret shop of dealers involved in one performance group are pretty much indicative of what I often find:

  • Of twelve dealers contacted by me, only about 50 percent ever got back to me.
  • Only 25 percent tried to contact me by phone.
  • None made more than a first attempt to make contact and get me in to the store.

The quality of the responses varied wildly. At the low end, I received an auto responder followed by poorly written emails which did not provide any incentive to visit the store or ask any questions to further me in my search. One phone response was professional, warm and respectful.

It is interesting to note that some of the best sales people I have ever met are people who would have a difficult time selling on the floor. This is because phone selling, the backbone of prospecting and follow up, is a very different skill set than showroom sales. The objectives are the same, with one key difference: phone selling is successful when the salesperson provides enough value for the customer to visit or return to the dealership, floor selling is successful when a customer buys a car. Both goals involve a buy in from the customer, but phone selling is entirely contingent on a fantastic service experience, whereas showroom selling is too often reliant on transacting based on discounting and offers. The reality is, your best salespeople may not have the skills that drive customers back in to your showroom, even though they have the ability to make the sale once the customer is in front of them.

Consider as well that everyone learns and receives information best in one of three ways: by seeing, by hearing, or by doing. Some customers don’t actually understand the offer presented to them by the salesperson, either because the stimulus in the showroom puts the customer on high alert and inhibits them from objectively listening to the offer, or because the information is complicated by other factors (trade ins, negative equity, too many choices presented) that emotionally exhaust the customer before they can decide to buy. A structured follow up call, closely following the customer’s visit, at a time that is convenient for the customer, while they are in a relaxed state and either at home or at work, goes a long way towards the end of communicating a fair offer to the customer in such a way that they feel supported in making a decision to buy rather being pushed or sold to.

The final factor is an extension of a basic tenet of sales: People buy things from people they like. Perhaps for some reason, the customer did not like, trust or feel comfortable with the salesperson. Most people in that case would simply choose not to buy, and avoid the embarrassment of asking to deal with someone else. You would never be made aware of this, and you could certainly not sell the customer a vehicle. A neutral person performing a customer service follow up stands a better chance of hearing that feedback, allowing for the customer to deal with a different person, opening the opportunity for a sale to still take place. We do not all like everybody we meet, and it is not a definitive reflection on the skills of the salesperson if some customers just can’t get comfortable enough to buy from them.

As shopping and purchasing behaviours continue to evolve, these things will become even more relevant. Good follow up is not only a part of selling, but it is also becoming increasingly the best tool a dealership has. Far from an afterthought, after sales service and follow-up points of contact form the basis of sales accountability: what is the point of stocking several million dollars worth of vehicles, maintaining a clean and inviting facility, or executing a full scale media marketing plan if the requisite follow ups to customers are not being made? You owe it to your business, your staff, your customers, and to yourself to have high standards and a solid plan to facilitate customer service until the customer says stop: they will either buy a car from you or from someone else.