SAN CLEMENTE, Calif. -

Phone strategy recommendations based on the company’s latest sales appointment data as well as a service drive product enhancement offered by DealerSocket all coincide with the aggressive plan to cater to dealers that chief executive officer Jonathan Ord has.

In sharing that DealerSocket is actively pursuing more acquisitions, Ord explained the various ways DealerSocket is out to back up its marketing mantra of, “We are automotive.”

During a face-to-face interview at the annual conference hosted by the National Alliance of Buy-Here, Pay-Here Dealers last month in Las Vegas, Ord said, “We can buy companies to create new product offerings, we can build the technology internally or we can partner.

“Our strategy and vision is to utilize all three of those avenues in the best way possible to transform the industry,” he continued. “You’ll see us make one to two acquisitions a quarter. You’ll see us launch new technologies every few weeks across all of our product lines. And then you’ll see us continue to partner with other great companies that can even be competitive to what we have but that really have the same vision as us.

“The most important thing for us is that the dealership is happy and there is value there,” Ord went on to say.

What DealerSocket hopes has value is what the company unveiled on Tuesday. DealerSocket announced a complete revamp of its online service Scheduler within its service dashboard.

The online service scheduler can allow dealer customers to schedule a service appointment on the store website.

“We are excited to introduce the redesign for online service scheduler,” DealerSocket chief technology officer Brad Perry said. “Our new responsive design is more intuitive which, in turn, helps dealers increase the amount of service appointments scheduled by their customers.”

New enhancements include an easy-to-use, responsive user interface, reduction of duplicates logged into the system, Facebook login integration, and more.

Also coming this summer is the ability to upload video content to explain dealership service offerings.

DealerSocket said dealerships that provide their customers with an online portal to schedule service appointments saw at least a 35-percent increase in appointments scheduled.

Along with providing an online avenue for the service drive, DealerSocket reminded dealers that they shouldn’t abandon the phone to boost their retail sales division.

The company recently analyzed 11.5 million sales records. In short, DealerSocket insisted that dealers need to put in time on the phone to drive appointments.

DealerSocket highlighted this recommendation for efficiently and effectively confirming appointments — follow up 16 to 30 minutes after receiving a lead.

“By doing so, dealers are 23 percent more likely to close a sale than those who responded within the first 15 minutes,” DealerSocket said.

DealerSocket indicated the average dealer called each prospect three times, set 23 appointments and sold fewer than seven vehicles per month.

But then the company noticed the most successful dealers made eight calls per prospect, set 49 appointments (a 113-percent increase) and sold 13 vehicles.

DealerSocket also metnioned the average dealer's calls last one minute 59 seconds each (a total of five minutes, 59 seconds per prospect).

But then added top-performing dealers calls last one minute 37 seconds each (a total of 12 minutes, 56 seconds per prospect).

“So, the difference between being an average performer and a top performer is essentially another six minutes on the phone per prospect, which result in a 117-percent increase in vehicle sales per dealer,” DealerSocket said.