But, emails don't sell cars

[Rex Boyd]

Today I caught up on a couple of blogs (www.dealerrefresh.com and autoventures.wordpress.com). Admittedly, I’m a tech guy. Therefore, I found myself sucked into some of the "gee-wiz" elements of the highlighted companies and contributors’ best practices. After stepping back for a few minutes, a thought rushed to my head. Are some salespeople so wowed by technology and smoke & mirror promises that they forgot the most basic tenant of sales—“Relationships sell.”

It doesn’t matter if you are selling cars or widgets. A successful salesperson builds a relationship and this is rarely done in an email conversation. I know that some say, "but my interned customers don't want to talk on the phone, so email sells." I counter that the purpose of their email-first approach is to determine if they want to have a phone conversation with you. It is akin to taking a date out for a cup of coffee to determine if you can stand the person's company for all of dinner and a movie.

The purpose of email is to drive a telephone call. It is possible that I can be bold and say that most of the gee-wiz technology in the automotive sector should always be litmus tested against the question "does this drive my salesteam into relationships that sell cars".

[carguy4profits]

Unfortunately most dealers and dealerships are not driven by relationship building. Often management does not reward or promote customer acquisitions from referrals, or retention. It is easier in their view to spend $250-400 on new leads than retain an existing customer who can be a customer (and advocate) for life.

Even dealerships that ‘get it’ and understand the importance of building loyalty often do not have the necessary tools. They are dealing with fragmented systems. DMS providers use technology from the 80’s (with windows UI) that were developed for inventory and billing exclusively. Clearly no customer centric solution is possible from a strictly transaction based platform. Third party solutions are also limited in scope because they are built usually to fill one fragmented function.

[Rex Boyd]

I agree with many of your points CarGuy. You also have challenged me to clear up one of my points.

A relationship is not exclusive to the customer who spends 30 years bouncing between a single sales floor and service isle. iMagicLab's (www.imagiclab.com) CRM tools do a terrific job of maintaining communication with that customer for life. It was built from the ground up to achieve this goal.

I intended to communicate the necessity of building a relationship where the prospect picks you as a salesperson over your competition. Your company's phone pop technology provides the salesperson something personal about that individual before they pick up the phone. It is about providing a tool for building a relationship. My iLeadTools product (www.ileadtools.com) is about staying in communication with the lead (internet, phone, or walk-in) from acquisition of the lead through post sale follow-up. These are two tools which are beyond the F&I responsibilities of a DMS. They are tools which pass the litmus test - they provide a relationship building service.

[Jeff Kershner]

Totally agree with you Rex. I would never allow technology to get in the way of a good'ol relationship building. Matter of fact, I have found that the more email communication (without a phone conversation in the mix) I have back and forth with a potential customer, my chances of making the sale lessens. Again, unless I'm able to get the customer on the phone. If there is a mixture of email and phone (relationship building) I'm usually going to make the sale!

[JD Rucker]

Someone posted a comment and I accidentally deleted it!!!!

Please repost. I am SO sorry. The one bad thing about Ning is that there's no do-overs, no warnings. When I accidentally clicked the X, it was gone without prompting or asking "Are you sure."

Again, I apologize greatly.

[Brian Hoecht]

Emails do not sell cars. People do. Emails are a pretty weak medium of communication. They are devoid of all verbal and non-verbal communication and are easily misconstrued.

Jeff K. and I speak quite regularly on such topics. While my company has the first "shopping cart" for car dealers to add to their website, it is the message that the shopping cart exists that is the honey to attract consumers to the site and gain selling opportunities.

While direct click through can and has happened (true ecommerce), it is by far the exception. Dealers using the system sell more cars because they are good at selling to those who start there... and that means going with what works... email should only be used to start the conversation if that is how the consumer wishes to begin.

[Stan Sher]

I agree with all of you all the way. I believe a relationship must be created and the phone is your best friend. Email just helps you to follow through. One interesting fact though. I have an internet sales consultant that works for me. He never picks up the phone. He gets a lead, he emails them a price quote and just lets it sit there because my 73 day follow up process has automated specially tweaked emails in place. He sells 25 to 30 per month and averages a 16% close ratio. I have been trying for months since I came on boar to break his habit because I think he has the potential to do 40 cars if he just tries harder and calls people. He can greatly improve his CSI. I think it is amazing that he gets away with it and he is lucky because my other two guys are not as lucky, work harder, call people, and sell only 16 to 18 cars months. I just wanted to share that miracle with everyone because even I could not sell that many cars without picking up the phone. He simply works the customers that respond back to him. He also makes the least gross but outsells anyone in the store. Amazing. I have to give the credit to Honda being a brand that sells itself.