USING A TRADITIONAL CRM PROCESS BASED ON PHONE CALLS AND EMAILS, MOST AUTO DEALERS CAN ONLY FOLLOW UP WITH LEADS FOR ABOUT 7 DAYS.

 

Dealerships have been attempting to find out how to effectively follow up on leads produced via the internet since the advent of the internet age. They’ve set up large BDC departments and held innumerable sessions instructing their employees to dial more numbers and send more emails. Due to enhanced spam screening by email providers, fewer customers are picking up their phones for unknown numbers, and fewer emails are being delivered to inboxes. As a result, dealers have instructed their staff to make even more phone calls and send even more emails in order to convert a bigger percentage of the leads they have paid for. Managers and salespeople are becoming increasingly irritated with one another across the country. Managers want more calls and emails, and salespeople feel like they’re wasting their time calling people who don’t answer the phone or read their emails.

 

Creating and finishing phone calls and emails are fundamental to the typical CRM process. You work on one activity at a time, complete it before moving on to the next. When you’re a salesperson, it’s a time-consuming and irritating linear process. Some salespeople have adjusted to the procedure, but most are not wired to sit at a desk and do a never-ending list of chores. This procedure is carried out for one simple purpose. To make contact with someone and sell them an automobile. That’s all the salesperson cares about. I’ve worked as a salesperson who used a CRM. I’ve been using them since the beginning of CRMs, starting with ACT and GoldMine, two of the original CRMs. It’s like striking gold when you get a call or a response to an email from someone who is interested! Your adrenaline starts pumping, giving you the energy to complete even more activities. If people stop answering the phone and reacting to your emails you eventually feel frustrated and lose your motivation.

 

We activated our integration with Facebook Lead Generation advertisements on Labor Day of 2016. Leads were pushed into our freshly constructed SMS CRM as a result of the integration. We created a CRM with a primary focus on Text Messages rather than Phone Calls and Emails. When the first few leads came into the system, I was working from my little home office. While texting customers about acquiring a vehicle, I realized one thing: I didn’t have to send the text messages personally, and the customer would never know it wasn’t me. This was the first time I heard the term “hybrid intelligence”! I called my wife into the office to assist me in communicating with the customers, and we were able to be more efficient by working together. When I was unavailable, she could pick up a discussion and the customer would never know.

 

Over the next few months, it became evident that not only could I enlist the support of others, but we could also develop tools to help with the workload. We didn’t have to follow up with clients one by one; we could do it in bulk, and the customer wouldn’t know it wasn’t a real person doing so. The CRM’s linear “task procedure” was no longer required. With the press of a button, we could complete all of our follow-up tasks. EVERYTHING was changed as a result of this! Not only might you have other people help with lead follow-up, but you could also have robots help. The text message has ushered in a new era for CRM follow-up.

 

Clients frequently ask, “When will you establish a CRM?” We’ve already constructed one. It’s just a different way of doing things. It’s a procedure that revolves around text messages rather than phone calls and emails. The SIMPSOCIAL SMS CRM is a level above a typical CRM. It’s an appointment scheduler that allows you to follow up on leads indefinitely without having to hire an army of BDC employees. SIMPSOCIAL allows you to track consumers until they “purchase or die.” We have a one-of-a-kind method for generating a pipeline of leads with whom you may actively communicate. At any given time, our clients have thousands of ongoing discussions with customers. With a 7-day follow-up process, BDC salespeople could previously manage 200-300 new leads per month. They may follow up on 700-1000 new leads per month using SIMPSOCIAL, shattering the 7-day follow-up and continuing to follow up until the customer is ready to buy.

 

With clients starting the car-buying process up to eight months before they’re ready to buy, follow-up will be critical to maximize the dealership’s return on investment on leads. A seven-day follow-up isn’t going to cut it. You must be able to follow up with a large number of people over a long period of time. Text Messaging and Hybrid Intelligence are the answer to long-term follow-up without wearing down your team with a stack of unanswered phone calls and unread emails!

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