6 Ways to Stay in Touch with a Customer After a Car Purchase
Retaining customers is essential to the success of your dealership. Nevertheless, it might be difficult to keep clients coming back given the plethora of rival dealerships and the dynamic nature of the automotive industry. It’s more crucial than ever to learn how to follow up with customers efficiently.
Customers believe they are just another transaction and that the dealership is not interested in keeping in touch with them when a dealership fails to follow up. Customers may feel undervalued and even unsatisfied with their purchase as a result of this lack of interaction, which may discourage them from returning for service or other purchases.
It goes without saying that follow-up is a significant aspect of the purchasing experience. Nearly 75 percent of drivers say they would visit their dealerships more frequently if the purchasing process were made easier.
How do you then follow up with your clients to ensure that they remain loyal to you?
1. Call clients to ascertain their level of satisfaction.
Your dealership may demonstrate that you care about more than just making a sale and are prepared to go above and beyond to ensure their pleasure by making a simple phone call to learn how clients feel about their purchases.
This kind of follow-up can also give your dealership the chance to address any problems or worries the customer might be having. Genuine care can also help promote word-of-mouth recommendations, and addressing these issues can help prevent bad evaluations.
Not to mention that getting their opinion is the first step in creating a customer feedback loop, which will help you gradually enhance your outcomes and reputation.
Email and social media messages can be used in conjunction with phone calls, but phone calls can be more effective and personal.
2. Emails with useful advice and details on their new car
A dealership may find it advantageous to provide value to the consumer by sending them useful advice and information regarding their new car. In addition to any pertinent safety advice or features that the consumer may not be aware of, these emails may also contain information on how to properly maintain and care for the vehicle.
Email enables you to explicitly remind customers of your tire service and oil change offers in a location where they can quickly access the details if necessary.
More importantly, make sure that the emails clarify the service schedule for the customer’s car depending on their driving style and the vehicle in question. This kind of follow-up encourages customers to consider the dealership as a reliable source for future servicing requirements and helps to establish the dealership as such.
It is worthwhile for the salesman to take the time to personally compose these initial follow-up letters in order to develop genuine relationships with consumers.
3. Invites to dealer events and exclusive deals
In order to keep the client interested and entice them to visit the dealership again in the future, you can periodically include details about forthcoming events or exclusive deals at the dealership in your follow-up emails. For example, this may include things like special discounts, VIP gatherings, or client appreciation days.
Restrict the frequency of your upselling emails to no more than once a month or once every three months, depending on how frequently you send them informative non-sales communications. You don’t want your clients to believe that all you’re doing is trying to get more money from them.
Be careful not to unintentionally send them advertisements for new cars when they recently purchased one! Although it should go without saying, things of this nature frequently occur, particularly when using automated mailing services.
4. Use direct mail as an additional messaging technique.
Direct mail is a potent addition to email and phone conversations, whether you’re following up to thank them for their purchase or advertising your dealership’s events and specials. Vehicle owners are more likely to remember and trust direct mail than digital messaging such as email or social media.
Direct mail is a topic that we’ve covered in more detail in the past, so we won’t spend much time on it here. If you haven’t used direct mail yet, think about this: The response rate for direct mail might reach 37%. How does that relate to the outreach you already do?
5. Send surveys to customers to get their input on their experiences.
We briefly discussed the customer feedback loop above, but it is important to reiterate that you should poll your consumers to learn about their experiences.
This might offer insightful information about the dealership’s strengths and potential improvement areas. The dealership may demonstrate that it is dedicated to making improvements and cares about the client’s experience by aggressively seeking and reacting to consumer input.
Additionally, a non-promotional technique to further engage a consumer without alienating them is by merely asking for their input (whether via a written survey or a phone call).
If you can’t reach them, think about calling them as a follow-up call before sending a direct mail or email survey.
6. Offer incentives to encourage repeat business from clients
Customers typically prefer to receive texts when service reminders are sent. While adapting to their preferred methods of communication is a fantastic place to start, nothing will make your business more memorable than offering special incentives that clients won’t find anywhere else.
Customers receive beneficial perks, such as coverage for tire repairs and convenient roadside assistance, when dealerships offer SimpSocial, for instance.
These perks include funding for dealer-loyal roadside assistance, towing, and other incidentals, which have been shown to keep consumers coming back to dealerships offering SimpSocial benefits. They also cover repair and maintenance work that is not covered by the warranty.
Every time a car owner visits your shop for servicing, these perks are automatically renewed, which provides them with a strong incentive to do so.
Back to Blog