The current scenario presents obstacles for every department of the dealership. The most successful Sales Managers have met the challenge by adapting and understanding these three “rules”: statistics say much more than we think; people no longer buy as before; and the competition does and will not stay still.
Generating concrete sales opportunities has become more complicated, and that requires managers to use new tools and strategies to achieve dealership’s business goals.
Sales statistics are no longer just data but platforms from which to build strategies, taking into account the habits and behaviors of customers. Let’s look at three market statistics that can be addressed using our three rules.
Offer Exactly What Each Customer Wants
The data
At least 50% of your prospects are not a good fit for what you sell.
The analysis
Generating sales opportunities that are rapidly discarded comes at a significant cost of money and time. If half of sales opps are being discarded, you need to address the accuracy of your marketing and sales efforts to improve lead quality.
How to adapt
The more data you can compile for each customer, the more strategies you can use to address their precise needs. This means leveraging each interaction with each customer to learn more about them. For example:
- Do they have a a family?
- Do they travel?
- Does he have a favorite brand?
A dealership recently found that it was generating new sales opportunities at a very low rate. They assumed, without much margin of error, that the causes were internal or due to the pandemic.
They began working on their existing customer portfolio by leveraging their very detailed database.
Each vehicle model has an annual consumption of services and parts estimated by the manufacturer. Taking that information into account for each customer and using their CRM, the Sales Manager created phone campaigns to proactively generate opportunities knowing in advance what each customer might need.
They achieved this by bringing together the information in the DMS (sales potential for each customer) with CRM features (criteria-based sales campaigns).
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Old Habits Die Hard
The data
70% of marketers only send one email. If you send more emails, however, you have a 25% chance of receiving a reply.
The analysis
Sometimes older strategies fall out of favor as marketers embrace new, shiny technologies. To some extent it’s true. However, in the case of email, while it may have lost its prominence of a few years ago, it doesn’t mean it has lost its effectiveness.
How to adapt
The right processes and tools are essential to avoid losing opportunities for simple omissions such as not sending an email.
- If the process says it, it must be done. If just by sending an email you can get the attention of a potential customer, why not do it? Every contact is a sales opportunity.
- Sales staff must record tasks correctly in the CRM, including detailed actions, useful additional information, etc. A CRM is not just another tool; it should be part of a dealership’s sales culture, and its correct use must be continually reinforced.
| Task with low probability of completion | Task with high probability of completion |
|---|---|
| Task: Recontact John Santos Channel: – Expiration date: – | Task: Send an email to John Santos with new pickup truck promotions. Channel: Email Expiration date: 05/05/2021 |
Not How Many, But Why
The data
Quotes are the most common reason the strongest sales opportunities are lost.
The analysis
It’s interesting to know how many opportunities are lost each month, but even more so when they’re transformed into numbers. Let’s say 20 opportunities were lost in a month… knowing that translates into $360,000 is very different. But we can drill down even deeper: each of these missed opportunities has a reason and occurs at a particular stage in the sales process.
How to adapt
Your CRM can provide detailed information on reasons for lost sales; analyzing these is essential to knowing what to change. Let’s look at the importance of analyzing lost sales at the quote stage.
What’s behind the “high price” reason?
Was the price higher than… the customer’s expectations? The competitions pricing? What they can afford? Lost sales reasons can usually be broken down into specific causes.
Lowering the price is an option, but that is the easy way and not be profitable.
Therefore, possible strategies might go in a different direction: showing the added value offered by the dealership (advice, service reminders, etc.); payment plans tailored to each customer; guarantees offered by the dealer; brand engagement.
If you want to know how Autologica Sky DMS can accompany your sales team from professionalism to greater success, request an online demo and chat with us.
