A new tool takes a dealer`s e-mail response time out of the slow lane
A new tool that uses advanced business rules and data logic to eliminate the manual process of opening and reviewing e-mail is helping a Florida car dealership cut almost two days off its e-mail response time.
When the process was manual and sales representatives had to physically open, review, prioritize and then send back an answer it took on average two days to respond to a customer’s e-mail request for a price quote or inventory availability at JM Lexus in Margate, FL.
But now that the process is automated and integrated with the company’s dealer management system, the average response time is 7 seven minutes, says Sonny Dixon, Internet business development manager for JM Lexus.
Using Contact Management, a new customer relationship management application from The Reynolds and Reynolds Co., a Columbus, OH, dealer management systems vendor, all e-mails are processed based on a series of information templates and business tools, and customized to send back the specific information a customer is looking for.
Because Contact Management is integrated with other dealer and inventory management data bases, the tool can create a customized quote or a specific vehicle inventory responses, which is then automatically sent back to the customer along with a personalized note from a sales rep inviting the recipient into the showroom for a test drive or with a promise to follow-up by phone and answer any outstanding questions.
JM Lexus, which sells about 75 new cars each month over the web, credits the new tool with increasing to about 36% the number of all monthly e-mail respondents who come into the company’s Fort Lauderdale showroom for a test drive or a follow-up discussion. “There is no more manual process that requires an Internet rep to sort the requests, compile the information and then send the recipient a response,” Dixon says. “Business rules and pre-set templates in our new tool assemble the information and get an answer back to the customer in usually just a few minutes.”
JM Lexus, which gets around 60,000 unique monthly visitors looking for a price quote or conducting other vehicle research, is making several wholesale e-commerce changes. The auto dealership is eliminating its stand-alone web sales department in favor of a more integrated sales department where Internet managers are responsible for converting e-mail leads into showroom appointments.
The company, one of the nation’s largest Lexus dealerships, is also opening a new web store stocked with Lexus-related merchandise, and streamlining its third-party advertising relationships.
“Quicker e-mail brings in higher quality and more profitable leads,” Dixon says. “We have customers who don’t have a lot of time, know the Lexus model they want and don’t mind paying cash for a $60,000 automobile.”
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