In the highly competitive world of automotive sales, one tactic can help you outpace competitors: Sales Enablement.
Research consistently shows that prospects buy from companies that they like and trust. Much of this human connection is built during the sales process. Every good sales manager knows that the efficacy of your sales team is directly related to their ability to connect with and serve your leads.
The challenge is that consumer expectations change; the strategies and tactics you use to create that connection need to evolve, too.
That's where Conversational Sales Enablement comes into play.
Conversational Sales Enablement is all about making it easy for your sales team to connect with and convert customers.
In this blog, you'll learn all about this new strategy and how it can fuel your sales growth.
How are dealerships generating new leads? Primarily through a mix of advertising, social media, SEO, and referrals.
North American dealerships spend more than $10B on online advertising per year, with more than 55% - or $5.5B - being spent on digital advertising. This includes pay-per-click advertising, social media ads, and other digital channels.
Prospective customers are looking at more than just ads. They’re frequently checking online reviews, social media, and review sites, too. In fact, more than 60% of consumers said they switched dealerships as a result of online reviews.
However, despite this significant spend, many dealerships fail to respond to leads quickly and convert them to sales. This results in thousands of dollars in wasted marketing and advertising spend.
If you are investing in generating leads, you need to invest in closing them too.
Sales enablement is all about empowering your sales team to be successful. Conversational Sales Enablement takes that a step further with a conversation-first sales strategy that allows you to reduce that wastage, consistently improve performance, and create a better experience for your potential customers.
The graphic to the right shows how a range of tactics come together in a Conversational Sales Strategy.
As you'll notice, each of these tactics delivers great customer service and helps build an authentic, convenient relationship with leads and prospects.
A strong Conversational Sales Enablement strategy creates a repeatable process that lets your sales team connect with and convert leads to customers at the right moment, at scale, building trust every step of the way.
Keep in mind that every effort in a Conversational Sales Enablement strategy exists to enhance your greatest sales asset: your sales team. You'll never replace the salesperson - after all, people buy from people!
The essential pillars of Conversational Sales Enablement are:
As you can see here, Rapid Lead Response is a key tactic required for success when implementing this strategy. More on this next.
Rapid lead response is the practice of contacting leads as quickly as possible after they’re created. It's a critical tactic in your Conversational Sales Enablement strategy, because it allows you to build a trust-based human connection quickly and efficiently.
Rapid lead response is proven to positively impact your sales. The odds of qualifying a lead are 21 times higher if you call within 5 minutes of the lead’s inquiry, versus 30. After one hour, the odds of qualifying a lead are negligible.
However, studies also show that the average dealership responds to leads between 3-5 hours after creation.
Plus, data shows that the average prospect submits an inquiry to three different dealerships, so reaching them before your competitors is crucial.
Rapid lead response is good for customers, too. This approach helps your prospects get answers when they’re actively shopping, at the peak moment of interest.
The second pillar of Conversational Sales Enablement your dealership needs to embrace is the idea of making communication convenient.
Conversational Sales Enablement isn’t just phone calls - though those are important - but also about business text messaging, live chat, automated lead follow-up, and more.
Questions like, "Is it better to call or text prospects?" miss the point. The answer is "both." Doing both is the best way to figure out which method your customer prefers. What matters is that you connect quickly and demonstrate that their business is important to you. After all, technologies change; the value of human connection doesn’t.
We recommend that dealerships connect with leads via phone within five minutes of their inquiry. We also recommend sending a text before you dial to let your prospect know you'll be calling them. We've found that this dramatically improves conversion rates.
Sellers that embrace promotional SMS programs often see a 23%+ conversion rate.
Even in today's digital-first world, it is important to have that phone call. Research shows that, with complex purchases, consumers want to have a conversation.
The best auto dealerships will successfully respond to inquiries at the right time, in the right way, across multiple channels of communication.
"Calldrip has helped us to drop our internet lead response time from well over one hour to less than 20 minutes. Since Calldrip was setup here our lead to close went from under 5% to 12.9%."
Art W.
Your sales team has a lot of responsibility, and it's not always possible for them to be at their desk in the exact moment a lead submits an inquiry. To provide convenient communication in today's world, your sales team needs to be able to be responsive on-the-go.
Calldrip's Conversational Sales Enablement solution is unique, because we provide a hassle-free, all in-one-approach. Plus, with our mobile app, your sales representatives can be successful with a tool they're already using constantly: the phone in their pocket.
Conversational Sales Enablement is a powerful strategy that has the potential to transform your sales. However, it does leverage a variety of elements, such as rapid lead response, performance-focused sales coaching, and conversation analytics.
Implementing this strategy requires a few things to be successful:
Without this ethos, your sales team may struggle to understand why it matters, and how serving the customer better actually boosts sales
Depending on your sales process, you have a few options when it comes to responding to leads quickly. You could:
Before using Calldrip, many of our auto dealer customers struggled to know which lead sources perform best. They may not be certain that all leads are getting called. After a quick setup process, dealership sales leaders know that every lead gets a quick follow-up call and as an added benefit, gain visibility into lead source performance and coaching opportunities. So how does it work?
"With the Calldrip System, we’re getting back to our customers within about 10 seconds. This has made a huge difference in terms of number of sales!"
Jeff G.
Calldrip is a software solution that integrates with your CRM and existing lead sources to automatically call your prospects. It works by capturing contact details when your lead submits a digital or phone inquiry, and automatically connecting a sales team member with that lead by call or text.
Here’s a sample use case:
Setup is quick and easy, facilitated by a customer success professional who is dedicated to your account. If you ever have challenges or questions, they’re available to help.
When compared to manual processes, such as creating tasks for a salesperson inside your CRM, Calldrip is significantly faster: about 10 seconds versus a national average of 42 hours. Just as importantly, Calldrip ensures you don’t waste money by missing any leads!
On average, businesses in the US take 42 hours to respond to their leads. This results in millions of dollars wasted on marketing and advertising.
Compare that to Calldrip customers, who are responding to leads within about 10 seconds!