Extra 50 Vehicles - Automotive News · 2018-11-21 · Sell an Extra 50 Vehicles ... as high quality, one-owner, low mileage certiﬁ ed units. ... mileage and ownership equity or

A White Paper

Sell an Extra

50 Vehicles Every Month with Client Portfolio Management & Pattern-Interrupt Strategies

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Might traditional, but trusted technology like the telephone be the latest thing for unlockingphenomenally increased sales for your dealership? Incredibly, the answer is yes, when salesassociates use scripted calls to seed powerful pattern-interrupt desire in your customers.

Pattern-interrupt selling helps dealers like you create remarkable opportunities:

• Fletcher Jones Motorcars sells on average 100 or more extra units every month to existing customers

• Paragon Honda-Acura sells an extra 95 units a month and reduces its reliance on auctions to stock its lot with CPO-quality vehicles

• Acura of Fremont and Acura Authorized Service, Acura’s fi rst-ever Authorized Service satellite, sells an extra $80,000 a month in service labor and parts

For more than 100 years, car dealers have offered customers “a deal they can’t refuse,” car-speakthat consumers are conditioned to resist. Pattern-interrupt selling breaks this conditioningand creates uniquely new ways to think about dealership sales.

Your dealership already has in place the main components for such a successful method for sellingmore cars, service and F&I products, as well as for getting higher quality trades for your lot. Thesecomponents are your existing customer database, the telephone, and your staff to call customers whose vehicle-ownership matrices are “hot prospects” for more business.

The synergy of these components, however, depends on factors explained in this new eBook,Sell an Extra 50 Vehicles Every Month with Client Portfolio Management & Pattern-Interrupt Strategies.

Dealerships across America use this strategy to:

• Sell additional new and pre-owned vehicles at improved gross profi t

• Fulfi ll their need for high-quality trades from their own customer base

• Encourage their customer base to trade early and often

• Boost service volume and customer-pay ROs

• Increase after-sale vehicle service contract penetration

• Optimize marketing expenditures

• Maximize client retention with improved CSI

“This is really the only new thing I’ve seen in the car business for a long time,” says Antony Chandler, Sales Manager for Fletcher Jones Motorcars, the world’s number one Mercedes-Benz dealer.

I invite you to read further about how dealers like Fletcher Jones and others are adding big numbersto their sales and service performance every month by using this unique approach.

Boyd H. Warner

President AutoAlert®, Inc.

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Work smarter, not desperatelyMonth-end approaches and the sales numbers just aren’t there yet. The typical strategy is to rally the troops and work feverishly. Plead with every be-back, lost sale and lost soul to get them back in thedealership and then give away virtually all your profi t or even the store to win deals.

Is this any way to run a sophisticated auto dealership in the 21st century?

Consider this approach instead: Every day your trained specialist works a targeted list of existingcustomers. These are customers you’ve cross-referenced to specifi c “buy” signals. The specialistcontacts these individuals and makes offers that turn customers’ perceptions of car sales on endand wins their business, often at higher gross profi t.

Rather than being frazzled and frustrated at month-end, you smile at the high numbers on the board. Nearly a third of them can be additional sales made to existing customers.

We’re using this

pattern-interrupt system

to sell at least 100 extra cars

every month to our existing

customers.”

- Antony Chandler,

Sales Manager,

Fletcher Jones MotorcarsWhen you can generate additional sales like this for such a smallinvestment, traditional marketing expenditures can decrease.

“This approach provides great conversation starters with existingcustomers, as it enables my sales professionals to engage them withintelligent ideas we know will appeal to that particular customer,”says Antony Chandler, Sales Manager at Fletcher Jones Motorcars.

“I sold a car a day for the fi rst 15 days after I learned this strategy, reaching out to existing and conquest customers -- and we’ve continued to average that calling and conversion rate since,” says the portfolio manager of an East Coast import dealership.

Tom Wood Lexus, Indianapolis, IN, captures an additional 33% in sales because of the pattern-interrupt selling that drives this strategy.Fletcher Jones Motorcars, Newport Beach, CA, on average sells more than 100 extra cars every month.Paragon Honda-Acura, Queens, NY, sells an extra 95 units a month and in turn is able to take-in a higher percentage of CPO-quality trades that reduces its reliance on auctions.Acura of Fremont and Acura Authorized Service, Acura’s fi rst-ever Authorized Service satellite, sells an extra $80,000a month in service labor and parts.

Discover, explore and capitalize Dealers like Fletcher Jones use sophisticated data base mining technology to identify certain existing customers as ideal sales candidates because of their vehicle ownership status. This technology then creates targeted Alerts, which match customer needs to particular pattern-interrupt sales types and call scripts.

While this technology automates the process, it is certainly not mandatory for a dealership to implement a customer sales program like this. However, it is virtually impossible to siftthrough many thousands of owner fi les and correlate the results with current rebates, residuals,

Patent Numbers; 7,827,099 — 8,005,752 — 8,086,529 — 8,095,461 Copyright 2012 All Rights Reserved. AutoAlert is a Registered Trademark of AutoAlert, Inc.

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• Existing customers have an established relationship with the dealership. They have purchased from you and have returned for service. As an existing relationship, they’re more inclined to be receptive to your call and to listen to your offer – if it’s the right offer at the right time for the customer.

• You already know your customers – who they are, what they drive, the status of their vehicle ownership and its service history.

Here’s a paradigm shift – instead of calling to sell something, let the customer know right away:

• You’re calling to buy something from them – their existing vehicle. You currently have buyers for that quality trade – would they sell it to you if you could put them into a newer model for about the same monthly payment?

• You’re calling to help them avoid a costly mistake. Your records show the leased vehicle mileage is going to exceed their contract limit, costing X dollars in penalties. You can save those dollars and move them into a newer model for about their current monthly payment.

• You’re calling to offer assistance – their factory warranty is expiring soon and you can offer a commensurate vehicle service contract with additional peace of mind for many more years to come.

• You’re calling because your records show their aging vehicle has become increasingly costly to maintain properly and you have a fi ne selection of certifi ed pre-owned units they might want to consider. These include late model vehicles complete with lower miles and the balance of factory warranties or with vehicle service contracts included.


pay-offs and the market value of trade-ins. Modern technology not only makes it possible, but it can produce real-time updates in a dynamic format.

Says Fletcher Jones’s Chandler, “This is really the only new thing I’ve seen in the car business for a long time. We don’t win every deal by practicing this strategy, but we get a lot more than we ever expected.”

Adds Devon Jordan, Portfolio Manager for Paragon Honda, “We’re able to target our best leads, and because we have specifi c insight into the customers’ buy buttons, we aren’t wasting their time or our sales staff’s trying to work a deal that might be a long shot – we know they’re likely very ready and we capitalize on it.”

Two important reasons make outbound telephone marketing like this so potentially successful for most any dealership:

Fall in love with the phoneFor many, the telephone becomes a six-ton anchor when facing the prospect of dialing someone we don’t know and pitching business to them. Making calls to existing customers needn’t be so. After all, we’ve done business with these individuals before; let’s assume that relation is good or, at worst,neutral, and start from this premise.

No more missed opportunitiesAdmittedly, assembling detailed customer opportunity profi les that provide the insight for pattern-interrupt sales can be a challenge if not simply impossible; it is extremely time consuming unless one has

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software for extracting customer profi le data in an actionable format directly from the dealermanagement system.

If these profi les can be assembled according to categories of action alerts -- and easily available in ausable format -- sales associates can get right to contacting customers. With a focus on delivering knowledgeable and professional recommendations, your sales staff will be prepared to capture your customers’ attention and interest, thereby driving additional traffi c into the showroom.

“We just fi nished our fi rst month using this practice, with fantastic results – of the 75 new cars wesold 25 were due to these specialized calls to existing customers, a full 33% of our monthly sales,”says Ed Sholar, Sales Manager for Tom Wood Lexus, Indianapolis.

“Because we have specifi cinsight into the customers’ buy buttons, we don’t waste their time or ours working long-shot deals- we know they’re likely very ready.As a result, we’re selling 95 additional units a monthto existing customers.”- Devon Jordan, Paragon Honda

Dealers like Sholar, Chandler, Jordan and othersmine their database for these action-alerts:

• Alerts: Source customers to contact whose vehicle equity, mileage and model type might get them into a newer model early without any money down and keep their monthly payments about the same. Bring their trades onto your lot as high quality, one-owner, low mileage certifi ed units.

• Flex Alerts: Your customers who can get out of their current vehicle and into a newer one, keeping the payment about the same, but are fl exible to longer terms.

• Contract End Alerts: Start marketing to lease-end or fi nance-end customers much earlier than the fi nance companies, banks or other dealers typically do and capture that business to move your customers into newer models for little payment difference.

• Mileage Alerts: Identify customers whose leased vehicle usage shows they will likely incur costly mileage penalties at termination and offer to move them into another leased or fi nance vehicle to avoid those penalties.

• Service Alerts: Clients who recently have been in for service or have an appointment scheduled and belong to one or more additional alert categories.

• Warranty Alerts: Identify warranty-end customers and invite them in to extend their peace of mind through a vehicle service contract.

“From our existing customers, we’re now able to identify vehicles we’d like to get in trade. We know mileage and ownership equity or lease terms so we are able to offer a newer model in exchange for about the same monthly payment,” Chandler says. “Nine times out of 10 we are successful, whichaverages more than 100 additional units sold every month.”

John Goodrich, the Service Director for Acura Authorized Service, Acura’s fi rst-ever Authorized Service satellite, and Acura of Fremont, CA, uses the practice to increase parts and labor business. He assigned a cashier and warranty administrator, part time, to call service customers who had been inactive for six months.


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“We developed a script and came up with a Welcome Back Special to entice customers to come in for service,” Goodrich notes. “My favorite success story is a woman who purchased her car here and had never been in for service, over the previous 48 months. She came to us only because of these Alert calls. Her repair order totaled $1667.91 and when contacted by Acura, she gave us a 100% CSI rating.”

Pattern-interrupt calls results inhigh receptivity

Trade Early & Often Alerts

Contract End Alerts

Mileage Alerts

Service Alerts

Warranty Alerts

Figure 1: Dealers have success pursuing these “Alerts”to create high receptivity with existing customers.

Results Before Alert-based calls Using Alert-based calls

Front-end gross $2,700 to $2,800 $4,200

Monthly Sales 50 New Lexus 75 New Lexus

Fortunately for many dealers the software from AutoAlert simplifi es, automates and improves this effort. This tool leverages data analysis to identify and create these unique pattern-interrupt opportunities.

The AutoAlert technology matches customer profi les to a likely pattern-alert offering. Reports canprovide details about price, payments and other factors known to appeal to the particular customer.

Staff your dealership for successIn the past, the best sales associates might have been your least organized and not likely to prefer sellingby phone or using technology. Because this truism seems to affect the entire industry, dealerships achieving the highest results from an alerts-based marketing program address this head on.

AutoAlert has comprehensive training and client care support to ensure the success of superstar sales representatives. Otherwise, dealers may wish to set the program up as a distinct operation within the

Making calls effi cientThis Alert-based calling can create signifi cant results. Lexus Sales Manager Sholar says Alert-based calls resulted in additional total gross of $150,000 and extra sales, as illustrated below.

Goodrich reports that just two weeks of suchcalls generated 68 verifi ed appointments for the dealership that produced an average RO of$489.78 parts and labor.

“That equals total sales of $33,305.04 in two weeks,” says an excited Goodrich.

The following two weeks, the telemarketers set84 verifi ed appointments that converted to nearly $42,000 in parts and labor sales.

Based on these results alone, Goodrich hired afull-time outbound telemarketer to work in thedealership making these service-Alert calls.


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dealership and staff it with one or more individuals possessing strong phone and personal skills.

As with any profi t center within the dealership, the employees operating it need the right training, the right aptitude and motivation, accountability for performance, and total management commitment and support. Desirable qualities include: high energy, especially on the phone; call volume experience;script calling background; minimal technical abilities; and a teachable attitude.

Alert-based calls have high conversion rates

Existing customer service alert calls

Figure 2: To maximize alerts-based marketing, be sure individuals making these calls are trained on your process.

For Paragon Honda-Acura,this approach released the potential within theirAutoAlert® sales program.

“When I joined Paragon,my GM had me trained onthis software because it was an excellent tool for the dealership but was being under utilized,” says Paragon’s Jordan. “We refocused theresponsibility from sales to portfolio management forwhich I now am fully responsible. Our fi rst month after really dig-ging into the program turned out to be very successful with 130 units sold out of our data-base! Since then, our successhas grown.”

“I had no retail auto sales experience before joining the dealership,” reports a current portfoliomanager,“ and because I’m not afraid of computers and enjoy poking into new things, this system was easy to learn.”

She received training on these processes andwas certifi ed in two days.

At the dealership she immediately establisheswhich alert category she’s going to call, whethercontract end or high-mileage alerts and thenworks the phone to contact customers identifi edby the software for contact that day and week.She makes on average 30 to 50 outbound callsa day. “This is very easy and comfortable calling,”she notes, “because I have at my fi ngertips allthe necessary contact and account information;the customer’s receiving a call from a place he orshe knows and I have access to their salesperson’s name as a reference, so I rarely receive a rude reception.”

68 verifi ed service appointments

Results in $490per RO

$33,000 revenuein two weeks


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Why “Alerts” Calling Means Business

Put more sales on the board

Stock the lot with late model,low-mileage trade-ins

Drive VSC sales

Increase service andparts sales

Increaseservice-to-salesconversion

1. Bring customers in and put sales on the board: Connect with 20 or more of your Alert customers every day. For every 10 to 15 appointments set, expect to capture fi ve or more additional sales.

2. Stock the lot with hot CPOs: The strategy is to mine your customer data for the models you need for the used lot and take in the hot trades you desire. Often you will sell a new vehicle as a replacement.

3. Increase VSC sales: Reach out to customers for vehicle service contract sales, since the manufacturers’ warranty is about to expire on their current vehicle.

4. Drive more customers into service: Contact your customers whose vehicles haven’t been in for the 15K-30K-45K-60K-75k or 90K service recommendations.

5. Capture additional customers from service: Use your customer database to help expand your market reach. Conquest identifi es those vehicles that were not originally purchased from your dealership, even though they are currently serviced by you.

5 Strategies for alerts-selling successDepending on the dealership and its historical units in operation, most any dealership can add from fi ve to several hundred or more additional new and used units to the sales board every month.


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Here is a customer-marketing program with most every tool you’ll need for success already at yourfi ngertips. This solution produces a pattern-interrupt, Alerts-based outbound telemarketing campaign.It is designed to set customers’ expectations of car dealerships marketing completely on-end whilecreating a unique desire to buy from you again.

“It’s like we’ve created a store within a store, the way this program helps us identify our existingcustomers who are ‘red apples’ ready to be resold,” says Paragon Honda Portfolio ManagerDevon Jordan.

Sell more new and pre-owned vehicles; capture additional RO’s in service; drive service contractsales and bring in higher quality vehicles for your used car operation using this telephone-based,pattern-interrupt strategy. This isn’t rocket science, but it certainly can take your sales to the moon!

If you’d like to learn more about this practiceusing AutoAlert, contact us for a free demo.

Visit www.autoalert.com or

call us at (800) 630-4760.

Have these results in the next few weeks


Documents

Extra 50 Vehicles - Automotive News · 2018-11-21 · Sell an Extra 50 Vehicles ... as high quality, one-owner, low mileage certiﬁ ed units. ... mileage and ownership equity or