Digital Dealer - May 2019 - 7

customers that you care
about their problems and
are trying to earn their
business. Answering the
phone and taking care of
their issues is the first step
in gaining more customers.

FIX YOUR INBOUND
PHONE CALL PATTERNS

Almost half of all service
calls don't result in an
appointment. Improving
inbound phone patterns
is the key to earning more
business.
Just like they would
for a sales lead, phone
handlers need to follow the
protocol for a successful
phone call that will result
in an appointment for calls
to your service and parts
department, too. When a
lead calls into fixed ops,
the person at the dealership must still be selling,
overcoming objections,
and gaining the commitment from the caller.
One solution for better
phone experiences is implementing a service BDC,
which gives opportunities
to have more dedicated,
skilled professionals handling calls to your service
department - but this may
not be in the budget for
every dealership.
If you aren't yet ready to
have a full-fledged BDC
dedicated to your service
department, make sure to
train your service advisors
and other employees who
will handle calls to the service department on proper
service phone call handling. Give them access to
the calendar, so they have
true appointment-setting

opportunities. Telling a call
handler that you will have
to check with someone and
call them back is giving
them the opportunity to call
your competition.

USE A TEXTING
SERVICE FOR
APPOINTMENT
REMINDERS

If your employees already
don't have enough time to
answer every phone call
and give superior service
to gain a caller's commitment to choosing your
dealership for their service
needs, then spending time
making outbound calls for

so high?
Start listening to calls to
your parts department and
make a note of what callers
are asking for. Keep track
internally to notice any
patterns and start stocking more parts that are
requested often or have a
reliable connection to know
that you can get these parts
if and when needed by
callers in need.
Keep a better inventory
of your parts or where you
can get them; you can be
more confident when customers contact your dealership for their need and win

...YOU WANT
CUSTOMERS TO KEEP
CHOOSING YOUR
DEALERSHIP FOR THEIR
SERVICE NEEDS BECAUSE
THEY WANT TO, NOT
JUST BECAUSE IT'S
CONVENIENT."
appointment reminders and
follow-ups are only taking
up more of their important
time.
By utilizing a texting
service for appointment
reminders, call handlers
can focus on other revenue-generating opportunities instead of making
these outbound calls - and
it's easier for consumers
to see a new text message
than to answer a phone call
or listen to a voicemail.
PAY ATTENTION
TO YOUR PARTS
INVENTORY

Almost 90% of parts calls
don't result in an appointment. Why is this number

their business quicker.
ASK FOR ONLINE
REVIEWS

No one is happy about
having to turn their car in
for service - especially
when it is an unexpected
situation. People want to
be sure they can trust who
they are handing their car
over to.
Overcome this possible
objection before it even
comes up by having a
stellar online reputation,
especially for your service
department. To ensure that
you have a great online
review presence, you need
to ask your customers to
review you.
D I G I TA L D E A L E R . C O M

Having feedback won't
only help your reputation
but reading constructive criticism about your
dealership online will help
you address any issues
and make internal changes
to improve the customer
experience.
IMPROVE THE
FIXED OPERATIONS
EXPERIENCE AND
IMPROVE YOUR
DEALERSHIP

Start investing in your
fixed ops department with
these key takeaways and
reap the benefits.
By delivering a superior
customer service experience, your dealership
can capitalize on a new
segment of customers who
may not be ready to buy
yet but will surely keep
your dealership in mind for
future car purchases.
Having a great service
department will also help
with customer retention.
When their new car service warranty is up, you
want customers to keep
choosing your dealership
for their service needs
because they want to, not
just because it's convenient.
Notes/Sources:
(1)
https://go.callsource.
com/automotive-datainsights
CASSIE CIOPRYNA is the
marketing communications
specialist at CallSource, the
company that invented call
tracking and has over 1 billion
phone calls tracked since 1995.
As a content writer, she always
strives to deliver the most
useful and knowledgeable new
information to readers. EMAIL:
cciopryna@callsource.com

M AY 2 0 1 9

7
https://go.callsource.com/automotive-data-insights/ http://www.DIGITALDEALER.COM
Digital Dealer - May 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Digital Dealer - May 2019
