As more and more dealers advertise their inventory online, they need the capacity to deal with shoppers who e-mail them with questions about their cars. Research tells us that most customers who are truly interested in purchasing your vehicle will pick up the phone and call you. However, you don’t want to miss the people who e-mail you since they are also viable customers. Dealers often ignore e-mails, take too long to do so or get into lengthy e-mail exchanges with potential customers without prompting them to call or, more importantly, make an appointment at the dealership. We’ve worked with dealers who successfully use the Internet to move cars off their lots, and we’ve uncovered what we call e-mail “Best Practices”—proven tactics to communicate effectively electronically.
The first essential component to handling e-mail is response time. Today, customers expect to hear from you the same day they send you an inquiry. If you sit on e-mails, you’ll lose customers; it’s that simple. We suggest using an auto responder as the first point of contact. The major criticism about auto responders is that they are too impersonal, but what is more impersonal, an automatically generated response or no response? You can make your message personal. The key is to convey that you are the biggest, best and busiest Internet department in the market and if customers call now, you can get them in the car they want today. Make sure you include the name and phone number of the person you want the customer to contact.
