Learn how call tracking complements automotive marketing strategies to improve appointment rates and sales.
Reading this post, you probably are an automotive manufacturer, dealer, or a car rental rep looking for ways to increase your sales revenue… Or maybe a marketer working for an automotive dealer that wants to boost their clients’ ROI and prove that their marketing efforts do work!
Good, some very important pieces of knowledge are coming your way to achieving those goals! But first, I am going to fire you with a stream of questions…
How often do your customers change their cars?
Surely not every 1 or 2 years. People searching to buy a car, need more time and consideration prior to taking their final decision. It’s absolutely normal since cars are high-ticket products.
On the other hand, with the domination of digital technology, car buyer behaviors have changed significantly with mobile shifting how consumers research for vehicles. However, cars traditionally belong to the category of products that require personal contact.
Now, let’s pretend for a while we are interested in buying a new car. Getting in the customer’s shoes is the best way to understand their needs and identify how to suit them. So, we have the potential customer X that searches the web to make a shortlist of prospective cars based on design, features, and price. What’s their next step?
Test. Test. Test.
Would you buy a car without a test drive first? Absolutely not. You are going to invest a considerable amount of money. You have to be sure that it meets your needs and expectations.
According to Cox Automotive’s “Future of Digital Retail Study” report, 80 percent of consumers stated that they would never purchase a car without a test drive. (1) Consumer X decides to book appointments with car companies and test the cars. How possible is it for them to submit an online form to the car dealer’s site to arrange an appointment? Barely a few! Picking up the phone to call seems more rational.
First takeaway: From the initial purchase all the way to after-sales service, automotive shoppers prefer scheduling appointments with car companies over the phone.
For automotive marketing, inbound calls are probably the most effective and valuable lead source.
Moving on, how likely is it to arrange the appointment if the representative on the phone is not very helpful or kind of rude?
Nearly very few chances, I suppose.
In a survey by CDK Global, it was found that 54% of consumers would buy from a dealership that offers their preferred experience, even if it didn’t have the lowest price. (2)
Second takeaway: Customer service is a crucial factor for car companies, affecting their phone leads positively or negatively.
To improve your call conversion rates and pave the way for more car sales, you have to make sure that your call agents provide exquisite customer service to prospects calling your dealership. Wondering how to achieve this?
A call tracking software is the solution for car companies like yours! Let’s see how it works:
Call tracking is the process of capturing and reporting inbound call activity by displaying local or toll-free phone numbers on your website for marketing sources you wish to track. Numbers dynamically swap on your website and report the source of each call. This means that each visitor sees a unique phone number- assigned to the specific marketing asset that brought them in- but when they dial it, the call is forwarded to the business’s phone line. It should be noted at this point that the process is seamless for the caller and the agent receiving the call.
Now you will learn how a call tracking app with the easiness of Nimbata can benefit your business:
1) Enhance the customer journey
As stated above, customer support is among your business’s top priorities. That is why Nimbata call tracking in automotive offers call recordings and transcripts to quantify the effectiveness of certain call scripts over others. Additionally, those features can be used to monitor conversations, learn what customers are asking for, and finally identify whether your call reps need further training in the way they interact with clients.
Assessing those records you can extract a list of do’s and don’ts to train your call agents and offer a better experience. Of course, this wealth of qualitative and quantitative customer insights can be conveyed to your salespeople who have a personal interaction with prospective customers. Furthermore, call routing which is part of Nimbata’s toolkit can help respective businesses to boost their appointment rates by routing calls to the optimal sales representatives.
But wait! Did I tell you about whispers?
Whispers is a short message that is played before the call connects, preparing the agent on the source driving the call. At last, in the 21st century, you no longer have to ask: “How did you find us?”
That is to say… personalization!
Which is what all customers globally are actually looking for. Customer experience tailored to their needs.
Let’s take a breath and continue… The benefits of Nimbata call tracking in automotive don’t stop here. There are way more reasons to start using it.
2) Increase leads & appointments
Supposing you advertise your car dealership on TV, Radio, magazines and Google display ads, it is necessary to measure the ROI of each medium and decide which are worth reinvesting. No matter if you deploy online or offline channels, Nimbata call tracking in automotive can provide accurate performance insights for all your marketing sources.
When you can measure accurately the impact of your marketing campaigns and pair them with sales, you have done a great job! Besides, this is all about marketing. So, once you understand which of your marketing strategies do or don’t work, you can adjust your efforts and reallocate your budget accordingly to the most effective ones. No more guesswork. No more wasted budgets.
For example, if you are thinking about investing more money in your dealership, call tracking in automotive will show you the best-performing campaigns to put extra budget, eliminating any concerns about an unsuccessful investment. Your customers’ feedback will show the right path to follow.
Remember: Making the most of your budget means lower customer acquisition costs and better profitability rates!
3) Identify which keywords drive more calls to your business
As a business in the automotive sector, surely you invest part of your budget on Google Ads. Do you know which keywords drive the most phone calls towards your call center? What amount of them is branded or not? Time to find out!
Once you identify which keywords make your phone ring, you can optimize your bidding and your budget, weeding out the keywords that underperform. Is there any reason to make assumptions when it’s easy to get answers?
4) Map your customer journey
Call tracking in automotive helps bridge the gap between online and offline worlds to provide a holistic view of your sales funnel. Nimbata, thanks to its integration with many industry-leading apps, can push call data to your CRM so that you have a clear understanding of your customers’ journey. This way you can monitor each and every interaction customers have with your business throughout the sales funnel.
5) Eliminate unanswered calls
Knowing that behind each call lies a potential customer, you can’t afford to miss even a single phone call. Let alone having in mind that in case you fail to connect with them, your prospective customers most possibly will call a competitor. The Nimbata app can inform you real-time with a voicemail or email notifications for every lost call.
Additionally, with its comprehensive suite of reports Nimbata can easily show the volume of unanswered incoming calls, providing phone numbers to call back. Most importantly, it indicates your business’s peak days and hours. This way, you get to know when prospective customers mainly call and, if needed, hire more employees so that you hardly ever miss a call.
For example, if you receive quite many calls on a regular basis on Saturdays after 5 p.m.- when your business is closed- you should examine hiring a person to answer them or you should even route them to your mobile phone. Makes sense?
To sum up, a great many prospects prefer to pick up the phone and call to buy or fix their cars. This is part of their sales journey. It is your duty to facilitate them by optimizing all your- digital or not- touchpoints for phone calls… It will be our pleasure to help you with the rest!
In other words, if your marketing assets generate a considerable amount of phone calls, we should definitely talk! Otherwise, your business is stepping to a dark and slippery path, you should avoid no matter what. Finally, you have two options: Start your free trial with call tracking in automotive today or… connect with us to schedule a demo!
Resources:
