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JM&A Today

JM&A Today is JM&A Group’s publication focusing on industry-specific topics to provide dealership personnel with current opinions about the marketplace, industry projections, and dealership best practices. Find out more in the current issue and view archives of JM&A Today. Share this page

An AutoSales2 Exclusive
engage your existing customers

What if there was a way to save time and money by targeting only your best prospects?

What if you could identify potential customers who could trade in their current vehicle with zero cash down and still lower their monthly payment?

What if you could increase your sales per month by 10% or more?

With today’s technology, this is possible. The real question is; will your dealership be nimble and responsive enough to make this new, traffic-generating sales process effective?

When it comes to working with potential customers, Sales Consultants usually wait for ups to arrive at the dealership lot, or for an email inquiry to come in. Once the customer initiates the transaction, Sales Consultants react and follow the sales process.

However, most Sales Consultants do not spend much time proactively marketing themselves and seeking out new business. How can we change this behavior?

We Need to Shift Gears
In an effort to shift behavior from reactive to proactive, let’s take a look at what we already know. History demonstrates that when market conditions decline, dealerships tend to respond in the following ways:

• Advertising more (or less)
• Changing management
• Reducing sales staff
• Modifying pay plans
• Decreasing training and development

While these are understandable reactions to an unsteady market, the fact is, none of these activities are going to help dealerships generate more business or pull out of a slump. The most successful dealerships and Sales Consultants are ones that are proactively attacking the market and engaging their existing customers; customers who are capable—and likely—to trade in their current vehicle for a new or pre-owned one.

Mining for Sales
Proactive dealerships know that their best customer prospects lie within their own database. This database is a gold mine of information and opportunity!

In fact, your DMS contains enough information to determine:

• The vehicles from your current inventory you can sell to an existing customer
• The estimated mileage on the customer’s trade
• The complete structure of the customer’s last vehicle purchase
• The customer’s current monthly payment, term and rate
• The customer’s estimated payoff
• Any cancelable products the customer purchased
• The estimated equity in his or her current vehicle

Unfortunately, most dealerships don’t understand how easy it is to access this information, or have a sales process designed to utilize it. As a result, the store’s Sales Consultants aren’t taking advantage of the sales opportunities this valuable information provides.

The Auto Sales2 tool and process helps Sales Consultants transition to a more proactive sales approach, providing them with instant, accurate information on a customer’s equity position based upon targeted dealership inventory. Sales staff will learn how to better communicate with those engaged interested customers and inform these customers about available options.

With Auto Sales2, dealerships can also review daily service appointments, open Repair Orders, service history, sales history, current book values with customized appraisal structure, current rebates and incentives, current inventory, and customized profit structures. The tool and process provides valuable information, eliminates confusion, and helps customers feel confident about trading to a new or upgraded vehicle with no cash out of pocket, and the same or lower monthly payment. In turn, the Sales Consultant and dealership are rewarded with a truly appreciative, satisfied, and loyal customer.

Is data mining with the Auto Sales2 tool valuable? Without question! And it helps move dealership sales processes from a reactive waiting game, to a proactive profitable approach.

In order to maximize Auto Sales2’s effectiveness, existing data should be filtered into predetermined campaign criteria. The search criteria should be customizable so campaigns can be modified and the dealership can create targeted customer messages. Once an appointment is scheduled, the sales staff should be accountable for the remainder of the sales process.

There are several technology solutions in the marketplace designed to help dealers with data collection and segmentation, but the key is in-store execution.

After working with many proactive dealerships on the Auto Sales2 traffic-driving process, we have found that dealerships can increase their monthly car sales volume by 10% percent. The big question is, “Can they change their mindset in order to do it?”

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