Auto Dealer Monthly Magazine is the daily operations publication serving the retail automotive industry. This automotive publication serves dealer principals, officers and general managers with the latest best practices.
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dealership spotlight / crm own experience that most third-party leads are expensive and ineffective for our business model," he explained. Ghazal said the dealership has all but eliminated the use of third-party lead sources. The one exception to that is the dealership's use of a targeted direct mail program from Credit Mail Experts, which he described as "a unique pro- gram that helps us to identify and specifically target our demographic," which he said has been "very effective" so far. The addition of this direct mail program has altered how the dealership handles references. "We were also working our customer references aggres- sively after the sale; now we're treating them more as a targeted mailing list," he said. "We now know that demo- graphic and geographic target- ing are the keys to making any lead source work for us. The more targeted, the better." He said that the dealer group's other forms of marketing, such as a "street team that works local events of various types and develops some leads," contributes to incoming lead volume but the group website and direct mail campaigns are the primary lead sources. All advertising directs potential customers to the website. Ghazal said, "Chat has been a great addition" to help gener- ate leads on the website, and added that today's technology has afforded more ways to effectively establish and de- velop customer relationships. "Emails, texting and chat give us more ways to engage the customer in conversation and develop that ongoing relation- ship," he said. "Engaging is the key. We have to be talking with them, not at them. Dialogue has to flow both ways." Ghazal feels that follow-up is "Engaging is the key. We have to be talking with them, not at them. Dialogue has to flow both ways." Matt Ghazal, Dealer, Express Auto the most important aspect of the dealership's customer rela- tionship management efforts. "We are generating hundreds of leads each month from our own website now, but not all of these leads are at the point of making a buying decision. Up to 70 percent of them are weeks or months away from turning the corner from prospect to buyer. This makes effective follow-up critical." Currently, all incoming leads are handled by the sales staff, but this is changing. Ghazal is focusing intently on automat- ing the lead follow-up process and stated that Express Auto's general manager, Henry "We are currently implementing a BDC which will be overseen by Cliff VanMeter, our head of marketing. His approach to lead nurturing and lead scoring will help make the BDC far more than a call center for the company. He also has a background as a programmer and designer, so he'll be working closely with Henry [Ghazal], general manager] on implementing and training for an optimized workflow." - Matt Ghazal, Dealer, Express Auto Ghazal, has been working closely with the dealership's CRM provider, ProMax, to tailor the CRM tool to the Express Auto business model and automate part of the lead follow-up process. For leads that are not quite ready to purchase, the goal is to institute an automated process "to move leads from active to lead nurturing, or drip campaigns, to maintain that ongoing touch with potential customers as they move through the decision-making process to the buying stage," he said. For sold customers, he said the sales staff follows up about a week after the sale; then, they send out regular email blasts to those customers with spe- cific promotions. "Last year we set up a program to reward repeat buyers that gives them perks throughout the year," stated Ghazal. "Our sales team is now following up, setting service appointments for them to claim these perks, like free inspections and free detailing." Another part of the change in lead follow-up is the planned institution and implementation of a business development center, which Ghazal said will be overseen by Express Auto's head of marketing, Cliff 35