The phone is the most important contact channel for car dealers
Do you work in the automotive trade or are you responsible for the online marketing or lead management of car dealers?
Then no doubt you are aware of the challenges and the realities.
In our experience, the automotive trade in particular has many sources and channels for leads and inquiries, both online and offline.
Customers often use the quickest and easiest method available for their inquiries: the telephone. “Old-school” methods (see photo) make it virtually impossible to maintain order and transparency in the face of this flood of inquiries.
Intransparency is the biggest danger for car dealers
One of these new ways is the modern, contemporary way of dealing with customers, their trust, their wishes and their desire for things to be done as smoothly as possible. “Remove friction” as the American likes to say.
One way to avoid this friction is to take better care of your customers. To handle all customer inquiries as quickly as possible, as professionally as possible and with the necessary empathy. As a channel for these often emotional purchase decisions, the voice channel is still preferred. And the front-runner in voice communication is still the telephone, i.e. a call.
How does measurement take place today?
A multitude of lead sources – a curse or a blessing?
Examples of lead sources for car dealers
Automotive platforms and referral partners
Proprietary manufacturer platforms
Social Media
Directories and other listings
- Google mybusiness
- Werliefertwas
- Gelbeseiten (online and offline)
- Kennstdueinen.de
- …
Company website (CMS System)
- WordPress
- Hubspot CMS
- Typo3
- Shopware
- …
Newsletter (Tools)
- Newsletter2Go
- Rapidmail
- Cleverreach
- Mailchimp
- Cleverelements
- Getresponse
- …
Offline
- Newspapers
- Flyer
- Posters
- Other
Manufacturer campaigns
- Test drives
- Service campaigns
- …
How can Call Tracking help resolve issues for car dealers?
How can car dealers implement telephone tracking effectively?
Now it’s worth naming the various lead sources and being familiar with the available reporting methods.
What data is reported by the individual lead generators?
If calls already feature in this, are they real calls or “just” clicks on the telephone number?
In which formats is this data available and can this data be integrated into our overall evaluation without major effort?
Once the lead sources have been defined, the next step is to think about the required “depth of measurement” for these sources.
Is it sufficient for me to know how many calls I receive via platform XYZ?
Do I want to know how many calls I receive for each vehicle segment (car/SUV/motorcycle)?
Do I want to know how many calls are generated by specific individual listings?
This is also relevant for other sources: for print media, individual campaigns or “print overall” could be evaluated; on the website, it could be “web calls” or keyword-level evaluations for Google Ads (“test drive model XYZ”).
What’s more, many dealerships are also listed in many ways offsite; do you know how many calls you receive via the various workshop portals, etc.?
Once the measurement depth of the individual sources is known, the next decision is into which tool(s) this data is to be integrated and processed. To begin with, we recommend simple integration in existing tools and the use of existing reports. More complex integration with data enrichment in other systems is best left until later.
What should I do with the data?
Conclusion
Call tracking is already standard practice for many manufacturers and experts in the sector and is continuing to establish itself as an indispensable tool within this industry.
