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A Dealer Masterclass 2019 commercial partner.

 

 

 

 

The key to thriving in a challenging market is to successfully convert customers who are hesitant about parting with their money. In one of the most developed motor retail markets in the world, dealerships have grappled with this challenge for decades, but technology is changing the game.

An ever-growing proportion of car buyers expect their ‘purchase journey’ to take place online – on a device and at a time of their choosing. The fundamental principle of successful customer engagement remains the same – dealers need to reach out and respond when and how it suits the customer. Mailshots alone don’t cut it, nor is it possible to simply call former prospects and customers to entice them into the latest model.

Tackling a multi-headed monster

Dealers are faced with a veritable Hydra of customer contact channels, where each of the beast’s many heads represents a different means of communication. Businesses risk missing out if they focus on one head and neglect the others.

Thanks to the proliferation of electronic communications, tackling this Hydra needn’t be the Herculean task it might initially seem. Automation holds the key to staying in contact with a broad range of customers and prospects, and keeping them engaged. By integrating eCRM (electronic customer relationship management) technology into their contact strategy, dealers can reduce the time and labour required to reach out, while also meeting customers’ growing expectation for interaction that reflect their needs, interests and prior history with the business.

For instance, with about 32 million people in the UK now visiting Facebook more than once a day, social media should now form a key part of any communication strategy. A successful strategy draws on Facebook’s targeting features for customer conquest and lead generation. Tools such as Marketing Delivery’s VoiceBox can help large multi-site, multi-brand dealer groups to streamline their content management across multiple social platforms and for multiple brands and showrooms, delivering the most appropriate messages to different groups of people.

Consumer contact preferences have also become more important since the introduction of the GDPR in 2018, with email now the most preferred channel. That makes data capture critical – we found that dealers captured emails in 89% of UK car enquiries during Q1, compared with 79% of mobile phone numbers. At the same time, customers are more likely to provide consent for email marketing (75%) than mobile communications (just 62%).

Concentrating solely on phone calls and texts can risk alienating a huge proportion of your prospects before they have even walked through the door.

Marketing Delivery works with dealers to tailor its eCRM systems to the needs of each business, to help them reach customers across multiple channels. The company’s expertise in data-handling and analysis also helps dealers to generate automated emails, texts and social media posts to help retailers better target prospects, generate new leads, and keep customers engaged right up to the moment they sign on the line.

The key to maximising the chance of a sale is providing customers with relevant, timely information via their favourite channel – same as it ever was.

 

Contact Marketing Delivery on 01892 599 917 or get.in.touch@marketingdelivery.com to learn how automated eCRM can help you deliver messages to customers more comprehensively than ever before. And you don’t even need to be called Hercules to apply.