The so-called “millennial movement” has arrived at a time of heightened, “in your face at every turn” advertising, and according to numerous studies, they have summarily rejected it. Aside from turning off to “old school” push advertising and pushy salesmen, another aspect of this movement is the concept of doing everything online, and that includes buying cars.
In order to accommodate younger buyers and those who reject the pressures of buying big ticket items face to face, Louis Ziskin of DropIn Auto DropIn Auto was cajoled to repurpose a Facetime-like video collaboration process (originally used for the insurance claims business) to help sell cars. The process is simple and very straightforward. A consumer selects a vehicle of interest on a dealer’s VDP, clicks a button and immediately initiates a call to an app on a salesperson’s cell phone. Within seconds they embark on video tour of the vehicle they selected on the lot, they don’t have to take a salesperson’s word that the vehicle is in stock. This also allows a salesperson to expose the caller to other vehicles on the lot as well.
If all goes well, a credit app can be sent in real-time and the sales process initiated without the potential buyer ever leaving home or even disclosing their full contact information for that matter. For the dealer, the lead is extremely high quality and easily trackable. Aside from warm referral leads or return buyers, it’s the most cost-effective and time-efficient way of engaging an active buyer I can think of.
A simple line of code is installed on the website and the dealer is ready to go. According to Louis Ziskin, the average cost of this kind of lead runs around $5 when all is said and done. Essentially, a dealer will pay $20 for such a lead. Whatever personal info is captured during the call is placed immediately into the salesperson’s CRM.
Ziskin identified three main elements in the sales process that his system takes into consideration that few marketers have stitched together. First, “on a new car customer, 70% of incoming calls ask if the car is on the lot, basically you spend all of your digital money to get folks to a VDP, and a phone call is the best converting lead”. With DropIn Auto, you’re engaged with the customer instead of the them shopping on the next site.
With Facetime or messenger the customer doesn’t have their anonymity. With DropIn Auto, the shopper maintains their anonymity as long as they prefer to. It eliminates a lot of the unsavory contact attempts a salesperson has to engage in the shopper has to dodge. What’s most important is that it eliminates much of the anxiety and pressure both seller and buyer experience in the overall process.
Kelly Kleinman
Content Manager/Dealership News
www.Dealershipnews.com
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