Don't Forget to Flush

Businesses in industries around the globe have caught on to the fact that the Internet is no longer just a fad. By all accounts, more and more customers are turning to the Web as a resource to conduct research before visiting a dealership. Yet we're finding that as many as 60% of email leads sent to dealers get ignored. But as the story below illustrates, simply responding to an email lead doesn’t necessarily move the customer any closer to buying.

The following email lead was received at 3:00 PM on a Friday afternoon and included the customer’s email address, home, and cell phone numbers. (The names and product affiliations have been changed to protect the guilty)

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Form: Request a Quote
Model: (YEAR, MAKE, MODEL)
Purchase Timeframe: Within 72 hours

Comments:
We are pre-approved for a boat loan from our bank. Please provide a quote that includes all dealer prep, trailer, tax, and licensing.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

How would you respond to this email inquiry? Sounds like a hot opportunity right?

Here is a copy of the actual response sent after 5:00 PM on Saturday afternoon -- 26+ hours later.


Uh, hello, McFly… did you happen to read the customer’s original email?

Why would you ask the customer to call you when they gave you their home and cell phone numbers?

What do you think the customer is going to expect your service response to be if it took you 26+ hours to respond to a simple inquiry like this one?

To help you improve the effectiveness of your email responses, here is a basic outline for email responses.

1. Thank the individual for inquiring
2. Introduce yourself and the company
3. ANSWER THE CUSTOMER’S QUESTIONS!
4. ASK 1-2 OPEN-ENDED QUESTIONS TO ELICIT A RESPONSE
5. Set the stage for a follow-up phone call
6. Ask for their phone number if they didn’t provide one
7. Give the customer a way to contact you directly before your call
8. Thank the individual again for inquiring

Whether it’s responding to a request for: price quote, trade-in value, or simply a brochure, this format will help accelerate the customer through their buying process.

Want help designing and executing effective lead management strategies? Call 888.836.8567 or contact us by clicking here to develop comprehensive lead generation, lead capture, and lead nurturing strategies.

The Incubator

A recent MarketingSherpa study found that only a small percentage of the leads you generate are likely to be “sales ready” – especially during tough economic times. So why do we simply send leads to a dealer or sales rep relying exclusively on them to incubate un-sold prospects?

Sending a lead that is not yet “sales ready” to dealers or sales reps de-values the lead in the mind of the recipient. When the prospect does not buy after initial contact, the sales rep will often allow the lead to drift off into the abyss. This lead abandonment wastes our marketing dollars and weakens our advertising effectiveness, profits, and ROI.

An incubator was designed to maintain favorable conditions promoting growth and development. The sales and marketing departments must work closely together to create an incubator that develops these un-sold prospects into sales. By delivering timely, highly relevant, and personalized communications, the marketing department can gently pull prospects through the buying cycle before re-inserting them into the sales process.

Research shows that companies who excel at lead nurturing:

- Decrease the percentage of leads ignored by sales from as high as 80% to as low as 25%

- Raise sales conversion rates by 7%

- Reduce “no decisions” by 6%

- Have 9% more of their Sales Reps making quota

- Reduce new Sales Rep ramp-up time by 10%

In addition, anecdotal evidence suggests that prospects that are nurtured end up buying more, require less discounting, and have shorter sales cycles than customers who made a purchase but were not nurtured.

What are you doing today to incubate your un-sold prospects into future sales? Want help designing and executing effective lead nurturing strategies? Call 888.836.8567 or contact us by clicking here to develop a comprehensive lead generation, lead capture, and lead nurturing strategy.

Fumble!

Last week while researching business liability insurance (I know, I live an exciting life) I came across a Web site called NetQuote.com. NetQuote captures leads from potential customers and then sells those leads to participating insurance agents in the customer’s area. Anxious to get this critical component of my emerging business off the ground, I requested a quote and provided my email address as well as my office and cell phone numbers. It has now been 5 days and I have received just 1 call from an agent who doesn’t even offer liability insurance! Does this make any sense to you?

By all accounts (well, except for maybe the energy sector) the economy is sluggish and you’d think that agents would value any lead they could get their hands on; especially one that they have paid for. Unfortunately, this overall lack of response is not isolated to the insurance agency.

Not long ago, I submitted email inquiries to more than 100 boat dealerships (big and small) nationwide. I only received a response from 41% of those dealerships.

In its annual study of Internet buyers and sellers, the California Association of Realtors™ reported that 48% of email leads go ignored. The article goes on to say that 68% of Web leads interviewed only one agent, implying that the first to tag has the best chance to win the client.

A 2008 Sterling Commerce study revealed that 81% of “High Value” consumers, those with annual household income exceeding $75,000, went on-line to conduct research before making an in-store purchase. 32% of those customers used a coupon or incentive found on-line to complete the off-line purchase.

Clearly more and more of today’s consumers are turning to the Web as an initial touch-point and desire an integrated on- and off-line retail experience. Recognizing these increasing consumer expectations, why do we continue to struggle with responding to Internet requests?

I used to think this was a lead routing issue; then I thought maybe it was a system issue; then a fear of change; then incompetence; and finally a general laziness on the part of the sales rep. But after studying the problem for more than 7 years, I have come to the following conclusion. If you look at the industries listed above, you’ll find businesses that have not completely migrated to an email culture. Sales reps in these industries are not sitting behind a computer screen all day waiting for the next email to arrive. Yet, we now live in a society that relies on email as a primary means of communication.

So when are we going to align the way we sell with the way the customer prefers to buy? Read today’s headlines and you’ll quickly realize that the time is now!

The Lead Management Myth

An aspiring angler visited his local dealer and asked for the best fishing boat money could buy. He outfitted it with the biggest and fastest engine available. Of course he selected the most sophisticated fish-finding and navigational electronics. He picked up the most advanced rods, reels, and tackle on the market. At the end of his shopping spree, our angler was virtually equipped to start his own seafood company!

A year later, the angler returned to the dealership asking for his money back.

“What seems to be the problem?” asked the dealership manager.

“This boat doesn’t work; I’ve had it for a year and have yet to catch a fish!” the angler explained.

“Where did you go to try and catch the fish?” asked the manager.

“I haven’t gone anywhere,” answered the angler.

“You never launched the boat? Never got out on the lake? Never cast a line?” asked the manager.

“Nope, the boat has never been off the trailer. I’m telling you, it doesn’t work, it simply doesn’t catch fish!”

This story may seem silly to most but the expectations of the angler are not that far of a cry from most executives when it comes to CRM or lead management.

Depending on which statistics you choose to believe, up to 75% of lead management initiatives fail to produce the expected results or desired return on investment.

Many experts have given many explanations for the high failure rate of lead management initiatives. We believe however that it is much simpler than the “experts” make it out to be. Ready? Here it is…

YOU CANNOT BUY LEAD MANAGEMENT!

In spite of the marketing hype and what the software companies want you to believe, managing prospects and customer relationships is not a technology issue; it is a combination of business culture, well-defined processes, measurable objectives, and an ability to recognize and efficiently adapt to the changing customer demands for your products and services.

Lead management technology must be selected based on: your culture, your re-engineered lead management processes, your objectives, and your customer requirements. The most frequent mistake I see is when companies give no consideration to the lead management process and assume the technology will simply provide the desired results.