Are internet customers wasting your time, or are you wasting theirs?

I still see and hear this from many dealers. Internet customers are just a waste of time, kicking tires. Really? The fact is that 90% of today’s car buyers have been on the ‘net prior to their purchase.

Customers are often classified as walk-ins by salespeople who don’t take the time to ask the customer the right questions. Are they really walk-ins, or did they research the vehicle on a 3rd-party site or the dealers very own site? New vehicle customers have a different buying cycle than pre-owned. The new vehicle buyer starts researching 90 days before buying. The pre-owned customer often buys within 72 hours, but could take up to 30 days. This is because of the uniqueness of the pre-owned vehicle.

The reason this process takes this long, new or pre-owned is the lack of communication between dealer and buyer. The majority of dealers today rely on their auto responders to answer leads for them, and if they don’t have a phone number, they won’t be answered at all. So who is wasting whose time?

Doesn’t matter who it is, if your email does not contain relevant information, the typical ‘shopper’ will not bother to respond. The majority of internet shoppers all want one thing, a price. The dealer that facilitates this process fastest will make first contact and stands the best chance of making the sale. Sending a customer an email asking them to come in for a test drive or for more information doesn’t work these days. When they asked for a price, they rarely include VIN #, so they should be given a price on the highest price vehicle of their choice, and three other options.

A service like RedNumbat.com takes the guess work out of this process, and the ‘no-response’ to the auto responder out of the picture. Why not do the simple thing? Give the customer what they want, a price, what a concept. Yes, simple but true, the majority of visitors are looking for a price, for better or worse. Most abandon without establishing contact and go somewhere else, leaving no trace. Another ghost visit. The ones that do stay and send in a quote request get turned off because they don’t get what they want, just a bunch of auto responders, and maybe at best an email from an internet consultant an hour later and that’s too late.

RedNumbat.com gives your web visitors what they want, a price in seconds day or night. Take away the unpleasant part of the sale, and make it what it should be about, the service that your dealership provides. The dealer presets all pricing in real time for every vehicle. RedNumbat leads even self scrub! Because without a valid email the customer will not get their price. The customer information and dealer pricing is simultaneously sent to the dealer and the prospect.