How to Rescue the Leads That Get Away

The one that got away — we've all experienced it. Going all in at the poker table with a full house and losing to a four-of-a-kind hand. Waving goodbye to your middle-school sweetheart when they move away during the summer. Having a fish spit out the hook right before it lands in the net. Coming up short is practically a fact of life.

Dealerships often feel the same way about leads that slip away. These days, every lead can make a difference, but tracking down leads lost to unanswered phones, dropped calls or even bad customer service experiences can feel like a herculean task. Is it worth the effort and resources?

The good news is that rescuing lost leads doesn't have to be a nightmare. Here are some things you need to know about lost leads and how to save them.

Recovering From Bad Customer Service

Research firm Luntz Group recently revealed that 40 percent of Americans dread the idea of buying a new car. Basically, they're already cringing when they pick up the phone to call your dealership. That means the first impression is critical to make sure your buyers feel comfortable in working with you and your reps.

However, phone conversations don't always go as planned. A new sales rep might not have much training, and a flubbed pitch could lead to a frustrated customer hanging up the phone. The poorly trained rep will probably just move on to the next lead, and management will be none the wiser. But what if you could be notified when these types of calls happen?

Consider deploying a service that listens to and reviews calls going in and out of your dealership. A team of highly trained professionals can spot mishandled calls like the one above and let you know when a call needs to be followed up on to work out the problem. This way leads aren't left frustrated and telling their friends how unhappy they were with your dealership. Instead they'll be impressed that you took time to make things right.

Returning Missed Calls

Sometimes customers simply slip through the cracks. In an ideal world,  your dealership employees answer every call — whether they're to your sales reps' direct lines or a general line that a receptionist should answer. However, for various reasons, some calls just don't get through. And since many people don't leave voicemails, how will you know who needs to be called back?

It's easy to fall into the trap of thinking a customer will try to call again if they don't get through the first time, but that next call could be to a different dealership. If your employees aren't answering calls, customers might think they're not important to you. At that point it's not as simple as a call that slipped through the cracks — callers view lack of responsiveness as bad customer service.

Be sure you have a way to capture call information whether the caller leaves a message or not. It would also help if you could be notified that a call was missed and needs to be returned. You might not know exactly what the customer was calling for, but following up with a missed call can let customers know that you care and you want their business.

Letting leads slip away because you don't want to go through the trouble of following up or you don't have correct contact info is unacceptable in today's competitive market. What are some ways you've made sure your dealership's leads don't fall through the cracks?

How to Scare Away Your Customers on Halloween

Zombies in the service department, ghosts haunting the lot, skeletons on the sales floor — these spooky scenarios are no match for what you could be doing to give your customers a scare this Halloween. If losing out on leads doesn't frighten you, here are some tips for sending your customers screaming in the other direction (straight to your competitors).

Ignore Missed and After-Hours Calls

Nothing is more frightening to a customer than a salesperson who doesn't answer the phone or call them back. Some customers are so determined to give you their business that they'll call multiple times. But if you want to give them a real scare, just keep ignoring them.

To pull this one off, avoid using a call tracking program that alerts you to missed or after-hours calls. Reaching out to customers is the last thing you'd want to do if your goal is to send them to your competitor.

Send Your Customers to a Black Hole

Want to really get your customers' hearts racing? Have their calls routed to a phone number that rings and rings and rings and never gets answered. Better yet, have them bounced from department to department while they're trying to get a time-sensitive issue resolved. Your customers will be terrified of dealing with a real human being if they ever reach one.

Steer clear of a call tracking program that aids call completion lest your customers actually reach the person or department they want to talk to. Using a service that can automatically route customers from an interactive menu would keep your customers happy, which is the last thing you want if you're aiming for screams.

Listen to Call Recordings? Don't Do It!

Improving customer service? Who needs to bother with that? Don't concern yourself with evaluating your employees' calls if you want to send shivers down your customers' spines. Prospects will steer clear if they have a bad experience during a phone call.

To make sure your employees keep sending customers elsewhere, don't use a call tracking program that records calls. Your customer service would improve thanks to training opportunities uncovered by listening to recorded calls — and you might even uncover a few lost leads in the process. Since you're trying to scare your customers and not keep them, you should definitely avoid listening to calls.

A few car companies didn't get the memo about scaring off potential clients. Read our post to see how they drew in lead after lead.