GM Internet Lead Response Time - OFFICIAL thread

[Bill Taylor]

I am just now picking up on this thread, and have to ask the question: Why are you worried about "stopping the clock?" General Motors does not have any financial rewards (or penalties) for response time. Response time as a stand alone metric is meaningless. Close rate is the only metric that should matter in the long run, as it measure the percent of leads that resulted in a sale.

I know our old SFE digital rewards in early 2010 started the focus on response time (and probably helped start the auto responder business!), but that is no longer in place. If you are getting pressure from someone at GM over response time, I'd like to know. The only time it should come up in conversation is if your close rate is well below average and your field team is trying to figure out how to help.

Bill Taylor
Manager, Dealer Advertising Programs & Dealer Digital Support
General Motors

 

[jkuhn]

You are correct, this was only an issue when there was SFE money tied to response times. I do not believe this thread is relevant any longer.

 

[isales]

Hello Bill,

Of course you are correct. Actually, I was the one to inform my GM that the response time was no longer tied to the SFE program. However, a terrible response time looks ugly on that weekly report that is sent out to the dealers for onstar welcome calls, response times, and other things that GM seems to stress. So I wouldn't go so far to say that it's irrelevant because GM still includes the response times on that report. That's ultimately what prompted me to write on this thread because as soon as we switched to Dealer Socket our response times took a nose dive and we were the only dealer on the report out of 13 to 15 other dealers in the red. All the other dealers had 2 minute, 3 minute response times while hours was 2 hours. It just looked bad. The dealers don't like to look bad so I came here to get advice. With that being said....

I don't think this thread is irrelevant at all. The guy who replied to my first post on here helped tremendously. I looked into his advice and I'm in the process now of getting the overnight BDC setup.

 

[isales]

And I just want to make clear that I don't blame Dealer Socket for the response times. I understand the agreement and now have a solution thanks to this thread.

 

[Eley Duke]

I'd like to bump this thread being a year old and get an update from Dealers what you are doing about afterhours leads currently.

1. GM dealers - are you still responding overnight?

2. If so - who are you using?

3. Opinions on Better Car People?

 

[bustin dailey]

I've been using ON BDC ( Better Car People ) for years now for GM service and sales leads after hours.

Works like a charm, very reliable, great support, simple configuration and cheap!