Hey Ford Dealers... Check your CRM's email automation before your Bronco reservations tell you to "buck off"

[ryan.leslie]

See what I did there? Got this email this morning:



For those of you not following the launch of the 2021 Ford Bronco, it has been met with excitement from journalists, enthusiasts, and casual observers alike. The problem with this email is that the configurator is not yet live, packages and options have not yet been finalized, ordering windows for reservation holders were pushed back from this month to December, AND the first orders aren't expected to hit dealers until mid-2021 and some into early 2022.

Are you driving a 2021 Ford Bronco yet? A snarky response might be, "Not even the Ford engineers are driving a 2021 Bronco yet, they are driving 2021 Mules."

The sum of the details create the entirety of the consumer experience.

Happy Selling and Servicing!

 

[Alex Snyder]

Good point @ryan.leslie! So many things happening lately that are making me question whether CRMs have a place in a modern dealership <adds another one to the list>

 

[ryan.leslie]

I definitely don't think bland CRM automation is necessary for special cases like the Bronco launch. Truth is there is nothing to do before orders can be placed anyway. You don't need to check in with me every two days to see if I need anything BEFORE order dates are announced.

On a related note, Ford NAILED it with the Bronco. I've owned several Jeeps over the years and like the brand, but I think they are going to be challenged in a segment they felt they had locked down by Ford with this product. I personally haven't been this excited about a launch since the Challenger.

 

[Heather MacKinnon]

I have a feeling the large majority of GMs have no idea what these canned email templates coming out of the CRM even look like... even when not full of mistakes like the one you highlight, templates are unengaging at best and get hung up in spam filters over half of the time. Talk about wasted opportunity and a poor consumer experience! There must be a better way...:0. Totally with you on the new Bronco...my brother just purchased a brand new Wrangler and I believe had buyers remorse after the Bronco launch ;0

 

[Dahvin Greenfield]

@Heather MacKinnon makes a great point!

From my experience working in dealerships, GM's are unaware of the poorly executed, unfortunately automated, email templates coming out of the CRM .... customers are looking for a personalized exchange when inquiring about a vehicle (in general). Even in this day & age, no one likes talking to a robot.

 

[Jeff Kershner]

I hate templates but when you're working with the average (especially older) sales person, they are a necessary evil. With that being said, I try and keep the sales team trained on best practices on engagement. Most of our templates NEED to be touched/edited before sending. I also have our templates set up with several different paragraph/sentence options for different scenarios and responses, forcing them to edit each before sending.

I have very few auto-generated emails being sent out from our CRM and the ones that I do have, I change and tweek them often (monthly.) With all that, I'll still find a messed up email going out from the staff form time to time. When I personally take a lead and work the customer to an appointment, I'll share the whole process - emails, text, chats, calls (recorded) with the sales team and will use that scenario to train with.

 

[Wesley]

I happen to be a GM that does geek out over this kind of stuff. A couple of years ago at our Ford store here in Las Vegas, I performed a deep dive into the process we had in place for "lead" responding. My focus to measure the effectiveness of our first quality lead response (forms and phone call inquiries). Like all dealers we were spending a ton of money on Google and 3rd parties, driving shoppers to our inventory with the intent of generating inquiries. The way we target shoppers has certainly evolved over the past 20 years, but it occurred to me that the way we initially respond to those shoppers has not. Leads and phone calls come in, canned responses from the CRM are sent out. 100% agree that this is a blind spot for most GMs. As an industry, we simply check the box on lead response instead of inspecting what kind of responses are delivered to the shopper. This is our moment to "wow" the shopper, to deliver a strong first impression, and win that business away from other competing dealers. Like every other dealer we were just mailing it in and here is what we found.

Deliverability Rates: Over 50% of our initial responses sent from the CRM filtered to spam and went unopened resulting in tremendous marketing waste.

Engagement The quotes/emails that were in fact delivered and opened were underwhelming at best. Our responses were static, canned cash quotes that provided zero transparency, and often failed to answer the shopper's initial questions.

Differentiation: Our templates looked similar to every other Ford dealer in our market and therefore provided little competitive edge or differentiation.

Efficiency: It took my fastest sales rep 7 minutes to build a cash quote response from the CRM and our team had zero visibility into the consumer's interest after responding.

These findings and common pain points lead to developing an interactive quoting platform that the team at Gaudin Ford uses with great success today. I'm happy to report that we have seen strong increases in closing rates and lifts in CSI.

 

[ryan.leslie]

I happen to be a GM that does geek out over this kind of stuff. A couple of years ago at our Ford store here in Las Vegas, I performed a deep dive into the process we had in place for "lead" responding. My focus to measure the effectiveness of our first quality lead response (forms and phone call inquiries). Like all dealers we were spending a ton of money on Google and 3rd parties, driving shoppers to our inventory with the intent of generating inquiries. The way we target shoppers has certainly evolved over the past 20 years, but it occurred to me that the way we initially respond to those shoppers has not. Leads and phone calls come in, canned responses from the CRM are sent out. 100% agree that this is a blind spot for most GMs. As an industry, we simply check the box on lead response instead of inspecting what kind of responses are delivered to the shopper. This is our moment to "wow" the shopper, to deliver a strong first impression, and win that business away from other competing dealers. Like every other dealer we were just mailing it in and here is what we found.

Deliverability Rates: Over 50% of our initial responses sent from the CRM filtered to spam and went unopened resulting in tremendous marketing waste.

Engagement The quotes/emails that were in fact delivered and opened were underwhelming at best. Our responses were static, canned cash quotes that provided zero transparency, and often failed to answer the shopper's initial questions.

Differentiation: Our templates looked similar to every other Ford dealer in our market and therefore provided little competitive edge or differentiation.

Efficiency: It took my fastest sales rep 7 minutes to build a cash quote response from the CRM and our team had zero visibility into the consumer's interest after responding.

These findings and common pain points lead to developing an interactive quoting platform that the team at Gaudin Ford uses with great success today. I'm happy to report that we have seen strong increases in closing rates and lifts in CSI.

I think it is absolutely worth noting that that was your first post here on Refresh. Talk about "walking the talk" on initial quality.

Thanks for sharing this @Wesley.

 

[Wesley]

@ryan.leslie Just trying to make a good first impression . I have read a lot on this site over the years but this topic caught my eye. So many areas of opportunity in a dealership. Have a great week.

 

[Alex Snyder]

@ryan.leslie Just trying to make a good first impression .

Mission accomplished!