Best Practice Lead Management With AutoPlay

 AutoPlay Sales Pipeline is like a gym membership....it's nice to have, but unless you use it consistently, regularly and continually you won't achieve results.  And just like a gym membership, you need a goal to work towards.

To help our customers get the most from AutoPlay we've put together a list of best practice actions that you should be doing in AutoPlay, as well as some benchmarks to help you stay on track.

1.  CAPTURE EMAIL LEADS AUTOMATICALLY
Firstly the easy part - are all of your email leads being captured to AutoPlay automatically.  You should never have to manually load email enquiries to AutoPlay - if you are contact support@autoplay.co.nz with a link to the web form in question, a copy of the enquiry that is submitted and an outline of what source and campaign you want to map to in AutoPlay.

2.  LOAD ALL PHONE & WALK IN LEADS
Slightly trickier is ensuring that all leads are loaded in AutoPlay - not just email leads and not just those most likely to result in a sale.  Luckily there are several ways AutoPlay make this easier;
- Loading leads is easy with the ability to scan business cards,  drivers licence and choose existing customers all save salespeople having to type everything from scratch
- Floor Log TV Report can be set up for managers in their office on a TV to view real time as new leads are entered in AutoPlay
- The Health Check email can be set up to be received daily or weekly and provides managers with a breakdown of how many leads are being loaded to the Sales Pipeline.

3.  LEAD CONVERSION TELLS YOU A LOT
Conversion to Test Drive generally falls within the 35% to 50% range - Deloittes use 40% as the benchmark.  Sales conversion should fall within the range of 15% to 30% - Deloittes benchmark at 20%.  If you have a Salesperson who is achieving well in excess of this it's highly likely they are not recording all their leads - a fact you will know if they are achieving their Sales targets or not.  Conversely if conversion is too low this could indicate a performance issue, but could also indicate that particular user has fallen behind in updating their own Sales Pipeline.

4.  SET TARGETS
The Sales Pipeline allows you to set Dealership, Yard and Salesperson targets for Leads, Test Drives and Sales.  It is highly recommended that you set salespeople targets as this provdes a very quick reference of whether your sales team is on track or not.  If you are not sure what to set as your Lead and Test Drive targets it's a good idea to work backwards from sales at standard conversion rates.  Just multiple sales x 2 to get your Test Drive target, and multiply sales x 5 to get your lead target.

5.  NO LEADS AT AWAITING ACTION
If there is one metric that you need to be aggressive about maintaining, it's that by the end of the day you should aim to have zero leads sitting at Awaiting Action in Progress.  Leads at Awaiting Action indicate leads that have not been touched or followed up on.  It's easy to keep on top of Awaiting Action leads.  You can...
- Filter the Dashboard by Progress
- Check the Daily Health Check email which highlights whether there are any leads that have been at Awaiting Action for longer than 24 hours
- Check The Sales Pipeline Report in reporting .autoplay.co.nz

6.  NO OVERDUE OR STALLED LEADS
The Sales Pipeline is set up to show user the leads they need to action now - within a +/- 3 day window.  A lead becomes overdue when there is a scheduled event that is not actioned.  The dealerships that are most successful are those that on a daily basis ensure there are ZERO Overdue or Stalled Leads.  Managers can easily stay on top of this by using the built in filters in the Dashboard, checking the Daily Health Check email or running the Overdue Lead Report in reporting.autoplay.co.nz.

7.  TRACK WHERE YOUR LEADS ARE COMING FROM
Every dealership should be tracking where their leads are coming from.  For email leads this happens automatically so salespeople only need to add this on Phone or Walk In leads.  At a minimum dealerships should be aiming for 75% of leads with a recorded lead Source, and 50% of leads with a Campaign assigned (though the best dealers should aim even higher!).  In addition it is highly recommended that dealerships add costs to their Lead Sources and Campaigns - this will automatically calculate a cost per lead that can help make marketing decisions more than "intuition".  If you want to make Lead Source compulsory this can be arranged - contact support@autoplay.co.nz to request a change to your mandatory fields.

8. DATA QUALITY
AutoPlay has a purpose built report in reporting.autoplay.co.nz to measure how effective your sales team is at collecting data.  Dealerships need to aim toward capturing 80% of leads with email addresses, 80% with mobile numbers, 60% with Phone numbers and 50% with addresses (though this becomes more important when the lead is converted to a sale).  Integration with your DMS makes this much easier to achieve as users will be shown any similar customers from their database whenever they try to load a new lead.

9. DON'T BE AFRAID TO CLOSE LEADS AS LOST
Some dealerships shy away from the word "lost" and leave leads sitting open in AutoPlay forever.  These leads inevitably fall into 'Stalled' and gather digital dust.  It is far better to close these leads as lost.  This helps keep your dashboard tidy and easier to manage.  Lost leads can be filtered to in a click/tap and with the new Live Leads process you can retarget these lost leads incredibly easily with Live Leads eDM's.

10.  USE THE TOOLS AT YOUR DISPOSAL
AutoPlay is incredibly feature rich.  Once you've mastered the basic you are silly not to take advantage of all the tools at your disposal.  Some of the features users often forget about include;
- Video email responses can make converting email leads to face-to-face a lot easier
-  Live Leads remarketing can help dealerships retarget cold leads for no added cost
-  Use the calendar properly - it will help you become more efficient managing leads
-  Find out if DMS integration is right for you - it can save time and streamline your processes
- Use Appraisals including SMS to wholesalers, Manager approvals and the built in vehicle checks via CarJam, Motor Central and MotorWeb
-  Use the Wishlist - it helps connect potential trades with potential sales
- Understand reporting - there is a wealth of data available via Sales Pipeline.  Identify and understand a few select reports and you'll be well on your way to improving performance

If you have any questions about AutoPlay features you can contact our Support Team on support@autoplay.co.nz.  If you feel like you need additional training this can also be booked via Support (charges apply for all offsite training).