When is "lost" actually lost when it comes to sales leads?

This is a recurring question that every dealer must ask themselves.  Too cautious about closing your leads as lost and you run the risk of cluttering your dashboard with cold leads, and compromising your sales peoples efficiency in managing leads.  Too often we see dealers that don't want to close their leads as "lost", and these inevitably end up as Overdue or Stalled leads.

Conversely if you are to aggressive in qualifying your leads as lost then you might be burning your potential customers too soon.  It's not a good look when customers are still actively in the market and salespeople choose not to follow up with them due to a perception they won't result in a sale.

It's a delicate balance - something that dealers manage in different ways.  Some will use AutoPlays Role Management Settings to restrict who can mark a lead as lost in their dealership, whilst others will set the account up to allow anyone to close leads as lost, but notify managers when this happens.  

The important thing to remember is that closing a lead as 'lost' doesn't necessarily mean you should stop talking to these customers - it just changes the method of communication and clears up the dashboard in Sales Pipeline, allowing salespeople to focus on more active leads.  All 'Closed Lost' leads can still be filtered to, and reports such as the Closed Lost Reason Report allow you to identify these leads in bulk,  AutoPlay has built in tools such as Live Leads which let you target recently closed lost leads with bulk eDM's - allowing dealerships to re-qualify leads enmasse in a way that might be hard to achieve with individual personalised follow up.  Whatever your approach, there should at least be an approach as there's still juice to be squeezed from these leads - something Manukau Hyundai recently experienced first hand.

Recently Manukau Hyundai hired a new salesperson.  To get them started they decided they would allow the new salesperson to have a crack at leads that the dealership had previously closed as lost.

To do this the dealership ran a Closed Lost Report from 1st July 2018 to 31st March 2019.  By exporting this list of leads via the 'Export' function in reporting.autoplay.co.nz the dealership was able to come up with a list of potential leads for the new salesperson to follow up with.

The new salesperson set about managing these leads and in just a month had achieved 16 sales from the pool of leads the dealership had previously classified as 'Closed Lost'.   

There is nothing wrong with closing leads as lost!  However this story proves the value in following up Close Lost leads as there is potentially money to be made.  Whether you follow up individually like Manukau Hyundai did, or you target these leads with bulk eDM's or Live Leads - the important thing is to have awareness of these leads, and a dedicated process for your dealership to verify they are truly lost sales opportunities.

If you would like to talk to AutoPlay about how you can identify and re-target your Closed Lost leads contact support@autoplay.co.nz and one of our account managers will get in touch.

After a down December saw AutoPlay customers capture significantly fewer Leads, Test Drives and Sales than the month prior, January 2019 saw a significant increase in activity across all key KPI’s.  The volume of Leads (up 16.1% from Dec 18), Test Drives (up 19.5%) and Sales (up 16.2%) all returned to normal levels in January 2019.  

‘Web – Dealer’ regained the top spot as the most common source of leads for kiwi dealers in January 2019 – up 15.7% from December 2018.  This pushed ‘Web – Classified’ down to the second most common source of leads, increasing by 8.1% from the month prior.  In December 2018 the volume of ‘Brand’ leads suffered the most as brands wound down for Xmas – decreasing by 38.8%.  In January ‘Brands’ increased marketing activity back to normal levels and subsequently dealers using AutoPlay reported an increase in leads from this source of 29.7% from December 2018.

With the number of Test Drives captured overall increasing by 19.5% we saw an increase in Test Drives recorded against each Source with ‘Web – Dealer’ (up 10.5%), ‘Direct’ (up 20.1%) and ‘Web – Classified’ (8.7%) sources all seeing increases in Test Drive volume. 

​Continuing the trend, Sales increased across the board in January 2018.  Sales attributed to the ‘Web – Dealer’ source increase by 13%, ‘Web – Classified’ increased by 8.7% and ‘Repeat increased by 6.5% from December 2018 to January 2019.

​Make sure to check back in March to find out the most common sources of Leads, Test Drives and Sales in February 2019.  To find out more about the range of reports available via AutoPlay contact us on sales@autoplay.co.nz or +64 9 361 1505.

It's that time of year again when we all resolve to lose weight/be kinder/spend less/eat better.  In the spirit of "new year, new you" here are 5 AutoPlay resolutions you can make to get the most out of the AutoPlay suite of products.

1.  I will respond to leads faster than ever before
I'm not going to define for you a suitable time to reply to customer enquiries as every dealer and region is different, with different expectations and different resources (though 2 hours could be used as a good benchmark).  Your first resolution is simply to work out firstly how long you are taking to reply to customer enquiries - check out the Email Reply & Allocation Report.  Once you know how long you are currently taking, knock 20% off and make this your new target.  It doesn't have to become part of your salesperson kpi's, but the addition of a documented goal to respond to all new leads will help all the salespeople understand the expectations on them.

2.  I will re-market to my existing leads...using the tools I already have available to me!
Many of our customers would have heard various members of the AutoPlay team bleating on and on about the fact that on average dealerships only convert 50% of their leads to Test Drives, and 20% to Sales.  We really hammer this point home because if you do the math it shows that 80% of the leads you've generated will not actually result in a sale.  Clearly this represents a huge opportunity for sales people to really work their lead database.  The Dashboard makes it super easy to identify the progress stage each lead is at, and built in tools such as Live Leads, In Market Leads and the Email Response Tool make it easy to target these customers for no additional spend.  Get someone responsible for sending Live Leads out each month and make the most out of every cent you spend.

3.  Personalise your customer comms
As detailed in make-2019-the-year-you-personalise-your-comms.html the internet continues to be an impersonal space, and building rapport with prospective customers is key to enage with them.  AutoPlay's suite of products offers ample opportunities to inject personality into the online space with Virtual Demo Videos and Video Email Response Tool.  Depending on your package these tools will not cost any additional and can be a great way to drive engagement with your dealership.

4.  Start using In Market Leads & Wishlists to connect your deals
The benefit of using digital tools to manage your leads is that everything gets captured.  The weakness of many digital lead capture systems is they don't help salespeople connect deals together.  At AutoPlay we've worked hard to provide tools that help sales people digest all the overwhelming volumes of information they have access to.  The Wishlist is used when your sales team cannot pin a customer down to a particular vehicle in stock.  It will automatically alert the salesperson when a matching vehicle comes into stock, or is appraised on another deal.  In Market Leads serves a similar purpose - when a new vehicle comes into stock or the price of an existing vehicles is dropped the system will look at all of the leads that have been captured (based on customisable criteria), and alert the manager to those customers that might be interested in the price dropped or new listing.  These tools are built into the standard Sales Pipeline so will not cost any additional money - use them!

5.  Understand Reporting
It's hard to make decisions if you don't understand what is happening - so understanding reporting is critical to your success with AutoPlay Sales Pipeline.  Reporting can be more than just tracking the past - it can also identify opportunities for the future and now.  If you know you convert 50% of your Test Drives to Sales via the Lead Conversion Report, and you know you've got 40 leads sitting at Test Drive Progress via the Sales Pipeline Report then it's easy to connect the dots and work out a plan to convert 20 of those leads into Test Drives.  AutoPlay has a wealth of reports from raw data extracts in the form of the Lead Audit, to the 15+ reports in reporting.autoplay.co.nz.  If you are a Sales Manager it's critically important that you understand what the reports are showing you.

If you want to talk to someone about any of these functions contact support@autoplay.co.nz and one of our Account Managers will get in touch.

Recently I stumbled across one of the ubiquitous “top digital trends for 2019” articles that you see at this time of the year, every year.  One of the key trends I’ve seen identified repeatedly is the need to personalise your communications with your potential customers.

Video is one way you can easily personalise your communication, with the added benefit of being one of the more effective ways to engage with potential customers.  As you can see from the images above, according to Google 56% of shoppers could be convinced to buy a car from a 360-degree video without having to test drive the vehicle.  In addition, 40% of shoppers who watched a video about cars or trucks visited a dealer as a result.

It is said that some industries are already seeing up to a 30% increase in close rates (Adpearance).  At AutoPlay we’ve run our own surveys about the AutoPlay Video Email Response tool and have had dealers report back increases of 60% when replying to customer enquiry with video, as opposed to tradition text-based emails.  There’s clear evidence that personalising your customer comms will drive higher engagement from potential customers.
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So how can you utilise the AutoPlay suite of products to personalise your customer communication?  

Personalising your customers web experience is difficult, however steps can be taken to inject personality into the online space via AutoPlay Virtual Demo videos.  These videos let dealerships customise their own recording scripts, and record their own unique voiceovers on listing videos – a great way to introduce the dealerships personality into the online space.

If you have an AutoPlay Vehicle Display Page you will be able to embed a Youtube video into the VIDEO LINK field in the AutoPlay Studio.  This allows dealerships to embed any video they have rights to use, within their AutoPlay vehicle stock page.

​The AutoPlay Video Email Response Tool was one of the first digital communication tools that AutoPlay built and is still going strong to this date.  The Email Response Tool allows salespeople to inject their personality into the online space, and has proven to be an effective way of building rapport with prospective customers.  Although we are a tech company, we have an old school mentality when it comes to emails – you are not likely to sell a car directly from an email, but how you reply to email enquiries will directly affect your prospective customers decision to visit the dealership.  The default mode for the email tool is to stitch the audio onto the existing images – making it extremely easy to build straight from the app.

​If you are using the iOS App you can utilise the camera on your iphone/ipad to film a true video walk around of the car – hopping in and out, opening the boot and engine bay and even starting the engine.  Filming a true video definitely takes more skill and confidence than recording a voice-over, but can really help to personalise the experience for potential customers.

After an up and down last few months saw strong growth in Lead and Test Drive volume in October 2018, November bucked the trend with decreases across all 3 KPI’s for AutoPlay customers.  Leads decreased by 2.5%, Test Drives by 5.2% and Sales by 4.1%.

Reflecting the overall trend of a decrease in Lead volume, most sources decreased in the month of November.  ‘Web – Dealer’ leads decreased by 6.8% from Octobers high, and whilst ‘Web – Classified’ still accounted for the second most leads across AutoPlay customers, dealers also saw a decrease in the number of leads from this source by 2.5% from month to month.  ‘Brand’ generated leads continue to provide dealers a reliable source of leads and were one of the few sources to buck the trend – increasing by 4.7% from October to November.

As with Leads, the overall number of Test Drives decreased in November (vs October 2018).  Test Drives from ‘Web – Dealer’ generated leads decreased by 7.8%, but dealer websites still remain the most fruitful place to generate Test Drives.  ‘Direct’ Test Drives continue to firm as the second most popular source of Test Drives with a small 2.0% increase from October to November.  As with October, Test Drives generated from ‘Brand’ leads accounted for the 3rd most Test Drives, but decreased by 11.7% from the previous month.

Sales across all Lead Sources decreased by 4.1% from October to November 2018.  The same three sources accounted for the most Sales in November with ‘Web – Dealer’ decreasing by 1.5%, ‘Web – Classified’ decreasing by 0.5% and ‘Repeat’ decreasing by 3.3%.

​Lead Source reports are just one of the reports available to dealerships and OEM’s who use AutoPlay Sales Pipeline.  To find out more about the range of reports available via AutoPlay contact us on sales@autoplay.co.nz or +64 9 361 1505.

AutoPlay are at the forefront of delivering innovative digital tools that are designed to enhance our customers day-to-day activities - whether it be through helping our Dealers become more efficient or by assisting them to drive a higher level of sales performance chances are we’ve got a solution that works for your Dealership.

We’ve been working closely with the team at MotorWeb - Trademe’s vehicle data business to develop a more tailored solution to support the vehicle appraisal process. Recognising not all vehicles are subsequently traded Sales Consultants and Managers have asked for a more targeted report to help them carry out appraisals.
 
Both AutoPlay and MotorWeb are committed to promoting best practice within the automotive industry. Our workflows are designed to protect both Dealers and their customers. MotorWeb’s reports help you meet both your legal obligations and financial compliance checks, leaving nothing to chance.
 
The new Appraisal Report will provide your sales team valuable insights at the very start of the process, upfront when you need to engage in great customer conversations.

How’s the Appraisal Report integrated within AutoPlay? ​

If you are currently using the MotorWeb VIR service in NZ via AutoPlay you will notice it change over automatically on 5/12/18.  If you do not currently use this service within AutoPlay you can sign up via support@motorweb.co.nz.  There is no additional charge from AutoPlay to use this function within the Sales Pipeline. 

What’s the next step if we decide to purchase the Vehicle?
 
The MotorWeb Vehicle Information Report (VIR) will always be required to comprehensively check the vehicle before making any payment, as it checks a whole range of financial conditions including legal ownership, registered finance securities and will soon form part of your obligations under The Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Act 2009 (AML/CFT). The VIR is only available through the MotorWeb Dashboard or if we’re integrated within your Dealer Management System (DMS).
 
To find out more about this service or sign up, please contact the MotorWeb Dealer Support team on 0800 668 679 or email support@motorweb.co.nz
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LIVE LEADS
AutoPlay Sales Pipeline includes the built-in functionality to send video eDM’s to your captured leads.  Sending Live Leads is integrated with the Sales Pipeline Dashboard and allows dealerships to target specific types of leads that they have already captured in the past.
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1.       Capture your leads as per business-as-usual
2.       At the end of the month review your leads and decide on who you want to target
3.       Click on LIVE LEADS then click on the + CREATE NEW LIVE LEADS EMAIL button on Desktop or iOS
4.       Choose whether you want to manually set follow up, or use your default follow up settings (i.e create a calendar follow up automatically if a recipient watches X videos)
5.       Select your Live Leads template and who you want to send the email from
6.       Write a Subject Line and an intro message if required, and click SAVE
7.       Select your Listings.  Only listings with videos are included so if your desired listing does not have a listing go into the Listings screen and build a video via the burger menu>Listing>Rebuild MP4
8.       Click on BUILD RECPIENT LIST to build a list of recipients for your email.  You can select from any combination of leads including targeting only those that enquired on certain make/models, or those that only made it to Test Drive
9.       Once you have built your list click SAVE and you can VIEW RECORDS to see who your email will be sent to.  Your recipient list will be built from the leads you have previously captured.
10.    PREVIEW and SEND your email
11.    Once sent, wait a couple of hours and then you can click on RESULTS to view which recipients have opened the email, and watched videos.  You can click on the VIEWED column to see which individual vehicles they viewed within the email
12.    If you have your follow up set to automatic, AutoPlay will automatically create follow up calendar events against anyone that meets your follow up threshold – i.e. they watched at least 3 videos.
13.    If you prefer to manually control your follow up you can select the leads you want to follow up with and click on the CREATE NEW LEAD button.  This will create a new lead if your lead is closed, or add a calendar event if your lead is still open
14.    Follow up your hot leads via the Dashboard
15.    Next month, rinse and repeat.  It is recommended that you don’t contact the same recipient more than once a month.  Practically it is easier to create smaller, target groups that give your sales team a better chance of actually following up individually with recipients who interact with your email
 
You can read more about Live Leads here https://www.theplaybook.co.nz/playbook/coming-soon-integrated-live-leads​

IN MARKET LEADS
As well as using Live Leads to qualify who to follow up with, you can also use In Market Leads to identify potential customers that might be interested when you lower the price of a vehicle, or a new vehicle comes into stock.

1.       Capture your leads as per business-as-usual – making sure to qualify them to a vehicle
2.       Every week check your IN MARKET LEADS screen.  The In Market Leads screen is set up to show listings that have been recently added, or listings that have had a recent price decrease.  There is a default setting for your dealership, but you can create your own preference using the PREFERENCES button
3.       The In Market Leads screen will automatically return the Leads that have enquiries on similar cars to your new/price dropped listings.  A Lead is identified as being similar based on the In Market Leads settings you have in PREFERENCES
4.       It is recommended that you play with these settings to ensure you get a good balance between returning enough leads to follow up with, and returning too many leads to reasonably do anything with.  A good starting point is match on Make, Model, Year (-1 to + 1) or Price (- $2500 to +$2500).  Alternatively swap out make and model for Body Type if your customers are flexible on models
5.       If you find a matching lead that you feel might be interested in the new/price dropped listing you can click on the record to view the lead, and + to schedule follow up.  In Market Leads creates the perfect opportunity to communicate with leads that might have gone cold, with the introduction of a similar car that may tickle their fancy
 
You can read more about In Market Leads here https://www.theplaybook.co.nz/playbook/introducing-in-market-leads-making-buyer-matching-easy

​At AutoPlay we frequently get asked what is best practice - both when it comes to using the AutoPlay suite of products and also in the broader sense of managing leads.  In response to this we've come up with a couple of flow charts that sum up how we believe a lead should be managed from start to finish.

Click on the image below to open a PDF file.

If you would like to talk to AutoPlay on what we believe Sales People and Sales Managers should be doing on a Daily, Weekly or Monthly basis please contact us on (+64) 9 361 1505.  We have other Best Practice Guides that cover these topics and are available upon request for AutoPlay customers. 

​If you have any questions about these best practice documents, or would like to organise training in your dealership please contact support@autoplay.co.nz to arrange.

​Over the past 12 months you might have noticed our Dealer Solutions Manager Jackie Hingston in your dealership as we’ve made a concerted effort to get around and visit all our customers.  As part of Jackie’s visit she was conducting a review of each dealerships strengths and weaknesses.  However, the good news is that you don’t need to wait until AutoPlay visits you in order to conduct your own self review.
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LEVEL 1:
If you feel like your dealership is below average at utilising the AutoPlay Sales Pipeline then the areas to focus on that will provide you with the most improvement are;

·         Tell us what you did (i.e load leads and update the Progress)
·         Tell us what you are going to do (i.e use the Calendar)

You can measure the number of leads loaded by each salesperson by using the Lead Summary and Conversion or Daily Activity Reports.  Simply open the report, select your date range and open the salesperson section to have the report display by salesperson.

The Sales Pipeline Report will give you a breakdown of whether your dealership is progressing the leads being loaded.  The goal is to ensure that there is not a disproportionate amount of leads sitting at Awaiting Action, and also allows the dealership to identify areas where the leads are stalling through the road-to-a-sale.

The Morning Meeting Report can be used in order to report back on how well the sales team are using the calendar.  It will give managers an instant view of how many calendar events each salesperson has created for the day, and how many are complete.

LEVEL 2:
Once you’ve mastered Level 1, it’s time to advance to Level 2.  Whilst Level 1 focuses on simply what you’ve done and what you are going to do, Level 2 ups the game.  If you can achieve mastery of Level 2 you will be a competent user of AutoPlay Sales Pipeline;

·         Are you using the Test Drive Forms AND making sure to mark your Test Drives as DONE when the customer finishes the Test Drive?
·         Are you using the Appraisal Form and benefitting from the MotorWeb/MotorCentral/CarJam integration?
·         Are you using the Calendar effectively to minimise the amount of leads falling into Overdue or Stalled?
·         Are you using the Morning Meeting Report to help with your daily one-on-ones with the sales team?
·         Are you using the Sales Pipeline Report to identify the areas in the road to a sale where your leads are stalling?
·         Are you using the Lead Summary and Conversion Report to determine your conversion to Test Drive and Sales?

LEVEL 3:
If you can answer yes to all the questions in Level 1 & Level 2 then congrats – you are more than likely using the Sales Pipeline effectively.  That said, it’s time to take it to the next level;

·         Do you enter salesperson Lead, Test Drive and Sales targets and measure against this month and last month using the Daily Activity Performance Report?
·         Do you enter Lead Source and Lead Campaign costs to measure ROI in the Lead Source and Marketing ROI reports within AutoPlay reporting?
·         Have you compared the number of leads at Awaiting Action to your normal Test Drive and Sales conversion figures to determine how much money is sitting in your captured data?
·         Do you take advantage of Live Leads to target the captured leads you have yet to sell to?  Live Leads allows you to build an audience based on your previously captured leads, and automatically schedule follow up based on their interaction with your email.
·         Have you got into In Market Leads yet?  In Market Leads is a great way to immediately link potential interested buyers when the dealership loads new listings or lowers the price of existing listings.

We’ve worked hard to make sure the AutoPlay Sales Pipeline is easy to use and intuitive, and we’re proud that many users can pick up the software and with a minimum of assistance start managing their leads via the Dashboard.  That said we understand that the primary job of a salesperson is to sell cars, not learn software.  From time-to-time it can be beneficial for sales people to have a refresher on AutoPlay.  We offer a number of options for new staff or refreshers

​AutoPlay Academy (Free of charge to AutoPlay customers)
The AutoPlay Academy is AutoPlay’s e-learning module and covers use of the Sales Pipeline on Desktop, iPad and iPhone. Each series is made up of a range of courses designed to help you get the most out of the Sales Pipeline.  Click on the link below to find out more and get started with AutoPlay Academy
http://autoplay.co.nz/Academy.aspx

Face-to-face Training ($1,000 + GST for full days training in dealership + expenses/flights/accommodation if applicable)
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For those that prefer face-to-face training AutoPlay can spend the day at your dealership (exact hours dependent on availability of flights).  Typically, it’s a good idea to divide the day into 2 sessions to ensure there are always salespeople available on the sales floor.  This also ensures smaller sessions which result in more hands-on attention, and more willingness to get involved.  AutoPlay Sales Pipeline training is hands on and is perfect for both new salespeople and as refreshers for existing salespeople.  As with Skype training, dealerships can tailor their own specialised training or let AutoPlay’s experienced trainers recommend best practice.

Spending time with AutoPlay staff members can yield great results.  At AutoPlay we don’t just want you to pay for our product.  We want to help dealerships connect buyers and sellers and we firmly believe that if your dealership takes advantage of the functionality available within the Sales Pipeline, you’ll improve accuracy, efficiency and transparency throughout the dealership.

To book training with AutoPlay or enrol in the AutoPlay Academy contact support@autoplay.co.nz with your request.