Laziness is killing your dealership’s chances to sell more vehicles. Not your laziness (I hope), but that of your salespeople. Whether they be overworked, undermotivated, poorly trained, improperly coached, or just not held accountable, you’re letting them get away with murder. Yes, deals are dying in the CRM. And you’re turning a blind eye. Yes, you.
I tell the sales professionals I train, “I don’t expect you to be like me.” But I’ll admit, I do want them to be like me. Way back when I was handling leads and calls, I was a psycho. The good kind of psycho. An illness or obsessiveness I have carried with me. As night would fall, with my shift end near (or with closing time moments away), I would review my task list in the CRM one last time to ensure not a single prospect was waiting on a response from me, or didn’t receive the email or call they were due. I insisted my task list was bare. (Yes, this was before CRMs integrated texts – don’t age-shame me). I’d stand up, zip up my coat (it was the Chicago area so 9 months out of the year, a coat was required), and I would get ready to leave for the evening. However, if one little bell would ding from the CRM indicating a fresh lead, new reply, or task to complete, I would unzip my coat, sit back down, and handle the customer. I just refused to leave people waiting. I still do. To this day, I can’t go to sleep at night with one email able to be addressed that isn’t, any inbound text not responded to that I could, or even one red notification on an app not reviewed and closed. It’s a sickness.
When brought in to train sales and/or BDC teams, we start with a review of the CRM (and often a refresh). Prior to installing new templates, messaging, texts, phone guides, and workflows, we always find a slew of deals dying on the vine. They sit in the overdue task buckets of your salespeople. They reside in their untouched or incomplete task lists. It’s like seeing a person dying of thirst as your sales team walks right by them carrying a giant Stanley thermos filled to the brim with electrolyte-enhanced water. They have the means to take care of these people, and yet, they just don’t have the care to. These people are begging to work with your organization – desperately seeking a call, an intuitive reply, an offer, and yet your bored team fancies themselves too busy to complete their tasks. It is shameful.
In most CRMs exist an overdue bucket, like a nursing home with no visitors and less orderlies. Some stores have upwards of a thousand overdue tasks, and hundreds upon hundreds of shoppers whose initial interest in a vehicle are being dismissed. This is where your deals are dying.
If you have 1000 open, incomplete tasks among your sales team laying dormant in your CRM (between calls, emails, texts and videos) and they were to be completed (not dismissed or half-assed or fake completed, but actually given effort and attention), you would save a lot of dying deals. It’s math not magic. Let’s say your store generates a 40% reply rate with on 1,000 static customers (which is a low amount across all leads, engaging them with 400 customers), and sets 30% appointments with those engaged (on par with most decent stores), they just set 120 appts. Roughly 60% of set appointments show, giving you 72 showroom customers. As it stands, on average over 50% of sales customers with appointments purchase. You just sold an additional 36+ vehicles. Again, it’s math not magic.
Sure, it would be great if your entire team left every night with all of their CRM tasks completed, but since they aren’t a young me, and we don’t live in wonderland, at the very least they should be accomplishing an task-free task list weekly. Make it a requirement for your team to clean up their task list. Again, don’t allow them to simply dismiss or get rid of their scheduled activities. Rather, train your team to make the most of their leads in the CRM. You would sell more vehicles than you do now. It’s irrefutable.
It is up to you (and your team) to save deals dying in your CRM. Insist they come to their customers’ rescue, bringing them back to life and resuscitating the car deal discussions with hundreds of shoppers. Cut off the laziness infecting the floor and breathe life back into the showroom by way of generating engagement through smart task completions. You’ll save those deals. Doctor’s orders.
Want to start saving the deals dying in your CRM? Contact DealerKnows.
