By all means, trust your multipoint attribution software to tell you where your shoppers are coming from and which sites influence them to purchase from you. If that report shows you they sort of visit a multitude of online sites, then just divide up your budget across all of them. (That’s not how it works, though, is it?) Oh, you don’t use a multipoint attribution tool, but simply trust the reports in the CRM where your team decides where a shopper originated from? Great! That is where most dealers still are at, so let’s talk about the most basic steps of sourcing for the CRM.
At the very least, whether it is accurate or slightly inaccurate, marketing decisions likely shouldn’t be made without a dive into your CRM ROI report, that is, unless you have another customer attribution model you trust. The question you must ask is, beyond inbound internet leads that carry over the lead source info (and your belief that shows the primary cause of the customer engaging), how accurate is that ROI report in your CRM? Even if you believe in last touch lead generation, is your sales team even asking the shoppers those questions to help them determine what to enter into the CRM as lead source? Sadly, probably not.
And this is where the 101 level learning comes in. Salespeople honestly do not care what brought the customer in. All they care about is that it is their customer and they’ve got them logged in the CRM for protection from being skated. To enter a shopper into most CRMs, be they phone or walk-in, they most enter a lead type (typically “Internet”, “Phone”, or “Walk-in”. “Referral/Previous Customer”, or “Service”. Then the salespeople usually are required to enter a lead source, such as AutoTrader, CarGurus, Dealer Website, Previous Customer/Referral, Service, etc.
On Internet leads, you can see the lead source. It’s set in stone. Your team doesn’t have to care about sourcing for the CRM. On phone or walk-in customers, though, do you trust what they are picking? Do you trust that they’re even asking? Are you sure they’re not simply picking whatever is alphabetically quickest for them to select, or aren’t just picking “Dealer Website” every time without so much as a conversation?
At the bare minimum, all this simple blog is telling you to do is teach your team to ASK.
If it is a sales call, at one point during the call, is that salesperson or BDC asking in some way to understand how to properly source the customer? It can be done with any of these questions below…
- How did you hear about us?
- Which website did you see this vehicle?
- Where did you first learn about us?
- Did someone recommend us to you?
- Can you remember what led you to our website/store?
- Which of our ads caught your eye?
- What led you to choosing this vehicle?
- Have you done business with us before?
- If they’re visiting your showroom, the same rule applies that they must ASK the walk-in customer.
- What brought you in today?
- Did you speak to anyone in advance of coming in today?
- Did you have an appointment?
- Did you find this vehicle online? (OR)
- Did you have the chance to research this vehicle online? (OR)
- Did you have the chance to research the value of your vehicle online? (THEN) Great… which sites?
Sourcing for the CRM is a necessary ask, the same way you expect your BDC to ask for the appointment and your salespeople to ask for their business. It is not hard. It is not out of the ordinary. It’s been expected of salespeople for decades. The only problem is, do you really trust what they’re plugging into the CRM if you aren’t even training them to do so? DealerKnows has been training salespeople and BDC agents for over 17 years the best ways to ask the right questions at the right times to help their sales managers, their marketing directors, their ownership, and themselves. It isn’t difficult, but it does need to be practiced.
The aspect of sourcing for the CRM I haven’t yet discussed, which may be even more important, is not doing it for marketing attribution, but to better understand your customer’s expectations and intent. If you tell me what site they spent the most time on, and which vehicles they were looking at, I can share with you valuable insights that can better help sell that customer. But that’s another blog entirely.
Get your team to ask what prompted the customer to choose your store. That singular nugget of information impacts marketing and sales more than salespeople realize.
Do you have VinSolutions as your CRM provider? Check out my webinar about the 5 Do’s and Don’ts in Vinsolutions CRM
