Data-driven marketing and identifying prospects are crucial first steps when setting your dealership marketing strategy. You make careful decisions to ensure you maximize your marketing spend, but what’s the ROI on identifying the perfect customer if they call after hours and get your voicemail? Or if they wait on hold for five minutes and hang up? It’s essential to address the conversion gap, which is the space between a marketing lead and a confirmed appointment at your dealership.
Marketing funnel challenges
Dealerships face many common hurdles that lead them to waste marketing spend, including:
- Missed calls: Marketing campaigns run 24/7, but your automotive BDC doesn’t. Potential customers might be calling after encountering one of your ads, but what good is it if they can’t successfully make an appointment? A recent STELLA Automotive AI survey of automotive dealership industry leaders found that on average, dealers estimate they miss 11-16% of calls during business hours, and even more after hours. Capturing these calls using an automotive AI service leads to a significant revenue increase thanks to a surge in the number of appointments set.
- Inconsistent information: When customers contact a dealership after seeing an ad, they often obtain differing answers from different staff members. Despite dealers’ best efforts, team members provide varying degrees of service, leading to an inconsistent customer experience that might not always align with your brand. This is especially true when a dealership contracts with external BDCs.
- Long hold times: Today’s customers expect instant gratification. According to PwC, nearly 80% of American consumers say that speed, convenience, knowledgeable help and friendly service are the most important elements of a positive customer experience. Long waits on the phone lead to dissatisfied customers, and research shows that a bad experience can cause customers to not do business with you again, instead contacting your competitors.
- Staff overload: BDC and salespeople are too busy to answer every routine question instantly. They also might be too overloaded to provide the same level of service to each customer. Some might get helpful answers while others don’t, leading to an overall inconsistent level of customer service and branding.
How conversational AI transforms marketing into revenue
The challenges listed above are all preventable with STELLA Automotive AI’s solutions. Whether you utilize STELLA Service, STELLA Reception or IntellaVoice, you are tapping into powerful, natural-sounding conversational AI that offers consistent, helpful service while maximizing your efficiency. Here’s how:
- Capture 100% of your leads: A recent STELLA AI industry survey found that 71.4% of dealers say that missed calls are one of their biggest challenges with inbound phone calls. STELLA AI’s solutions answer every call, 24/7/365, ensuring no marketing dollar is ever wasted on a lead that goes unanswered.
- Provide instant, personalized service: When you leverage AI to assist with your customer communications, it can answer specific questions, handle service cost inquiries, provide dealership hours immediately and much more. These immediate answers are a marketing tool that builds trust.
- Preserve your brand identity: STELLA AI is trained to have your brand voice, so that every person who contacts your dealerships gets the same consistent experience. Employ customized dealer-specific greetings to build your brand identity.
- Seamlessly book appointments: Conversational AI for dealerships doesn’t just answer questions. It converts interest from marketing ads directly into a sales or service appointment, moving the customer down the funnel automatically. The same STELLA AI survey found that 60% of dealers said that their set appointment rates increased since implementing AI in their operations.
- Multichannel experience: Engage customers in their preferred method, whether that’s a test drive request, text message, phone call, or webchat. By offering all these options, you ensure that no matter the customer’s situation or preference, there is a frictionless path for them to engage. If you only offer a phone number, you risk losing the customer who can’t or won’t call at that moment. That’s a marketing dollar spent for a lead that simply evaporates due to inconvenience.
Reducing your marketing spend
Dealers that use IntellaVoice, built in partnership with Client Command, have a unique opportunity to get more for their marketing dollars. Instead of spending more to generate new leads, you can focus on maximizing the value of the leads you already have.
The system transforms your marketing by capturing 100% of inbound calls, engaging customers on their preferred channels 24/7, and instantly converting interest into appointments.
IntellaVoice ensures that no lead is ever wasted, maximizing your return on investment (ROI), allowing you to achieve better results with your existing budget and strategically reduce spend on underperforming campaigns.
See how STELLA can turn your marketing leads into booked appointments. Get a demo today.
