Do you know anyone who doesn’t own a cell phone? I don’t. Even the slowest of technology adopters now have a mobile device of some sort. And although it’s no secret that nearly everyone in the U.S. has a cell phone and most want to be able to do business via text, less than half of businesses are equipped to talk to customers via text – including dealerships. That means that many of your competitors aren’t equipped to meet customers on their terms and you have the opportunity to snag some of their business as a result.
Texting can dramatically improve the way your dealership engages with customers and the results your dealership sees from that engagement, including:
- Increased appointments: The first step in setting any appointment is establishing two-way communication. But that is often easier said than done, particularly when it comes to internet leads. Texting customers gives dealerships the opportunity two establish that two-way communication more often, which will ultimately lead to more appointments.
- Faster response times: While voicemails can go unanswered and emails can sit for days without a response, a customer’s average response time to a text message is only 90 seconds.
- Customer experience: Customers want information, but they also want their time to be respected — 77 percent of consumers are likely to have a positive perception of a company that communicates via texting.
- More productive time: Not even a decade ago, salespeople spent a good portion of their day following up on leads with time consuming emails and phone calls. Texts take less time to compose and send, allowing sales staff to get back on the floor helping customers.
Manage Texting With Your CRM
While texting has clear benefits, it can become a liability if your texting efforts aren’t managed and coordinated properly. An effective CRM solution, such as VinSolutions Connect Texting can help you manage these communications. Your texting solutions should be fully integrated with your CRM should have several key features, such as maintaining conversation histories, providing photo and video messaging support and supporting opt in/out features for customers.
Have your salespeople ever had a conversation with a customer only to find out that the customer’s already had the same discussion with several other staff members? That’s a very real problem that having a comprehensive conversation history can alleviate. Instead of salespeople messaging customers on their individual phones, each customer has their conversation recorded in a single point of contact with the dealership, preventing redundant conversations.
Texting solutions in a CRM can also provide customers with a better first look at a prospective vehicle. Photo and video messaging tools allow you to provide customers with the same images from your vehicle databases, providing consistency in images and saving time from constantly uploading from their phones.
Finally, FCC compliance is a major component of both phone and SMS marketing. Customers that aren’t interested in receiving messages should have an easy way to opt in or out of your SMS system. Texting solutions help maintain these databases to prevent accidentally sending a message to an uninterested customer.
Text messaging has obvious benefits over other methods of communication. It is clearly preferred among customers, but it can quickly become difficult to manage without the right technology like Connect CRM. Tools like Connect Texting helps organize text messaging so you can get back to giving customers a great experience.
Use VinSolutions Connect Texting to improve your customers texting experiences.
