Our TrackBack platform is being used in 15 countries by a number of car manufacturers to detect if and when their dealers are following up the leads they provide. But before a brand in a market adopts TrackBack, they need to have evidence or even a suspicion that their dealers do not quickly follow-up every lead. In our experience, a car brand in one market might believe that they don’t have a problem with lead follow-up, but the same brand in a different market could have a very different opinion. Equally some markets have a reputation for efficient sales processes, like Japan, and others less so. In Italy the average follow-up rate for leads across all brands was just 19%. Using TrackBack we have helped the Fiat Group to improve their follow-up rates to 95%.
But the picture isn’t as black and white as this suggests. Every lead is different. Some convert easily into showroom appointments, some take a lot of effort, and some simply won’t be interested at all. They turn out not to be sales leads at all. Good dealers will follow-up every lead no matter whether it’s strong or weak. However, even good dealers prefer not to waste their time following up poor leads when eager customers might be waiting for their attention. So weeding out the weakest opportunities from the leads the brands pass to their dealers increases conversion rates and keeps salesmen happy making calls.
In order for brands to know which campaigns and lead types generate the most appointments, they need fast, comprehensive and accurate feedback on the quality of every lead. TrackBack. Feedback is a facility which enables dealer sales staff to enter a result code on their telephone keypad immediately after each call. This gets passed back to the brand for detailed lead quality analysis and hopefully, therefore, even better leads in future. A brand’s marketing effort can subsequently focus on whatever generates good leads and either improve or drop what generates weak leads. Why waste your money on something that annoys your dealers?
So it’s not just about follow-up detection and sales process discipline. It’s also about having the information to refine marketing campaigns and the sourcing of better targeted opportunities.