When we launched TrackBack 6 years ago, I don’t mind admitting I was concerned. I knew manufacturers would love the idea, but how would Dealers react? How would they feel about their lead follow-up process being tracked and reported on? What I have come to realise is that actually the real benefit of our service is at Dealer level. The truth is that with the reduction in prominence of the smaller independent Dealer and the increase in average size of Dealerships the management of the sales process has got more and more difficult.
Just as manufacturers used to ask the question “what happens to my leads when they go to the Dealers?” the Dealers are now asking what happens to my leads when they reach the salespeople? Are they called? How quickly? How effectively? What is the outcome? Why are the conversion rates across staff different and what can I do about it? And perhaps most importantly “Am I 100% sure my sales team are giving me accurate information?”
I was in Detroit recently and I visited a huge Dealer which was the flagship of a group of 4 similarly sized Dealers. Like many of the bigger Dealers they have implemented an in-house call centre in each Dealership, but despite massive investment in technology only the calls made from the main Dealership automatically updated their CRM system. The other 3 Dealerships still manually update the system and are subject to the inaccuracies that this generates. Their staff get paid on the calls they make and the conversions to appointment that they achieve. Yet in order to measure this they are reliant on trust or a complex and time consuming system of cross checks against call logs. Even then the lead eventually has to go to another salesperson to qualify it effectively.
As one of our clients is fond of saying, “If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it”
TrackBack tracks the actual contact activity the in-Dealer call centre and salespeople undertake and immediately updates Lead Management and CRM systems with actual contact information and where possible call recordings. This allows the Dealer to effectively manage the sales process, identify areas for improvement, save sales, improve staff performance and convert more leads. Used properly, TrackBack is a massive benefit to any Sales Manager. I am not concerned anymore.