Car Dealers Praise ‘Power of the Phone'

Today’s car dealerships connect with customers in various ways, including online texting and emailing.

But a group of dealership experts contend the most important car-selling communication tool is —the telephone.

That may seem ironic in the digital age, considering that the original one-purpose phone for remote conversations was invented in 1876.

The successor smartphone dates to 1992. It includes multi-channel communication tools as well as plenty of apps. But it is its phone function that rings the bell for dealerships.

“If I had to pick (a technical means of communication), I’d lean into the telephone,” says Dennis Gingrich.

He is chief operating officer for AutoFiPro, a digital financing platform founded by and for dealers. He’s also managerially associated with the Niello Co., a Sacramento, CA, dealership group.

“Our team is all about the phone and tracking calls,” Gingrich says. “It’s very effective.”

During a Digital Dealer webinar, he joins other dealership people to share thoughts, insights and best practices on new-age auto retailing — including phone skills, call tracking and the importance of answering phone calls in the first place.

Room for Improvement

“We need to do a better job answering the phones, especially the service department,” says April Simmons, corporate internet and marketing director for the Horne Auto Group, based in Gilbert, AZ.

“We spend all this money to get consumers to call us and then we sometimes don’t answer.”

At a busy dealership, not everyone is readily available to take calls.

Sure, voicemail functions as a backup of sorts. But voicemail is where prospective car deals go to die, according to an industry adage.

Simmons advocates phone tracking, which consists of monitoring and following up with calls to and from customers. Her dealership works with Car Wars, a company that aims to “harness the power of the phone” for clients.

“I’d rather have a phone ‘up’ (an in-market car shopper) than anything else,” she says.

Phone-call monitoring can also settle possible differences of opinion about calls between staff and customers and serves as a check on staff knowledge, she adds.

“It finds out what was said,” he says.

“If I’m a customer and can’t get someone on the phone who knows what they are talking about, I’m done.”

Joseph Cajas, general manager of Covert Ford Lincoln in Austin, TX, says he reviews recorded calls between customers and dealership personnel.

Some calls are eye-openers, reinforcing the need for phone skills training dealership-style.

But all staff need to know calls are being tracked and measured, Cajas says. “Measurement affects performance.”

Track and Train

Adds Jake Hale, digital operations manager for the Gee Auto Group, with dealerships in five western states, “Coaching and training is an essential part of call tracking.”

Whether it is on the phone, online or in person, modern consumers do not want to play a shifting-numbers game, Hale adds. “They want no surprises. They want an out-the-door price, including taxes. A lack of transparency can hurt us.”

Gingrich, whose stores moved last year to a one-price system replacing sticker dickering, says most customers aren’t bird-dogging the lowest vehicle price in town.

“They want a fair price,” which isn’t necessarily the lowest, he says. “We’ve found people are willing to pay more for (positive) customer experience.”