One of the most pressing questions among dealerships is how long is too long when it comes to replying to email enquiry? The answer depends on who you ask.
Many digital evangelists will tell you that you need to reply to email enquiry in five minutes or less, whereas many dealerships will run for the hills at the very mention of a 5-minute reply!
So what is the right answer? The obvious, semi-sarcastic answer is ‘as soon as possible’. The public use the internet as a pre-purchase research tool. A typical session could involve jumping on a favourite vehicle aggregation site, or their favourite dealership websites, and sending enquiries to multiple dealerships on the cars they like.
If you can get back to potential customers while they are still on the same browsing session the chances of moving forward increase exponentially. Harvard Business Review conducted a study which showed that companies that responded to customers within an hour were seven times more likely to have meaningful conversations with prospective customers than companies who took longer than an hour to reply.
What is realistic?
Within five minutes is clearly ideal, but within an hour is still really effective. But what is realistic in dealerships? When I ask dealerships this question I get a variety of time frames from five minutes to the same day. Speed of reply depends on two factors – people and processes.
Sales is such a human process that people play a huge part in how quickly dealerships respond to incoming email enquiry. Attitude is critical – salespeople would never allow a customer to walk around the dealership unattended nor would they leave the phone ringing off the hook. Yet sometimes the urgency is not there – emails are much easier to ignore than phone calls or walk-ins.
Processes are equally as important. Salespeople need to be clearly told what the expectations are in terms of response times. Additionally, the processes must be put in place to make sure those standards are achievable and realistic.
Processes can be in the form of documented procedures (such as designated lead handlers and contingency plans) or through specialised software.
There are ways and means…
Let’s assume for a minute that five minutes to one hour is not currently achieveable for your dealership. It’s important to reply as soon as possible, but there are tools that can make this easier.
Automatic responses – Much maligned, but often quite effective. Automatic responses serve a few purposes. Firstly they acknowledge that the enquiry has been receive by the dealer and not lost in cyberspace. Secondly, they can be the perfect opportunity to set up the customer service expectations.
Many dealers these days use auto responders to inform customers of opening hours, tell customers when they will hear a reply and provide points of contact if they fail to receive a reply in an acceptable time frame.
Smartphones – If they don’t already have them – invest in an iPhone or Android phone for your salespeople, so they can receive emails straight to their phone. In this day and age there is no reason for salespeople to be chained to their desk and they can receive emails on the yard or after hours.
Alerts – Many lead management systems can be set up to send email or SMS reminders to salespeople when leads are not followed up on.
As a general rule reply as soon as possible. Think about how long you would want to wait when sending an email enquiry…then halve it!
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