Live Phone Calls: The Key to Retaining High-Risk Customers

Retention Isn’t Easy and Human Capital Is Expensive

Customer retention is one of the biggest hot-button issues in the industry. The question “what is the best way to retain a customer?” is one with no easy answer, but ultimately it comes down to value. Show your customers you value them, and they will buy from you. Showing customers value is not always easy, and the auto business is plagued with a variety of internal and external factors that can upset the balance of a customer relationship and see them buy or service from competitors.

Retention is a common issue and sees a variety of proposed solutions: email, text, direct mail, digital advertising and more. But with so much noise from digital media and social platforms, people become disconnected and numb to the noise of over-marketing. People are emotional beings, and a lot of the best business connections are made by person-to-person contact. This is especially true when it comes to those considered to be high-risk or lost by the dealer or manufacturer.

The reality is that human capital is expensive, and BDCs are costly to run and maintain. Many dealers shy away from them or, worse, simply allocate enough budget to handle the minimum for the purpose of answering calls or working out day-to-day customer relations. Dealer communication for the most part is then limited to impersonal non-emotional connections that do not address the root of the customer’s issues.

The Solution

The way to build relationships is through direct and constant customer contact and this requires real human interaction. Does it cost more than other marketing methods? Maybe. Does it take more effort from the dealership to manage? Not necessarily.

There are options for outsourced BDC services that can strictly focus on high risk and lost customers for the purpose of “maintaining dealer to customer relations” and in the process create opportunity to bring these customers back into the fold.

With proper messaging, a good offering and an open schedule book, the customer is bombarded with so many positive components that emotion starts to take hold. The fear of loss due to the quality of the limited-time offer, the convenience of immediate booking and the opportunity cost of trying to find another deal or spending time calling a competitor becomes too great. Thus, the stars align, and the customer commits out of “emotional” necessity to decide. Even customers who do not make immediate decisions spend a period of time fully engaged with your dealership’s content on the call.

Repetition Yields Results

If it is recorded that the customer has not transacted during the buffer period, another call must be made to continue the direct marketing process until the opportunity is exhausted. After all, the customer is overdue for service, and you are seeking them out “in their best interest.”

The customer has received a call, an offer, and knows they are delinquent for service, creating pressure on them to decide. The next call will reinforce the previous, increasing the likelihood the customer is now in a state of mind to accept the offer or the appointment booking opportunity.

Mixing Mediums

While email and text messaging have many disadvantages compared to live phone calls, they do have a place in this format. Email and text fortification become extremely valuable when a customer wants to see tangible details of an offering by a business during a live call. By delivering the same message as the audible offering and being able to deliver it AT THE TIME OF THE CALL, the offering is imprinted very intensely on the customer.

Customers that receive content after a live call have now heard and seen the offering, message, etc., resulting in a direct engagement with your dealership. At the very least it has put in their mind a consideration to commit to service.

Benefits and Justifying the Expense

Most dealerships see a defection rate of 50%-85% from customers who purchased there and even the retailer market overall after the factory warranty expires.

By allocating service marketing dollars to outsource BDC live call efforts, a dealer in essence is putting their dollars toward generating the highest return on investment at the lowest cost per acquisition.

Most customers that defect are usually out of warranty, driving higher milage vehicles, which can yield double the dealer recommendations and profit conversions from vehicle inspections performed. This results in higher dollar transactions and hours per RO while offering additional opportunities to the used car sales department in the form of equity and trade opportunities.

Putting It All together

Many businesses find outsourced call solutions to be an indispensable utility in staying connected with their customers. Although we live in the digital age and people don’t answer the phone as much, we still like to hear the voice of a real person on the other end of the line reaching out to see how we are doing and if we can help. All you need is a good message and a genuine interest to help customers and they will come.

Originally published in Auto Success Online.