[warrior realm]

I have a very good friend in management at a medium sized auto dealership. They sell both new and used autos. A couple of months ago I mentioned something about setting up an "after hours lead generation system" that would help him make sales on evenings and holidays when the dealership was closed. Here's how I explained it:

It's after hours and there are no salesmen on the lot. A guy and his wife are driving along and decide to pull into the lot and start looking around. After some looking around they see one that really catches their eye. But no ones around to give them any information on the car. Then they spot the sign in drivers window that says:

"Get More Info On This Car Anytime 24 Hrs A Day - Call 555-1212 Right Now and Text GM123 And You'll Immediately Receive A Text With All The Details About This Car!"

The man and his wife immediately receive details about the car on their cell phone ... AND you or your one of your salesman receive a text alerting you to the fact that someone is interested in one of your cars along with the phone number they called from and the number of the car they were interested in.

Now what you do with that information is up to you and your sales team, but I would think you might want to have someone call that customer back either the same evening they called on the car or by the next day at the latest AND set up a time when they could come back in for a test drive OR set up a time when your salesman could GO TO THE PROSPECTS location for a test drive.

My friend asked "Sounds interesting. What would you have to do to set it up?". My answer: "I honestly don't know but I wouldn't think it would be too difficult. Let me know if you want to try it out and we'll see what needs to be done to set it up and test it out to see if it's profitable."

That was about a month ago. Yesterday I got a call from him saying "What do we have to do to set that up?"

Okay, so here we are. I don't remember where I read about the "auto dealership" scenario I told him about but it was probably here on Warrior Forum. In any case, does anyone have a simple explanation as to how this would be set up and what the cost involved might be?

[limecellular]

The best would be to use an SMS Marketing Platform with a good lead generation tool. The potential customer can text in for example a keyword with their information or the car's make, model, etc. in the text message so that the dealer will receive a notification of their phone number and either personal info, the car they want's info, or both depending on how you want to set it up.

Or, you could make mobile web pages for each car so that when they text the keyword associated with that car, they get a link to a page with pictures, pricing details and such and contact information for the dealer. There in the page, you can also invite them to text into the lead system from there so as to make sure that the dealer calls them and not vice versa.

It can be done a few different ways, but these to me seem to be the most simple and effective. At this point, trial and error is not the admission of defeat. It's simply a technology where the power plays are not yet entirely established.

[Magnum1]

dezfutak has a WSO that came out a few days ago that looks like it would work great for this. The name of it is: SMS Magi: 3 Wise Men Make Premier SMS Lead Gen Software For Local Businesses!

Hope that helps. Let us know how it turns out and what solution you end up using. Good Luck!

[russellprisco]

That's exactly what it does and was specifically created as an easy way to manage car dealers, real estate agents, and other high dollar businesses that rely on inventory. The WSO will be open for about another week or so. Since it was brought up, here's the link:

http://www.warriorforum.com/warrior-...inesses-4.html

Russell =P

[Nail Yener]

That's a really nice idea about business automation and making good use of even the after hours.

I am not sure if the dealers will be interested in providing after hour customer support but the idea is good and you can setup some kind of an SMS autoresponder system or place some QR codes that are linked to mobile pages with all the details about the cars.

You might get some ideas about SMS autoresponders on this thread or just Google it:

http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...any-ideas.html

@warrior realm: your signature doesn't work.

[RobertLindsey]

Just have him go to Seconds - text and mobile commerce he can get set up to do what you are describing in seconds.

The admin dashboard includes a feature called notifications. Dealer will be able to add as many dashboard operators as he likes and any text messages received can be routed to any or all of these and at intervals he defines. Contacts can be routed via SMS or email but growl and telephony will be added in the future.

[xlfutur1]

I'm biased because I have been using Twilio and Openvbx for this kind of thing for almost a year now.

Go grab Openvbx and put together a call flow and a text flow to accomplish this. Then make it so that the car salesman(s) gets sent a text as soon as someone inquiries about a particular model, and be sure to use the subscription plugin to store the inquirers number onto a list.

I would create multiple lists for the flows so you can segment the list into models. Then you can market to each list with SMS like a laser beam when new models just like they one they inquired about come in for sale.

If the salesman are getting texts after hours with the phone number of the inquirer, along with the exact model they just requested information on, that should get them excited about keeping you around for awhile.

Twilio is really cheap to use, and if you could help them sell just one car a month using this system, you can justify a nice monthly fee, and a huge profit.

[NewParadigm]

Dealerships are closed on sundays in MN by law. They'd be foolish not to have something like this. People intentionally go look at cars on sundays to browse and not be harrassed so an opt in lead gen would be perfect. Each car has a stock # that could be used as the identifier, or the last X digits of the VIN#. Every dealership now has an online admin that can keep up w/ the online listing info.

[WillR]

Originally Posted by NewParadigm

Dealerships are closed on sundays in MN by law. They'd be foolish not to have something like this. People intentionally go look at cars on sundays to browse and not be harrassed so an opt in lead gen would be perfect. Each car has a stock # that could be used as the identifier, or the last X digits of the VIN#. Every dealership now has an online admin that can keep up w/ the online listing info.

Funny you should say that. I see plenty of people browsing the car yards around my area when they are closed. As you say, it takes the pressure off.

[Nick Surran]

Here is a great three page thread about this exact thing. There's a bunch of great information and statistics from BKH, who is actually doing this with multiple car lots:

http://www.warriorforum.com/mobile-m...-thoughts.html