“Everybody’s familiar with the bad old days when manufacturers would collect names and addresses from competitions and events and just deliver thousands of pieces of random data to dealers and give them a hard time for not following it up.

“Manufacturers owe it to the networks to be operating proper lead management, scoring, nurturing processes so if it’s  showing behaviours suggesting they’re actively in market then  we pass it to dealers. But those pieces of data need to be cherished and valued and worked, and get past the mentality of ‘I couldn’t get hold of them on second time of calling. Oh well, there’ll be another lead coming to follow up next’.

“They need to recognise that behind that piece of data is a real customer who is looking for an experience and whose expectations of that experience are being set by businesses outside of our industry, businesses either started from scratch in an online world or that embraced digital more rapidly than the automotive sector. Therefore, such traditional behaviours are no longer tolerated.”

 

Moving enquiry management away from the salesperson

Audi is discussing with its network the structures and roles within the dealer organisation. Ratcliffe said too often the sales person is still expected to act as a contact centre person handling enquiries, do a huge amount of administration and order-chasing, and yet is also meant to welcome customers to the showroom, present cars, negotiate and close.

“That’s an awful lot to ask of an individual, so we’re discussing various pilot opportunities with our network partners as to how that role can be better divided, and I think a dedicated enquiry management resource is part of the future.”

Such resources and structure are more prevalent in the US, where leads are paid for. The simple element of putting a price on customer data changes the culture. Some retailers in the US have systems where if a lead not followed up within an hour, it’s escalated to the dealer principal, and if not within three hours it’s passed on to another retailer.

That could be seen as fairly draconian, but it’s demonstrating to everyone in the business that there’s real value in that lead.

“The customer expectation is that if they go online and say they’re interested in X, Y and Z they’re expecting to be followed up, and followed up in minutes, not days.”