As a mobile America becomes ever more reliant on their smartphones for news, information, reservations, purchases, etc., the device has also dramatically impacted the way young and old shop for everything- including hybrids, crossovers, and electric cars.

Just yesterday, dealers were focused on retrieving e-leads and counting click-throughs on websites. With 77% of Americans active on smartphones, click-to-call has made the phone call the medium of choice…again.

Unfortunately, handling inbound calls is a weakness for most dealerships. A 2017 Marchex study reports that dealerships place callers on hold or transfer them 68% of the time, and 12% of callers will abandon before a rep returns to the phone. Further, when a caller tries to set up a service appointment over the phone, the attempt fails nearly 1 in 4 times. In fact, after reviewing two million dealership calls, CarWars determined that 39% of calls into the dealership never reached a qualified employee.

Well, what happens when the sales team does get to talk to the shopper? A past J.D. Power study reports that only 11% of phone ups yield accurate customer data and only 6% of phone ups yield an appointment of some type.

Can your dealership benefit from a phone process tune-up ?