9:23 am, July 27, 2017
DEALERS are missing online sales opportunities by failing to engage with potential customers who abandon their enquiry part way through the data collection or application process.
Out of a sample of 350,000 finance leads from dealer websites, analysed by Codeweavers, 62,727 were partially completed. If these leads are ignored, that’s a total of 17.92 per cent of car buyers that have been lost that could have been converted into a sale.
Shaun Harris, Codeweaver’s sales director, commented: ‘There are many reasons why these customers abandon their enquiry. Our analysis reveals that most commonly the cause is either a desire for further information, or what we term as ‘early buyer remorse’ – again often stimulated by a gap in the potential customer’s understanding of the process, car and/or financing.
‘In the showroom, this need for clarity can be addressed quickly, but online, even tools such as Live Chat can fall short of providing the personal care required. Typically, these customers will remain ‘in market’ but will switch from online to in-showroom buyer to seek the guidance they require. This will not necessarily be at the same dealer with whom the online enquiry was being initiated.’
To help dealers to address this situation, Codeweavers have created a ‘Customer Prompts’ feature within the customer profile area of their Showroom System which, provides dealers with the ability to prompt customers via email directly from Showroom, to help them address any questions and prompt them to complete finance forms which were only partially completed.
He added: ‘This latest innovation is only the latest step in our endeavours to support dealers in providing an online car and finance buying experience. As well as helping to create sales, we hope to gain additional insights to further refine the online journey. Providing immediate telephone help is an option, but we already recognise that for some customers online is the preferred route, we simply need to create new tools to support this preference and we are very firmly on the case.’
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