IMI Magazine

Customer management

With the economy in the doldrums, businesses should be ‘hitting the phones’ to put more wind in their sales.

Yet according to one study, the automotive sector has a lot of catching up to do when it comes to communicating with existing customers and chasing new ones.

Only 50 per cent of marketers from Britain’s top 1,000 companies reckoned that carmakers and dealers use multi-channel communications effectively. Top of the league were travel, mobile telecoms, retail banking and insurance.

“A quick overview of automotive companies’ websites reveals the modest range of contact points offered, said Richard Higginbotham, head of marketing at direct mail marketing company CDMS, which commissioned the study. “Lack of phone numbers displayed on advertisements also betrays a certain shortage of multi-channel thinking.”

Findings of another research project, this time carried out by Navigator Customer Management, were even more damning: a mere 23% of marques are offering full multi-channel communications (phone, email, web, SMS and post).

Leveraging knowledge
Commented NCM’s managing director Rob Denton: “Training is at the heart of good customer relationship management. Whether it is contact centre agents or in-house salespeople, it is vital that they have the ability both to obtain the necessary information and to leverage the knowledge in the customer database. The most detailed customer database in the world will mean nothing if the person answering the call does not have the knowledge to capitalise on data.”

Denton added: “CRM is not just about maintaining long-term relationships, but is also about converting short-term sales opportunities. If a customer has taken a test drive but not bought within a week, a follow-up call can mean the difference between a sale and a customer who goes elsewhere.”

Worryingly, things don’t seem to have improved since our last report on CRM 18 months ago. At that time, another systems supplier, Contact Advantage, talked about its own research which revealed that more than 60% of leads classified by dealers as no longer in the market for a vehicle were still looking to buy when contacted by an external marketing agency.

The company attributed this ‘blind spot’ either to inadequacies in the system or – to echo latest studies – lack of training. It took, for example, the critical matter of follow-up with prospective customers.

Typically, up to 90 per cent of telephone prospects enter the vehicle market within ten days, yet over 80 per cent of salespeople failed to get the caller’s name or number. Contact Advantage’s research also showed that sales staff did not contact 90 per cent of potential customers again.

Of course that’s taking the automotive sector as a whole and there are examples of companies embracing opportunities to improve customer communication. 

Moving target
Encouraging repeat business can be a bit like trying to shoot a moving target, says dealer group Warners, which is why it’s using a CRM system, aptly named ‘Target’, supplied by MMI Automotive.

Target works in tandem with MMI’s Automate dealer management system, enabling users to customise sales and service requirements through a single portal. This is particularly important for multi-franchise dealerships like Warners (which operates four sites in Gloucestershire) as the software centralises core modules such as diary functions and automatic service calculations and also provides a solo hub for recording key data.

“Being able to combine financial data with customer buying behaviour is a real asset,” says Warners’ financial controller Dave Ryland.

Ruth Hudson, Warners’ marketing manager, added: “Target offers a host of useful functions. For example, when new vehicle sales data is entered, Target automatically creates an initial ‘thank you’ letter for the customer, and then routinely sends reminder letters at 11, 23 and 35 months. The same thing happens with service reminders.”

Not all customers remain at the same address, though, and without regular database ‘cleansing’ there’s not only a waste in postage but also the potentially embarrassing risk of contacting customers who are no longer alive.

Health check
Which is why Cheshire-based independent Peugeot dealer J J Cooksons decided to undertake a data ‘health check’ using a ‘deceased suppression’ facility from systems supplier Mortascreen.

Mortascreen’s product director Karen Webster points out that sending information to people who have died is not only distressing to their families, but also poses a potential risk for ‘identity theft’.

Commented dealer principal James Cookson:  “We are a family business and want to avoid sending any mail to a deceased individual which would have a direct impact on our reputation.” And while on the subject of reputations, contact or ‘call’ centres don’t have a good one, with all-too-frequent complaints of customers baffled by complicated service options or being kept waiting in the call queue.

But that hasn’t stopped Lexus and parent company Toyota – which consistently come top in consumer ratings for customer satisfaction – recruiting call centre operators The Listening Company to manage both their inbound and outbound contact centres.

The Listening Company – whose other clients include BSkyB, Travelodge and Orange – will be responsible for handling all sales enquiries from existing and prospective Lexus and Toyota customers. These include requests for brochures, arranging test drives and dealing with mail and email correspondence.

Single contact
Toyota marketing director Mark Hall commented: “Providing a consistently high level of customer service is vital to our success and we decided that the best way to do this was through a single-contact centre provider.”

Another provider, Mondial Assistance, acknowledges that this type of service has a “phone rage” reputation. But Becky Green, the company’s CRM business development manager, defends their use with the comment: “The mere mention of recession and businesses are quick to call on them to generate sales and reconnect with customers.

“When managed well, a contact centre becomes an unstoppable acquisition and retention tool. The telephone is powerful, immediate, measurable and flexible.”

Mediahawk, a marketing agency specialising in response monitoring, price comparison, website design and online advertising for the automotive sector, has just launched call recording software to monitor telephone enquiries.

“Missed opportunities, lack of enthusiasm for the lead and offering too much information to the caller on first contact are all areas that can be improved upon,” says Mediahawk’s marketing director Harry Bott.

He added: “The internet allows the consumer to enquire and obtain quotes at a safe distance without the seemingly pushy salesman nailing them to the floor to get a deal. The only sticking point with this method is that the client loves to touch and feel the product and drive it – one thing they can’t do online. This element needs to be maximised as this is the where the opportunity lies to really engage with the client.”

Filtered text
But in this multi-channel age, it’s not just the telephone and website that feature in the communications package. eZSMS is a business messaging system which its providers, Infronics Technologies, say can be integrated with any existing Dealer Management System to deliver individualised, filtered and updated bulk text messages to customers anywhere in the UK and Europe. As well as car sales, eZSMS can be used for service and MOT reminders and specific promotions.

“SMS text marketing is not about mass promotional offers – no one wants to receive junk mail by text – but we believe clients will sign up for specific valued offers and reminders such as price points for new cars, financing or service reminders,” says the company.

It added that SMS can also help control general operating overheads by reducing postage and other related costs, a point taken up by Neville Briggs, managing director of DMS provider Pinewood.

“Postal strikes during late 2007 and the slow seasonal post saw a major shift among dealers to using texting and e-mailing as their main methods of communication with customers,” said Briggs.

Service reminders
Though dealerships had been using the SMS and e-mail facilities of their DMS systems, he pointed out they had been limited to specific areas such as service reminders.

Briggs added that it was not just the convenience of SMS, but also the cost savings.  “An SMS only costs 10p while postage on even a 2nd class letter is 24p. In a run of, say, 1,000 letters that is a saving of £140 – not to mention saving in administration and hours spent printing and stuffing envelopes.”

But all this technology is no substitute for human contact and talk of the need for training is clearly imperative if the following anecdote is anything to go by: A salesman took a call from someone called Guy and promised to phone him back “in a couple of minutes”. Two hours later, the salesman called back asking to speak to Gary. ‘Gary’ wasn’t available and, a week later, he was still waiting for the return call.

Chris Phillips