BLOG FOR SPECIAL FINANCE CAR DEALERS
Best Practices for Working Special Finance Leads
Since 2001 thousands of car dealers have used our special finance leads to sell more cars to people with credit problem. A handful of the original stores that signed up with us back then are still on today while many other stores have stuck with the program for many years. On the other hand, several stores have signed up for our lead program and cancel after just one month.
So how is it that some stores have great success with subprime finance leads and other stores fail to convert internet leads into sales? After speaking with both successful stores and unsuccessful stores here is what I’ve found.
With traditional forms of advertising such as print, radio, and television the consumer typically places an inbound call to the dealership or visits their website. How to handle these calls is a separate discussion point so I won’t get into that now, the point I wanted to stress is that the prospect takes some form of action to contact the store and inquire about a specific offer or vehicle.
With internet leads, the store has to take a more proactive approach; someone at the store has to make an outbound call to the consumer.
Stores that succeed with internet leads have the people and process in place to contact leads quickly. During normal business hours, successful stores typically contact new leads within 15 minutes of receiving the lead.
I’ve often heard from unsuccessful dealers that working internet leads wastes too much time or it’s hard to get people in the door. Often the process these stores utilize does waste a lot of time. I’ve found that if receive the lead, pull a credit report, submit the application to a few lenders, then call the customer, you will in fact waste a lot of time, money on credit reports, destroy your look to book ratio with lenders, a create an automotive trigger lead for a competing dealership.
Most success stores utilize an entirely different process than the one outlined above. In addition to contacting the prospect quickly, these stores have one mission when making initial contact with the lead, set up a time for the prospect to visit the store. Many of our top performing stores do not pull a credit report or submit an application to lenders until the prospect is physically in the store.
If you utilize the process outlined above, you find that it takes next to no time at all to process internet leads, you’ll get more prospects in the store, and you’ll sell more cars to people with subprime credit.