BLOG FOR SPECIAL FINANCE CAR DEALERS
Special Finance Lead Providers
Last time I checked there were at least 20 companies that sell special finance leads to car dealers. Most of these companies claim to be the originator of these leads. The fact is that the majority of these special finance lead companies are merely middle men. They purchase leads from online marketers and resell them to automobile dealers.
So how can you as a auto dealership determine if you are working with a company that originates the subprime leads or a reseller?
By asking the following questions of your special finance lead provider you will have a much better understanding of where the leads originated from.
- What is your primary lead generating site(s)
- Take me online and show me how people find your sites.
- What is the ranking of your subprime site(s) on Ranking.com, Compete.com, Alexa.com and Quantcast?
- What is the percentage of leads that I would receive that come from your sites vs. what you buy from third parties?
Another point to consider is the customer experience.
- What is your message to the consumer? Do you promote the dealer involvement or do customers think you are a bank?
- Do you have a customer service department and a toll free number for customers to call when they have questions or issues?
- Are you a member of the Better Business Bureau (BBB) and what is your record?
- On your sites and when people research you do you hide your company’s name and who you are? If so why?
As well as the tools available to improves closure rates
- Do you collect complete co-buyer information?
- How many data fields do you collect and how many are required?
- Do you provide a lead tracking CRM?
- Do you have letter and email templates?
- Automated follow up tools?
- Email & pager alerts?
- Permission based distribution of the leads – Automated round robin?
- Automatic submission to major lender portals?
- Conversion reports?
- Online Training Modules for BDC, Sales and F&I Staff?
Any finally, when dealing with any vendor you should always ask for references.
- How many references can you give me that have been with you for 6 month, 1 year, 2 years, 3 years, 4 years, 5 years or 6 years?
Asking the right questions alone won’t guarantee long term success in subprime sales, your dealership will still have to have the people, process, inventory, and lenders in place to accommodate a wide array of special finance scenarios.