IRVINE, CA –Fletcher Jones Motorcars is the top-selling Mercedes Benz dealer in the nation. In a typical month, it retails 600 units or more. Up to 20 percent of those sales every month are to existing customers, enabling the Newport Beach, CA dealership to take in high-quality low-mileage trades it reconditions and then retails, driving higher gross profits across new and used departments, as wells parts and labor.
Dealerships like Fletcher Jones are increasing sales to existing customers by using a pattern-interrupt, sales-alert outbound telephone strategy from AutoAlert, Inc., a company whose unique software helps dealers find “ready-to-trade-and-buy” prospects within their customer database.
“This is the really only new thing I’ve seen in the car business for a long time,” says Antony Chandler, Sales Manager for Fletcher Jones. “We don’t win every deal practicing this strategy, but we get a lot more than without it.”
Dealers will be able to view the complete AutoAlert solution at NADA ’12 in Las Vegas, NV, February 3-6, 2012, at Booth #752, or email the contacts below for a demo now.
“This strategy helps us to easily identify a desirable trade-in from our existing customers and we’re then able to offer a newer model for about the same payment,” Chandler says. “Nine times out of 10 we sell them a car, which averages about 100 to 124 additional units sold a month to our existing customers.”
At the center of this strategy is software that uses multi-dimensional data analysis to identify existing customers whose vehicle ownership status potentially makes them hot prospects for dealership marketing. Dealership sales associates then use AutoAlert’s scripted calls to seed powerful pattern-interrupt “purchase” desire in their customers.
The AutoAlert software coupled with the company’s pattern-interrupt selling strategy helps dealerships like Fletcher Jones Motorcars:
- Take in low-mileage trade-ins to replenish the dealership’s CPO portfolio while selling the customer a new model for about the same monthly payment.
- Save lease customers from incurring high-mileage penalty fees, creating customers thrilled to be alerted and given the opportunity to trade into a new vehicle.
- Be the first to contact customers whose finance or lease period is drawing near conclusion, to keep them in the dealership family and not lost to other dealers or banks.
- Bring in customers whose warranty is near expiration and offer a free inspection to identify any warranty-related issues that might need attention. A vehicle service contract or newer model can be offering during this appointment.
- Proactively reach out to recent service customers whose vehicle age and mileage indicates moving into a newer model might make economic and safety sense.
“Many dealers who suddenly start exploiting their customer portfolios through this practice start booking appointments,” says Boyd H. Warner, CEO of AutoAlert, Inc. “When 50 clients keep their appointments from these kinds of calls it’s not uncommon to sell 25-45 units as a result. That’s total gross approaching $60,000 to $175,000.These are customers who might otherwise have repurchased elsewhere. Furthermore, desirable late model vehicles are often traded, which add additional gross profit.”
Says Fletcher Jones’s Chandler, “I know GMs and dealer principals get excited when they see the potential of this practice. This tool is a lot simpler than desking tools and provides sales a bona fide reason and script for speaking to and getting in front of customers with whom they can actually do business.”
AutoAlert, Inc. was established with the intent of providing the automotive dealership industry with products and services designed to improve new and used car sales, vehicle service contract sales, service conversion sales, client retention and loyalty, and increase profitability.
For more information visit www.autoalert.com or contact either Jim Gans at [email protected] or Lawrence Wittrock at [email protected]