Motor Trader The award-winning and longest running UK magazine for car retailing professionals. Your first stop for News, Jobs and Reports for the motor industry.
Dealers are missing out on business for failing to deal with out-of-hours enquiries.
New research from GForces found 51 per cent of dealer website hits occur when showroom doors are closed, peaking between 7pm and 10pm.
Just 3 per cent of the UK’s top 200 dealers have any kind of out-of-hours enquiry management service – either in the form of telephone call handling or ‘Live Chat’, where potential customers can type questions on screen and view written responses in real time.
Last week Google UK automotive director Richard Trinder said it takes UK dealers an average of 72 hours to deal with queries compared to just 4 hours in the US.
Conversion rates are 21 times higher if answered in five minutes rather than 30 minutes, he said.
One dealer who has Live Chat is McCarthy Cars in south London, featured in the Motor Trader magazine March issue.
GForces commercial director, Tim Smith, said: “We live in a 24/7 age. These days you can log on to most supermarket websites and enquire about products and potential orders very late at night.
By contrast, car dealers still have a nine-to-five mindset and they’re missing out as a result.
“Dealers are failing to manage high volumes of potential sales opportunities because they are ill-equipped to handle even the most basic enquiries outside standard opening hours.”
Smith said conversion rates for leads registered between the hours of 7pm and 10pm are higher than at any other point during the day.
“Many consumers with hectic work lives and higher disposable incomes do not have time to enquire about possible vehicle purchases during their working day. Dealers need to manage these high-value sales prospects more effectively.”