I was inspired by a discussion on DrivingSales, an automotive social networking site, where an Internet Marketing Manager at a VW dealership was soliciting help on improving his closing percentage above its current consistent 10%.

This manager has a basic set of steps he follows, which are widely accepted as the best practice to achieve the best results in the automotive industry:

• AutoResponse
• Send Qualifying Questions (Fact Finding) email
• Send Price Quote email
• Call Customer
• Follow Up

I had a few suggestions for him, which you can apply to your dealership's process to improve your closing percentage:

1. How many days out are you following up with each prospect right now? And how often do you email/call them? Converting more 30-90 day old prospects through diligent follow up is a key factor in increasing closing ratio.
2. Do you send TARGETED broadcast (bulk) emails? Targeting by model would make the offers more relevant to your existing prospect base.
3. Do you have a sold follow up EMAIL process that incorporates asking recently sold customers for referrals from their family and friends?
4. Have you heard of InstaQuote? It's an automated email quoting system that works with your CRM tool to stop-the-clock and send a custom multi-choice email quote to each prospect. This would eliminate having to spend as much as 10 minutes per lead building a multi-price menu to email the client. The quote can also include useful links to pages on the dealership's website, plus to the dealer's social media outlets and 3rd party rating sites. Infinite Prospects is a distributor and can show you how it works. Pricing starts at just $399 per month, month-to-month contract with a 30-day money-back guarantee...

Each of these tips could help you save time or engage more prospects, which will add an extra few deals each month. With those additional sales, you're talking about significant positive impact to your dealership's closing percentage.

Infinite Prospects can help your dealership implement all of these ideas and much more. Please call Adam Ross at (201) 481-1424 or visit our website for more information.