Best Practices Critical to Appointment Setting

Before you ever sell a car, you need to first to set the appointment! Being equipped with the greatest appointment setting best practices directly translates to getting more buyers in the door. This means increased appointments set and a drastically improved show ratio! With the proper call guides, techniques, and insights, you can set the appointment, regardless of the situation. By mastering the call guide and associated processes, develop the confidence and prowess needed to become the best appointment setter in your dealership. In the automotive industry, more activity equals more deals – in other words, the more appointments set, the more car deals made!

 

This blog will walk through the appointment setting best practices needed to get buyers of the phone, away from the competition, and in your dealer today!

Make Your Own Success

 

When setting appointments, and almost anything else is the automotive industry, you make your own success. As a result, those who are always moving, striving for activity, and creating new opportunities will achieve the most! People who just wait for random walk-ins or new hot leads will suffer fewer cars sold. Movement is crucial to success! Whenever you have a slow few hours at the dealership, dive into your CRM! Every dealership’s CRM is jam packed with potential opportunity. Make sure that you have followed-up with everyone persistently, including long-term follow-up buyers. Make extra calls, send more emails, shoot another video, or fire off a couple additional texts. Whoever makes the most movement, will likely experience the most success!

Be The Shark by Revdojo

Appointment Setting: Call Guide

 

Before taking or making any calls, always make sure to have your call guide. Even when you know the call guide so well that you can see it with your eyes closed, have one by your side! A call guide reminds you of the steps to do, gives you closes, and provides space to take notes. For newer automotive professionals, following the word tracks on a tried-and-true call guide will allow you to set appointments even with little experience. You will be able to handle any situation and set the appointment almost every single time! Yet, for long-time pros, a call guide still acts as a safety net that can easily get you back on track to the appointment if the conversation ever derails. As such, always be ready with a call guide and you will be a lot more successful on the phone!

 

Automotive call guides serve as the backbone to any successful BDC department or sales call in a dealership! If your dealership has call guides, make sure to ask your manager for them ASAP. However, if you don’t have access to any, our call guides cover every situation you could ever possibly run into on the phone, and we’re giving them away for FREE! From inbound sales calls to long-term follow-up – Webinarinc’s automotive call guides have you covered! Click here to get 30+ tried and true automotive call guides free of charge!

Appointment Setting: Call Quick

 

When an opportunity hits the CRM, you should never have to scramble for information. The time to get the buyer the best price or payment and check on availability is before the lead ever hits the CRM. If you’re doing too much preparation when the lead has already come in, that might be why you have trouble connecting with buyers.

 

If you have a call guide in front of you that leads you to the appointment, the objections will not even come up. Just dial the buyer up. Even if you accidentally give misinformation or do not have all the information, you can just call them back. So, set the appointment while you can easily get them on the phone and worry about the rest after. Call fast and call first to get a lot more appointments!

Appointment Setting: Always Expand Your Inventory

 

Most buyers are likely not calling in on their dream car. They are probably calling in about a car they like that fits their needs. As a result, never miss the chance to expand your inventory and offer extra options. When the buyer calls in on a specific vehicle, regardless of whether or not you think you have it, use this as a chance to increase your odds of setting an appointment!

 

Compliment the buyer’s selection and offer to check on similar vehicles while you check what they originally called in on. If you wait to long, it’s already too late. If you fail to expand your inventory now, and you don’t have what they are looking for, it makes it incredibly easy for the buyer to get off the phone. On the other hand, expanding your inventory beforehand increases the odds of having a vehicle to set an appointment on whether or not you have what they originally wanted! 

Let Me Check by Revdojo

Appointment Setting: Always Ask

 

Don’t let buyers put you in the friend-zone! When you are in contact with a buyer, always do everything morally, ethically, and honestly possible to put together a car deal NOW! Statistically, once the buyer hangs up the phone, the odds of you hearing from them again severely decreases. When you’re on the phone with a buyer, you need to ask for the appointment 100% of the time. Even when you don’t think the buyer wants to set an appointment, ask for the appointment! Once you let a buyer off the phone without an appointment, many of them will start calling other dealerships. Remember, they are in the market for a car! Whoever the buyer liked the most, does not always get the deal. The most effective closer gets the deal! So, ask for the appointment 100% of the time!

Appointment Setting: After the Appointment

 

After the appointment is set, it’s crucial to make the appointment feel real to the buyer! If it feels like a fake appointment, then it’s a fake appointment. On the flipside, if it feels like a real appointment, then it is real, and the buyer will be much more likely to show up. You can do numerous things to make a deal feel real and increase your show ratio.

 

Here are some ideas for how to make the appointment feel real:

• Pull the interested vehicles up front, make sure it is clean, and a shoot a video standing out with the vehicle for the buyer.
• Tell the customer what you look like and what to expect when they come to your dealership. This includes offering directions, letting them know where to park, where the new vehicle will be, and that you will be waiting outside for them.
• Let buyers know how management is excited to meet them. Then, have your manager give the buyer a confirmation call to thank them for the appointment and talk you up.
• If you are in the BDC and you are setting and appointment for a salesperson, let them know that the salesperson will be outside waiting for them.

By painting a picture of the car buying experience, your show ratio will drastically increase!