How to be successful on the Internet, by Ling Valentine
How to be successful on the Internet
by Ling Valentine
Dear Jeff,
I like what you do in the industry and if I can help you by writing some articles, I’ll be very happy. Here’s an article that you have asked me to write and I hope it will help dealers to be more successful on the Internet.
I really hope that dealers read this and they find it useful, it would be good to get some feedback.
Best regards,
Ling.
What happens when you get out of bed?
Yeah, sure, you shower, have breakfast and visit the loo, but more people then ever take time out to check their emails. After this, and a brief look at online news, plus following a few links sent by friends/business contacts etc, quite a few people check their messages on MSN, their messages on their mobiles, and knock out a few text replies.
On the way to work there is the radio in the car, in between bleeps or texts arriving on your mobile as you drive, but after an hour or two of Wogan, or Today on Radio 4, you have a list of things to visit/check on your PC when you get to the office. Plus 50 emails backing up.
Work! Is it really work? I know you are supposed to w-o-r-k at work, but with an internet-connected PC on everyone’s desk, efficiency is balanced out by a healthy ability to pretend you are NOT at work. Most people spend a lot of every day doing online “research” into YouTube, Facebook, and various other crucial business opportunities. Personal email is just a click away, much more convenient than the company email program.
Whatever you come across during the workday, can be Googled. Checking suppliers, finding an address, seeing who ecactly that guy at the company you are talking to on the phone really is… or looking at at stuff to do with cars. Just anything. Immediate gratification becomes accepted. Whatever you enquire about, you can get an immediate result. All day long you have been getting instant information and responses.
However, according to a recent report highlighted by Stephen Briers, Editor of Automotive Management…
“Almost half of (car) retailers in the AM100 top 20 take more than two days to respond to an email request for information, according to new research. The Auto Trader website usability study, carried out by eDigital Research, found that fewer than half of the 500 motorists who took part in the assessment would visit the dealer website again based on their email customer service experience. Quality of response, product knowledge and ability to help for email enquiries were all rated below 50% - substantially behind phone enquiries ratings at 73%.”
Ye-ouch! At LINGsCARS.com I live RIGHT INSIDE my webpage and Outlook - and I pounce on anything that comes my way, immediately. What a shock when I read about the normal response of the car industry!
So what can dealers do about this sad state of affairs? They need several lines of attack to be able to regain ground in this area:
1. Break free of constraints.
Dealers should get active and stop relying on manufacturer and “official” websites. They should look at posting advice on forums, offering goodies to download - not just screensavers, but USEFUL stuff like parts catalogues and full car information, they should JOIN IN and interact with customers. Encourage interaction between staff and customers. Website and email volume should be shown, live in the dealership, maybe using one of those LCD scoreboards. Incoming emails and website actions (like form completions) can be announced by noises, to make everyone aware of the volume of activity in the air. “Is that the fire alarm?” - no, it’s a finance proposal form coming in, or a service request email.
2. Get on top of emails.
The holy grail is to reply to the customer while the customer is still logged into his or her email. That’s it. Even if it is just to say “Fred, got your email, please wait”. Key personnel (that’s everyone who does email) should have two monitors on their desk, one permanently looking at email. That £80 for the extra monitor will be paid for as soon as they make their first quick reply, and someone bites. Email “groups” mean that many people can share an email box, so volume can be handled immediately and if someone is causing a bottleneck, others can see it and deal with it.
3. Get rid of small print.
Have you seen what most dealers append to the bottom of emails? “You will be arrested if you copy, forward, read, edit or use the information contained in this email, blah, blah, blah. This is NOT the view of the business, etc”. Would you EVER write such nonsense on a paper letter? Delete stupid legalistic signatures. When did you EVER enforce this nonsense. Bin it. Emails should have a full return signature. There is nothing more annoying than having to search for a snail-mail address or phone number because the lazy person has not used an intelligent signature.
4. Get relaxed.
Email is not a good format for legal stuff, so keep email light. If you are worried, get some approved, canned jokes and let people choose from an array of 50 lighthearted comments. One of mine is; “I am Chinese, not Catholic. I cannot do miracles”. When i receive documents in the post, I email: “I got your docs back in the post, just to let you know. Thanks. Please wait, I send to the finance company for them to make sure everything is OK, and then we give the release to the dealership. I will be in touch. I know you want to ask me the question “When…”, but like small kids in a car you just have to wait. :)”. Many customers email back with a jokey response like “Awww, Ling, are we there yet?” Treat staff and customers like adults, not idiots. Arguments are not great, by email. Even a normal email can easily be taken the wrong way. Teach the use of smileys, and use them often as things can easily be mis-read on an email, you dope 
…Exactly. If you have something bad to say, ring them or write a quick letter.
5. Combine email with snail mail.
Email volume can easily grow out of control. Use snail mail letters to slow people down, don’t slow them down by ignoring email. For instance, I deal with remote website customers. After proposal, I have a problem that customers repeatedly want to chase me for news, yet sometimes it can take finance companies 48 hours to turn car applications around. To slow the customers down, I send out a “security letter” in the post, the day of the emailed proposal. I tell them I am doing this so “please wait” for the security letter. That buys me until the next morning. The letter arrives, and they have something tactile and real in their hands. I email to say “do you have it?” They reply “yes”. They sign and return it (it confirms their address) in an SAE I provide. They almost always wait until the next day when I say “I have it back, thanks”, before politely enquiring how their application is going. And magically, I usually have good news waiting for them. Using real letters to back up email and slow down customers, is so simple - but is rarely used.
6. Develop systems.
Get a sausage machine up and running. Many emails can be automated yet work wonders. Get customers into your system, whether its a car enquiry, a service booking or a parts enquiry, database their info and follow the proceedure. If you are clever and natural, by the end of the day, six emails will have been exchanged and the customer will be your new best friend.
7. Database stuff
Always drive this email plan forward by using a database. Time stamping and storing customers enmail subjects will allow you to follow up and re-solicit these customers for business, at pre-determined intervals. A special offer or promotion can reach everyone who has emailed you, in the past 5-years, within seconds. Get ready for serious response volume, and get on top of it immediately.
8. Have fun.
Have I mentioned this already? The customer wants fun in his/her emails, they spend all day wanting a bit of entertainment or a chuckle from their PC. That’s why they spend so much time avoiding real work and using MSN or Facebook. So treat them like a friend, don’t lie (harder than it sounds for many in the car business) and have a laugh at your own business. No one dies. That way, when something goes wrong (and it will) you have a small amount of goodwill in the bank.
I hope dealers find this useful
Regards
Ling
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Ling, thank you for taking the time to write this article and I hope that many dealers will read your thoughts and post their comments here to express their own thoughts and gratitude.
Best regards,
Jeff Smith
I have rarely read such common sense, about the motor industry.
My own situation is that this e communication is something that we simply cannot get to grips with, with completely inconsistent and often useless responses to emails. Another big problem is the writing ability of some salesmen. Frankly, many are not to hot at that. It can verge on the embarrassing.
It seems that more and more trade will be e communication dependent - Ling’s advice of two monitors is something our IT guys will be deploying this month. Monitors are cheap and the first sales email we catch, not miss, will pay for the whole thing.
Congratulations to someone who has taken a totally different view on the industry. What a shame not many people will give her the credit she deserves. I’ve just read the Viz story too. It seems this young lady is quite remarkable. She may be getting a call about some cars to sell.
Please do not display my name Jeff, some of our manufacturers will not thank me for highlighting Ling Valentine’s sensible comments.