The challenge

In the automotive industry, promptly communicating with customers through their preferred channel is critical. However, without the right organizational sales infrastructure to assess, score, and disseminate the leads, companies are unable to make the most of these critical sales opportunities. This was the case for a major automotive brand with a nationwide dealer footprint.

Online customer inquiries were automatically sent to sales associates, but they had no insights about the leads and their responses were delayed or sometimes ignored because there was no prioritization or scoring. In other cases, existing customers with leases that would soon expire received minimal information on how to lease another vehicle. An email was sent to customers regarding the next steps to close out their lease with an offer for signing a new lease but no sales attempts via phone were communicated. This low-touch approach gave competitors an opportunity to target customers who they knew would soon be without a vehicle.

The client was leaving enormous sums of money on the table. It needed an experienced partner to help it build an efficient and effective system for handling leads and following up with existing customers to turn them into loyal customers.

Our solution

As a trusted partner that had helped the company resolve previous sales challenges, the client turned to TTEC for assistance. We assisted the company in optimizing leads generated from the brand’s main websites as well as leads generated from third-party websites. After completing an audit, we determined that the metric with the highest propensity for predicting sales success was the age of the first call (i.e., speed to lead). In other words, a speedy response increased the chances of closing the sale.

The client’s sales associates, however, were already stretched thin. To solve this problem, expertly trained TTEC associates stepped in to return customer calls on behalf of the client. Associates answered their preliminary questions and connected customers with an in-house associate when they were ready to proceed with the buying process. We also implemented a lead scoring system to prioritize the most promising leads and ensure the strongest leads received the most attention.

In addition, TTEC associates reached out to customers who were nearing the end of their lease. The client sent us a list of customers whose leases were maturing, and associates reached out to the customers 60-150 days before their lease ended. This kept the brand on the mind of the customers and aware of available offers that might entice them to remain with the brand.

The results

With TTEC’s help, the client could be confident that every customer who submitted an inquiry received a timely response from a well-trained associate. By working with TTEC, more than 700K unique customers who submitted an inquiry received a call from an associate in a one-year time frame and 30K customers were transferred to dealers. We helped the client reach an additional 89% of customers who they would have otherwise not been able to reach.

We also helped create a more seamless journey for existing customers by ensuring customers whose leases were expiring received a white glove experience. We walked them through the lease closing process and offers for a new vehicle while the client’s internal sales team handled their lease return, resulting in a much smoother experience. Our associates reached out to more than 100K unique customers annually regarding their leases, leading to a $3.5K sales lift (over the control group).

The partnership has been on-going for more than 8 years and delivers a $30 million ROI each year. In addition, TTEC continues to enhance and optimize the partnership with new process improvements, technology implementations, industry knowledge, and other proactive solutions.