By David Toscano, Trade Content Editor, carsales.com.au
The situation facing Australian consumers and businesses is constantly evolving. As consumers heed government restrictions, stay home and increasingly head online for shopping, traffic and purchase intent on carsales remains solid. In an April survey on carsales, 46.8% of consumers are looking to buy a car within the next month, with 16.8% ready to buy right now.
So given current trading conditions, here are five things that you can do in AutoGate to help improve the performance of your business:
1. Review recent enquiries marked as ‘lost’ in AutoGate
Now is the time to re-engage leads. For instance, those marked as lost in AutoGate over the past fortnight. Your database of recent leads can be a great resource.
Is that lead marked as lost really lost?
Now is the time to find out.
2. Ensure that enquiries are not allocated to absent staff
Do you have sales staff on leave, or who have otherwise recently left your business?
Or perhaps team members have changed roles or no longer have access to AutoGate?
Ensure that you reassign buyer enquiries to active AutoGate users.
These are sales prospects that have demonstrated interest in your inventory and may have not received a response from your business.
They’re certainly worth a second look…
3. Update the content of your auto responses
Ensure that your auto responses feature the most up-to-date information from your business.
Consider whether you can address the following in your auto responses:
– Your trading hours and contact availability
– Your COVID-19 policy
– That you offer live video chat in place of a normal dealership appointment
– That you can deliver home test drives or trade-in appraisals, phone deposits and home delivery
For a full checklist, click here.
4. Add badges to your published inventory
Dealers going the extra mile to provide key ‘virtual showroom’ consumer tools can now champion these features on carsales – displaying ‘badges’ on individual inventory items published for sale.
Services that can be highlighted include: home test drives; video call or tour; buy from home facilities; and more. Dealers also have the ability to flag phone deposits, prompt response times, guaranteed appointments and other offerings.
Learn how to display badges here.
5. Keep up to date with the latest insights and tips
AutoGate is a great place to find the latest carsales buyer behaviour insights and business tips direct. From here, you can access our dedicated Dealer Support Hub featuring specific content designed to help you best navigate this period, including tips to sell via your virtual showroom, improve SMS communication and listing videos, and a guide to government business assistance measures available in your region.
You can also download a copy of the latest carsales Auto Market Watch from AutoGate to better understand online car shopping behaviour. For example, discover the most searched and delisted cars in your region and find out how Australian consumers prefer to enquire on dealer inventory, and at what time of the day.
Also check csninvestor.wpengine.com/insights for tips and help on how to adapt your business to the current retail environment.