Are You Using Your Phone System To Market Your Business?

It’s no secret that the key to an auto retailer’s success lies in its ability to deliver a positive customer experience. You’re probably on top of your social media marketing, branded vehicles displays, print adverts… the list goes on. But there are some more humble marketing methods that can improve your customer’s satisfaction, reduce loss in revenue and are cost-effective. One of those methods is creating your own on-hold message content.

How many customers call your dealership every day? Most calls you can probably deal with without any problems, but often, especially with a new customer or new vehicles enquiry, you may have to place them on hold. For most people, this can be a source of irritation. We’re left in a sort of limbo, often listening to a piece of music that sounds like it’s competing with a bowl of Rice Crispies for the microphone.

You might also find yourself short-staffed for a moment, perhaps around lunchtime, and the phone might ring around the office for a good long while. As a customer, you may find yourself hanging up in frustration or be asked to leave a message. This is potentially a big loss of revenue to your business and could lead to a competitor picking up the extra business instead.

Consider investing in on-hold marketing, tailor it to your brand and the audio production can be played automatically whenever a customer is placed on hold, transferred, or called out of office hours. On average customers are left on hold for 38.22 seconds per call. This is a great window of time you can use to sell your business and keep your customers engaged with your business.

Getting The Message Across

You can use highly targeted messages which can help boost your brand recognition as well as cross-sell and up-sell products and services. You can inform the listener about finance solutions, aftersales service plans, or a referral scheme. It’s also a great chance to boast about your accreditations and awards which can help instil reassurance with the customer.

Updating the message content regularly is well worth your time. This helps keep customers up to date with current offers thus boosting sales enquiries. You’ll also find the refreshed information will keep listeners engaged and make them less likely to hang-up while waiting.

Choose Your Voice

This is something to consider and maybe even experiment with. Masculine voices are perceived as authoritative and distinguished, whereas feminine voices are more welcoming and calming. It’s up to you which you think suits your business best. You also want to pick someone with an accent local to your area. If you’re based in Stoke-on-Trent for example, having a Scottish or Cockney voice message will immediately unsettle a caller, they might think you have a call centre based away from the dealership and that is not something you want to put in a customer’s head. They want to speak with someone who sounds familiar, based at the dealership, who can action their query instantly.

Whatever you choose, add some enthusiasm and make it suitable for your brand. If you’re a young and lively company, use a young-sounding voice, but if you’ve been around for decades and your customers have known you for years, a more assured and experienced voice is more appropriate.

Put a Plan Into Action

• Test your customer’s experience – dial-in regularly to hear what they hear
• Asses how many customers are put on hold and for how long
• Use the hold time to promote different elements of your business
• Keep hold messages updated
• Tailor the message to your customers

For more information about what Click Dealer can do for your company, contact us on 01782 478220 or via marketing@clickdealer.co.uk. Alternatively, you can get in touch through our contact page.