When you receive a lead, you should always look for information you can use to establish rapport with the customer who sent the inquiry. It only takes two minutes to find out the information below:
What is the lead source? Customers have different expectations based on the lead source. Always acknowledge referral leads like Costco, USAA, Geico, etc., congratulate them on their smart choice, and introduce yourself as a certified representative so the trust the customer has on these organizations is transferred to you.
What type of lead is it? You have a different approach based on the type of the lead. Customers also have different expectations based on the type of inquiry they made. They may want to know more information about specs with generic new car inquiry with basic information. They may want to get price and availability with a new car inquiry that has detailed specs listed. They may want to confirm availability and pricing with new or used car inquiry on a specific car you have in stock. They may want to get pre-qualified and/or pre-approved with a finance lead.
Is the lead a current customer? Your Customer Relationship Management (CRM) or Internet Lead Management (ILM) tools should flag a duplicate lead or a current customer. In any case, check your CRM or Dealer Management System (DMS) to see if the lead is a current customer with a purchase and service history. Check also if the lead is in the system with prior inquiries and if so review the prior communications and notes.
Is there other information that can help you personalize your response? Check to see if there is personal information you can use in your reply. Is the customer’s title or rank included? See if the customer’s address is included and if so is there a way to use that in your reply? Living in the same town? Close by to your dealership? How far is the customer’s town if he is not located in your town? Is there any information on trade?
Is there a comment or question in the lead? Most lead generation forms are designed to be as easy and convenient to fill out. Customers can send an inquiry with a few clicks after they input their name, email at a minimum. If a customer took time to type a question or comment to be included in their inquiry, it is important that you address that in your email or phone call. it shows your customer that you pay attention to detail.
Many CRM and ILM tools have an option to see the original inquiry that was delivered in Extensible Markup Language (XML) format. Find that option and take a look at the original lead. It has bunch of tags but you can still read it. The reason you want to take a quick look at the original inquiry in XML format is that there are times your CRM or ILM won’t properly parse everything out to present to you in an easy to read format. You may find things like customer’s question/comment or address that was missing from the parsed version.