How Lead Management Helps Increase Vehicle Sales

At MIO Group, we often encounter clients who invest large sums in lead generation, focusing on the top of the funnel. That investment is essential and a success in its own right, as it allows them to significantly increase the number of people interested in their products or services; however, they come back to us because, despite everything, their campaigns weren’t converting as many prospects into customers as they would have liked.

According to a study conducted some time ago by Marketing Sherpa, 79% of leads never convert into sales. In other words, only 21% of your investment in lead acquisition actually pays off. Why does this happen? It’s very simple: because most of these companies don’t have a lead management strategy in place.

There are many industries in which effective lead management is critical to generating sales, such as real estate, education, renewable energy, and the automotive industry.

To ensure effective lead management, it is necessary to follow a series of steps:

1. Standardization. Converting all leads that come to you through various channels and sources into the same format…
2. Enrichment. Normalization, deduplication, precise geolocation, and data enrichment using external sources.
3. Lead Tracking. Through automated email responses, gain a better understanding of the lead’s browsing behavior and interests, as well as through a phone call.
4. Lead rating. Based on what we’ve seen above, this determines the likelihood of each lead making a purchase. This is where lead qualification and lead scoring come into play.
5. Lead nurturing. Once we’ve separated the hot leads from the cold ones, it’s a good idea to nurture them and help them become hot, especially through email marketing.
6. Forwarded to the sales team.
7. Follow-up. Measure and track whether leads are followed up on by the sales team in a timely and appropriate manner.
8. Optimization. Analyzing leads and deriving insights to help optimize existing lead generation campaigns.

Let’s now find out how all of this is carried out, with guidance from Ricardo Cuesta, Project Owner for FCA at artyco, a company belonging to the MIO Group.

How to Successfully Manage Leads in the Automotive Industry: An Interview with Ricardo Cuesta.

Ricardo, what are your current responsibilities, and what is your experience in the automotive industry?

Right now I’m wearing two hats. As you correctly pointed out, I’m the Product Owner for the FCA ( now Stellantis) account at artyco, but I’m also currently working directly with the client, assisting the CRM department in its communications and support for the various brands (Fiat, Jeep, Alfa Romeo, Abarth, and Fiat Professional) as well as the headquarters in Italy, and handling everything related to the evolution and development of the brands’ e-commerce platforms .

This dual role is highly beneficial for both sides. For artyco, it helps with account management because we have firsthand knowledge of the direction and pace of the actions our client is preparing to “target” their leads.

On the other hand, it is also beneficial for FCA because it streamlines requests for services, improvements, or assistance with its processes, since I can bring the need directly to Artyco without having to wait for requests to be submitted by the interested parties.

As for my relationship with the industry, I have to say it goes back as far as I can remember. I don’t know why, but ever since I was very young, cars have been an obsession of mine—especially racing. So much so that I’ve even become a rally co-driver.

That’s why, as soon as I had the chance, I teamed up with some classmates from my master’s program to start a consulting firm aimed at helping the dealership with its digital transformation, anticipating the problem that is so evident online today.

My last role before joining artyco also revolved around the automotive industry and data, since we collected all driving-related information (about the vehicle, the route, driving style, etc.) for use by third parties.

In your experience, how important is lead management in the automotive industry?

This is extremely important, given how much thought and effort buying a car has always required.

The automotive industry is a highly traditional sector. Fortunately, it seems that car manufacturers have now come to realize the need to adapt the way their products are sold to the preferences of today’s buyers, who are increasingly aware that vehicles can also be purchased through other channels. However, it appears that this shift is proving more difficult for some parts of the dealer network.

Brands are putting increasing pressure on dealerships to ensure they don’t “forget” such simple and obvious actions as serving customers as quickly as possible or treating digital leads with the same importance as in-person leads.

One of our key tasks at artyco is to ensure that our Contact Center responds to some of the digital leads for the five brands within an hour.

In addition to our fast service, we’re able to offer “official” deals—exactly the same as those available through the dealer network—as well as schedule appointments or test drives at the dealerships themselves.

With all of this in mind, we aim to shorten the customer journey as much as possible to avoid all the drop-off points that exist in what is typically a lengthy purchasing process.

In your opinion, what is the most critical phase in this lead management process?

I couldn’t pinpoint a specific moment. It’s important to have a clear, well-reasoned definition of the entire process. Obviously, as we move down the funnel, everything becomes more critical, but without a strong top-of-the-funnel (TOFU), we can forget about a strong bottom-of-the-funnel (BOFU).

Within our process, this complicates matters because the phases involving decision-making and closing are handled by the dealership, so for us it becomes a blind spot over which we lose control at that point.

One area where we can currently see this for ourselves is online leasing through brand stores, where a customer can complete the contract 100% online in less than 10 minutes.

And what makes this process special compared to what the rest of the market is offering?

If the user requests it, this process can be assisted by our agents, who apply all their knowledge (of both the product and the process) to exert as much influence as possible on the consumer and help achieve the specified closing goal. This can be completed in just a few minutes and in as few as four steps.

While many were promoting the “online sale” of their vehicles—when in reality they were simply collecting a lead that would later be sent to the dealership to handle the sale— FCA already had this REAL online sales process up and running in 2019—even before it was considered a future option by much of the automotive industry itself.

The key differentiator is, in fact, this last point: that online sales… ACTUALLY SELL. After landing on the brand’s online store, a lead can have their credit score approved online in 3 minutes—even by connecting to their own bank—and in another 5 minutes, they’ll have signed the contract right from their own cell phone. All that’s left is for them to pick up the vehicle at the nearest dealership or have it delivered to their home in less than 15 days.

We can therefore understand just how important effective lead management is for successfully renting a vehicle online during your first visit to the store.

The Contact Center has needed to expand its range of capabilities to also serve as sales representatives. Their ability to identify genuine sales opportunities, gauge the right level of interest in leads, demonstrate extensive knowledge of the product and the process to effectively guide customers, and recover “stalled” opportunities—combined with their exceptional quality of service—leads me to believe that our process is robust and truly sets us apart right now.

On the other hand, automation and programming are just as important as execution itself, so that human intervention is kept to a minimum, thereby minimizing costs as well as errors, delays, and missed opportunities.

Could you tell us about a situation in which lead management has been key to increasing sales?

Of course. As I mentioned earlier, our biggest blind spot in sales is in the lower stages of the funnel, which are still heavily focused on the dealer network.

When brands began to place greater emphasis on digital channels, dealerships did not attach the same importance to digital leads as they did to in-person leads.

Since they were handling the network’s leads, they needed to access our systems to manage them. It was very important to clearly define and program the processes so that—even though they weren’t believers in digital channels—they could meet the customer service obligations these clients deserved and that the brands required.

All of this ultimately made the system work, which was reflected in sales.

There were processes designed for the customer, but control over the dealership was especially important: communications with the sales manager when a lead comes in, requiring a response within an hour; communications with the sales manager/general manager when stipulated deadlines are not met; calculation of bonuses/ penalties each quarter to evaluate the dealership’s performance, and a history of customer interactions…

In short, we have helped devise a system that monitors the activities of certain actors who were initially skeptical of channels they did not believe in, in order to make those channels work.