Lauren Cooke, Marketing Manager at Bluesky Interactive, offers top tips to grow your business and deliver quality customer service. 

Do you and your business prioritise great customer service? If you’re successful and growing then the likelihood is that in your dealership customer service always comes first. After all, we all know that this has a strong knock on effect on customer retention – 50% of UK consumers will take business elsewhere as the result of inadequate service, and a scary 56% swear never to use the company again. Based on these figures (and general good sense) we can tell that customer service matters – period.

However, when I ask if your customer service extends to your website, the answer might be not such a resounding yes. In fact, despite the fact that the digital environment is ideal for offering great customer service to clients, it’s all too often omitted from dealer strategy. It’s a lot simpler to think in the physical and the here and now – but online can make a big difference too.

So, how can you use your website and digital marketing to offer great customer service to existing and potential customers?

Social Media
Offering a variety of contact options to customer is an important way of catering for different personality types and preferences. One of these options simply has to be social media, particularly Twitter. The conversational format lends itself well to queries and questions, as well as to occasional complaints. Don’t be disappointed by this – social media complaints offer a great opportunity to convert them into advocates for your business.

Live Chat

76% of internet sales managers say they sell more cars because of Live Chat – but it’s not just about sales. Live Chat is a great customer service medium, making it easy for customers to ask questions and find out more about products and services before they go ahead and book. For example, we’ve recently started adding Live Chat specifically to service booking pages because it’s a business area that tends to generate a lot of questions and confusion – and being there to respond immediately provides great customer service at the same time as maximising the likelihood that someone will follow through and enquire. Finally, one last stat for you - Live Chat has the highest satisfaction levels for any customer service channel, with 73%, compared with 61% for email and 44% for phone. In short, people love it.

Be reachable out of hours

Now, out of hours contact options (or even showroom hours) is something of a debatable area at the moment. Some dealerships stay open later and sell plenty of cars at those times, whilst others find that it’s an empty graveyard shift. Some dealers get loads of phone calls during the website’s busiest time of 6-8pm, whereas with others it seems like people are just browsing. Basically, it depends a lot on your specific business. However, providing Out of Hours contact options for at least your existing Customers can be a good way to reassure them that you have their needs in mind – and it can potentially have this effect even if very few people actually call.

Finance

Approximately 80% of new cars are now bought on finance – and the trend is starting to make a big impact in the used car market too. So, clearly customers want to buy a car this way – and one of the key things with good customer service is giving the customer what they want. On your website, this translates into two key things – firstly, letting customers search by monthly price, and secondly, providing plenty of useful information about finance throughout. We know that new FCA regulations have made this area a little scarier, but approved finance partners are completely up to speed and all website suppliers should let you work with the company you prefer, providing examples, videos and more. There isn’t really an excuse in this day and age for not having finance – it’s integral.

The Latest Technology

The final point is quite broad – by offering the latest useful technology to customers you can ensure that they feel satisfied with your service levels.  
A good example is our CogCast product, which lets you send car details direct to customer’s mobile phones – one use of which is via instructions left in the window of your forecourt cars, so those midnight tyre-kickers can be turned into genuine sales leads.

Other examples include facilitating the customer’s desire to Part Exchange through something like our CAP Valuations product, or having live (and thus convenient) calendar service booking on your website. 

You can even go one step further and offer a bespoke app to your customers, featuring plenty of useful real life tools such as a parking meter or mileage tracker – something that is great for customer retention and involvement. Whatever route you choose to go down, there is no excuse for not offering brilliant customer service at all stages of the sales process. If you do, it seems likely that people will feel better about your business and recommend it to their friends – and so the circle of life goes on!

For any more advice about maximising the potential of your website, visit Bluesky Interactive today or by call 0845 415 4853.

Lauren Cooke, Marketing Manager at Bluesky Interactive