70% Of Auto Prospects Phone In to Dealership Via Custom 800 Number, 25% Become New Sales

1-800-NEXT-CAR, 1-800-NEW-RIDE

Background: Over the past seventeen years a dealership group has sold more than 550,000 vehicles. Several locations activated Custom 800 numbers in 2004 and have since been using the numbers in ALL of their advertising .

Client: Kelly Wiggins, Marketing & Sales Manager • South FL

Challenge: Deliver more “phone ups” and help top sales performers close more of their incoming calls.

Strategy: Use a memorable phone number in advertising and capitalize on call tracking and recording insights .

Results: Kelly Wiggins, Marketing & Sales Manager, knew he needed to have a memorable phone number to use in his advertising. “I believe in keeping our advertising simple,” says Wiggins. “Using a memorable phone number with staying power brings in the prospects.”

In 2004 he activated 1-800-NEXT-CAR and 1-800-NEW-RIDE. The numbers have proven successful at generating more calls and more prospects for their sales teams, with 70% of prospects coming into his dealerships by way of the telephone.

Prior to activating the vanity 800 numbers, Wiggins’ dealer locations were using local numeric phone numbers in their advertisements. “We saw a significant increase in call traffic once we started advertising with the easy to remember phone numbers – at least a 30% increase, maybe more. And, the online tracking reports gave us the data and knowledge to better capitalize on our advertising and monitor how calls are handled when they come into our stores,” says Wiggins.

“Our sales teams now close approximately 1 in 4, or 25%, of our phone prospects,” says Wiggins, compared to web leads which close just 12% of the time. Wiggins attributes the success of phone sales to the fact that callers are on the line and ready to buy, compared to web leads that can be difficult to get in touch with, making the sales process longer.

”The Custom 800 numbers we have are killer when you compare them to the vanity numbers available through other providers. When people see our advertising and hear our jingles they call into our dealer locations under the assumption that the company name is 800-NEXT-CAR. That is how memorable and effective our Custom 800 numbers are.”