How Can Car BDC Dealership Boost Your Sales with Strategic Lead Follow-Up Techniques?

As we speak, the automotive industry is sailing high with outstanding market competition. It is not just about a quality inventory or a fancy showroom; there is a lot more to it. If you want to drive your car sales business with the most powerful tool, BDC for car dealerships is the exact answer for you. It works as a business development center tuned to mature and convert leads into successful deals.

It is often seen that many successful car dealerships are trying to adopt this model by setting up a car dealership BDC, or they partner with a provider who can manage their inbound or outbound calls and emails. But there is a real question about how a BDC car dealership team contributes to your increased sales numbers? And the answer to this question lies in strategic lead follow-up techniques.

In this blog, we will look into how the BDC department car dealership model plays out for automotive businesses and why it is proving to be highly effective for nurturing leads into successful sales.

What is a Car Dealership BDC?

In the automotive industry, a Business Development Center (BDC) functions as a connection point between the marketing and sales departments. It consists of professionally trained team members who take care of the customers’ inquiries via email, phone calls, and other social media platforms to make the dealership easy for the customers.

If you want to grasp more details about BDC, it is vital to understand how BDC plays its role in car sales. As you always have a sales team that works to mature the leads and close them, but here, BDC plays a quite different role. No matter how cold or hot the lead is, the BDC department works to mend the odds in your favour by dealing with each lead in an all-inclusive, professional, and smooth style.

It means that BDC agents at car dealerships are the people with whom customers come in contact at first. They serve as a strong landing point from a business perspective because they are the ones who can nurture leads by answering the questions of the customers respectfully and setting the appointments before the car dealership sales are confirmed. And this is exactly how a positive customer experience is also created.

The Value of Strategic Lead Follow-Up

Let’s talk about the reality that every automotive business gets sales leads. But there is a stark difference between a company having a high ratio of closed sales and one having a low ratio. It is where strategic lead follow-up comes into action. Various industry research suggests that it is essential to provide a follow-up to leads within a short time bracket of five to nine minutes. Otherwise, those leads won’t be converted into customers.

Here are the steps that can be used by BDC care teams to turn lead follow-ups into a sales advantage:

1. Speed is Everything

It is very important to understand that a car BDC agent plays a crucial role in making a very lasting impression on the mind of a customer who is being contacted right after he has filled out an online form. If the customer is put on hold and is contacted after a long time, there is quite a possibility that the lead will get cold. Therefore, it is important to give fast follow-ups that portray you as a good automotive BDC.

2. Multiple Touchpoints

Nowadays, a customer explores multiple options before deciding to opt for a dealership. It is very crucial to stand out in the mind of the customer, and it can be done by email, phone call, and SMS follow-ups. This is how the chances of your business being his top priority for the dealership can be increased.

3. Appointment Scheduling

If you want to check the KPIs of the best BDC at a car dealership, you must look into the number of test drives or showroom appointments that are booked. To get all the slots of your sales team booked, you have to avail yourself of the persuasive communication via BDC agents and real-time scheduling tools. It will not only help you with high walk-ins at the showroom, but it will also reduce no-show rates with the help of soft reminders.

4. Personalized Communication

In BDC, it is not just about effective follow-ups; it is also about personalized follow-ups. There can be a lot of areas in which a BDC agent can shape a message, like the vehicle of interest, previous interaction, and the customer’s preferred medium of communication. These efforts comprehensively increase the chances of conversion made by a BDC in car sales.

5. Reactivating Cold Leads

In case a potential customer has turned away the offers, it doesn’t mean that you have lost the opportunity. A BDC for car dealerships can utilize Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software to get the cold leads back into the loop by creating a funnel at the right time.

Real Results: How BDC Boosts Dealership Sales

There are various parameters to examine the impact of a well-furnished car dealership BDC strategy. Some of them are as follows:

1. Increased Appointments

After allocating a particular BDC team, some car dealerships have reported a 30-50% increase in the number of scheduled appointments.

2. Higher Conversion Rates

It is also reported that dealerships have secured an increase in the conversion rates by up to 20%, only because of the personalized and on-time follow-ups.

3. Improved Customer Satisfaction

With the help of quick responses and perfect communication, the BDC can provide you with an enhanced customer experience that helps to build trust even before that customer meets the salesperson.

4. Streamlined Sales Process

There is an important role played by the BDC agent car dealership, which first declares a particular lead as pre-qualified and then passes it to the high-quality sales team, who then take on that lead to close a sales deal. It helps the BDC team to save time and increase efficiency.

Conclusion

To summarize the whole blog, it can be said that a well-structured car dealership BDC not just serves as a support for the sales process, rather it also expedites the process. From giving instant responses on receiving the online submitted form to sending out personalized responses to take the lead to a sales stage, the BDC department plays the most crucial role in adding value by nurturing every lead that reaches your funnel. If you want to improve your car dealership and succeed in the automotive industry, BDC has to be the most important feature in your business structure. Look no further and hire the best BDC team for your dealership.