Lou Fusz Automotive Pursues After-Market Sales

Car sales can be very competitive. But you can’t rest on your laurels even after you’ve made the sale. How do you keep the customer coming back?

That’s the challenge that St. Louis-based Lou Fusz Automotive Network faced in 2003 when it decided to implement Autobytel’s Web Control in its 14 locations that supply the area with eight different makes and models of cars.

“The goal was to bring in some back end money,” says Jasen Rice, Internet director. “A customer who just purchased a car isn’t in the market for another car but the thought was that maybe we could sell them some after market products and services. If they’re going to put a bug shield on anyway,” they might as well buy it from us.

Rice Adds: “If you can keep a customer coming back after an initial purchase you’re building loyalty and a relationship with that customer so there’s a better chance they’ll come back when they do need a new vehicle.”

So every couple of months, between 5,000 and 10,000 Lou Fusz customers receive an e-mail informing them about specials, accessories or services. “We have all the contact information in our system,” says Rice. “So I can do a broadcast e-mail to all sold customers and send it at once.”

What Rice can’t do is use the program across the 14 individual stores. It must be implemented via each store since the different makes and models have varying parts and some dealerships may not be offering oil changes that month.

Rice does very little segmenting of the customer database for blasts. If the offer being sent is just for parts or services, he’ll send it to everyone. However, for those customers who purchased a few years back, he will send e-mails with information about new rebate incentives and trade-ins.

“As far as selling a new car we might get one or two extra people every time we do a mailing that come in and take advantage of the rebate. It’s a little harder to trace who comes in to take advantage of the after purchase product specials or services. But it doesn’t hurt us to offer a discount on oil changes.”

The number of customers who have already purchased is only a fraction of the amount of names in the Web Control system. Rice also uses it to handle online leads, to cultivate them and hopefully turn them into customers. In 2004, the company sold more than 2,200 new and used vehicles via the Internet.

Rice remembers the mornings of arriving at work and printing sales leads from the Internet. He would distribute the paperwork to his Internet sales managers. But he knew that method of keeping track and following up on over 200 leads a month was an inefficient way of handling business. Leads fell through the cracks.

Web Control coordinates with more than 300 lead source providers allowing dealers to use the system to manage their leads regardless of the source. Consequently, company sales have grown.

When Rice joined the company, sales averaged between 12 and 15 cars a month with a yearly sales total of approximately 60. Now, with Web Control, car sales average approximately 40 per month, totaling over 480 car sales for the year, he says.

When Web leads are submitted, the prospective buyer’s name and vehicle interest logged into Web Control’s Internet Sales Management system so sales teams can schedule targeted, personalized email campaigns. Then the lead is routed to an Internet manager based upon the buyer’s vehicle preference.

Web Control’s CRM system compiles all customer information into a data warehouse that includes every point of contact a customer has with Lou Fusz Automotive Network. The module sets predefined contact schedules established by management and integrates customer sales and service history.

The prospective buyer will then begin receiving correspondence from the Internet manager via e-mail or phone. E-mails are personalized using the buyer’s name and they are structured to gather more purchasing information from the recipient such as if they are interested in similar cars, if they are looking in a certain price or payment range or if they are just gathering information or looking to make a quick purchase.

The system will continue to follow up with the prospective buyer via personalized e-mails offering test drives and money off Web coupons.

The lead provider reporting helps Rice gauge return of investment on his advertising dollars. The dealership management system, Reynolds and Reynolds, holds all the customer information, for service, parts, the body shop and sales. Every night that system sends Web Control a list of customers who made purchases that day.

By comparing the information on the current sales with the information garnered from the Internet requests, those customers whose initial contact was the internet but who came in for the purchase can be identified as an Internet generated sale.

Is it cost effective for Rice? He thinks so. Web Control runs him four or five hundred dollars a month versus other forms of advertising that can run $2500 a month. With either promotion program, there are no guaranteed leads. But with Web Control Rice has “peace of mind.”

“The piece of mind for me is that I know those e-mails are going out and leads are being followed up on. Return on investment, may not be measurable because some customers are not identified as Web Control leads, but without it we wouldn’t be as efficient and close as many deals as we do,” he says.