5 Mistakes costing your dealership referrals

Transcript

[00:00:00] If you want your customers to always introduce their salesperson to friends and family, then these 5 things need to happen.

[00:00:06] Number 1, you need to give your customers a good referral offer. Most dealerships we work with give $200 to $300 when a referral buys a car.

[00:00:15] Number 2, you need to make it easy for a customer to introduce their salesperson to friends and family by text message. Because even if you give a customer referral offer, unless it's easy to refer a salesperson, introduce the salesperson to friends and family, most people won't do it. Or the offer has to be high enough to make it worth their while.

[00:00:36] Number 3, when you give a customer a referral offer and they start referring, they need an easy way to see the status of those referrals, those warm introductions, how much they've earned, and when is the payday. Their earnings and payday has to be visible at all times.

[00:00:51] Number 4, you need to make sure customer gets paid fast when their friend or family member buys a car. Because if a customer knows that their friend or family member bought a car and they have to wait for 30, 60, 90 days to get paid, they're gonna start wondering if they have to chase down the payment. And nothing kills the motivation or the willingness to keep referring than having to chase the money you've actually earned.

[00:01:13] the- and number 5, last but not least, it has to be easy for a customer to get paid. If a customer has to drive to the dealership to pick up the check, that's too much effort, and most people are not gonna be that motivated to keep referring. So you want to make sure the customer is getting paid without having to even leave the couch or leave their house.

[00:01:32] So, how do you make it easy for customers to refer? Let's start with number 1 objection salespeople get when they ask customers for referrals. The objection they get is, "I don't know anyone who's shopping for a car right now." Why do salespeople get this objection?

[00:01:48] Because most salespeople ask for referrals like this: "Who do you know that's shopping for a car right now? Can you refer me?" The problem with that question is that most people don't have visibility which of their friends or family members are planning to buy a car. It's not something most people share. So don't make that as a requirement when asking for referrals.

[00:02:09] Instead, ask your customers, "If I made it super easy for you, could you introduce me to 3 of your friends and family members?

[00:02:18] Here's why this question works so much better. First, everybody has friends and family. In fact, average person knows at least 150 people. When you remove the requirement that the person has to be shopping for a car, they start thinking about people they know. They're thinking about their sister, their brother, their best friend, their coworker. They're no longer trying to figure out who's shopping for a car. They're just thinking about who do they know.

[00:02:43] Second, you're asking for a specific number, 3 introductions. Think about it. If you ask your customers to introduce you to friends and family, that's a pretty big ask. They know a lot of people. Where do they even start?

[00:02:56] But But when you ask for 3 introductions, you've narrowed it down. Now they just have to think of 3 people that they would feel comfortable introducing you to. You've made the decision a lot easier for them.

[00:03:07] You might be wondering, what is the value of meeting people who aren't shopping for a car today? The real value is, in car sales, it's all about who knows you and who trusts you.

[00:03:19] We know that every year roughly 50 million of new and used vehicles are sold in the United States. That's about 1 vehicle sold for every 5 adults in the country. And TransUnion surveyed more than 3,000 adults in the United States and found out that nearly 1 in 3 people are planning to buy a car in the next 12 months.

[00:03:40] My point is, if a nearly 1 in 3 or 1 in 5 of US adults are planning to buy a car in the next 12 months, your customers don't need to know which of their friends and family members are shopping for a car. The goal is to get your customers to introduce you and recommend you to people they know right now.

[00:04:00] and here's what our data at Blabber shows. When a customer introduces their salesperson to friends and family, for every 5 people the salesperson meets, 1 buys a car within 13 to 14 days on average from the introduction date.

[00:04:18] Now that we've made it easy for a customer to say yes to introducing a salesperson to friends and family, the next step is we have to make it easy for them to start doing it today.

[00:04:29] So, what stops a willing customer from making the introductions? Two things. Number 1, they wanna introduce their friends and family to someone who could help 'em whenever they need a car, but they don't know how to do it in a low-pressure way without sounding awkward or pushy.

[00:04:48] Number 2: It takes too much time and too much effort to introduce a salesperson to multiple friends and family members. So here's how we can solve both number 1 and number 2 with the Referral App.

[00:05:00] Here's how the referral app works. Every dealership gets their own referral app that customers can download from Apple App Store and Google Play Store.

[00:05:08] Once the customer downloads the app, the first thing they do is they click on a Contact Us, then they click on a People, and now they're going to select who was the salesperson that sold them a car. That's the person they're going to introduce and recommend to friends and family.

[00:05:24] To select a salesperson, you just have to tap on a heart sign, and in my example, I'm going to select Christian.

[00:05:31] Now to start referring Christian to friends and family, I all I have to do is click on the red plus sign at the bottom of the screen. And the first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to sync my phone contact list.

[00:05:42] Sync your phone contact list is the exact same feature that people use on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn. It makes it easy to find people you know. I'm gonna click Continue, and I'm gonna share my contacts with the app.

[00:05:57] When a customer shares their contacts with the app, the contacts stay private. The dealership or the salesperson does not get contact information. The only time a salesperson gets the customer's contacts is when a customer introduces the salesperson to friends and family by a text message.

[00:06:13] In my phone, I have over 1,500 phone contacts, but I'm not close to everyone. So instead of just keep scrolling, I'm gonna start with suggestions. And in this example, it's suggesting 48 people. These are my brothers, my sister, my husband, my best friend. These are the people I would feel most comfortable introducing to the salesperson to because I'm close to them.

[00:06:38] At the top, it also says, "Tip: Think of someone you texted today." As I'm gonna keep making introductions, it's gonna help me think of someone else I can introduce the salesperson to. So the suggestion and tip makes it easier for me to decide who are all the people that I know and close to that I can introduce the salesperson to right now?

[00:06:58] I'm now ready to introduce my brother Philip to Christian, my salesperson. So to make the introduction, all I have to do is click on the Make an Intro button. The introduction message is already pre-written for me, so I don't have to figure out what to say or how to say it without sounding awkward or pushy.

[00:07:15] All I have to do is click Next. It's going to open my phone, my iPhone or my Android native text message app. It's it's going to automatically add my brother Philip's contact information, the salesperson's Kristian's contact information, and the introduction message.

[00:07:32] And the introduction message says, hi Philip, please meet Kristian from Winkler Automotive dealership. I bought a car from him and Kristian was awesome. If you're shopping for a car or know someone who is, I recommend them to everyone. If you're not shopping right now, save Christian's contact information for later. He will look out for you and help you get a great deal.

[00:07:51] So as you could see, the introduction is very low pressure. It works even if my friends and family members are not shopping for a car. So it makes me feel more comfortable making this kind of an introduction.

[00:08:04] So all I have to do is click Next or Send. And now I have introduced Philip, my brother, to Kristian by text message.

[00:08:12] Now, if I go back to the app, it says, "Hang tight, confirming delivery." So it's confirming that I've actually hit Send. And then it says, "Boom, intro sent." So now I've made the introduction.

[00:08:24] So if I want to keep introducing Kristian to more people, all I have to do is click on Keep Making Intros, select another person, make an intro, next, it opens up again the text message app, and basically that's it. And so it just takes a couple of clicks for me just to keep introducing Kristian to as many people as possible.

[00:08:41] And to see the status of the referrals, all the customer has to do is click on the Referrals tab and it's gonna see a list of everyone they've introduced. The salesperson to all of their referrals.

[00:08:53] And to see the details of that referral, all I have to do is click swipe, click on more, and it's gonna give me details, the status of this referral. So it says introduction received, spam check in progress, introduction qualified, and deal won.

[00:09:07] So one of the coolest things is we integrate with every CRM and every DMS in automotive. So what that means is when a customer introduces their salesperson, even though it's by text message, all the referrals are automatically added and captured in a dealership CRM. So now the dealership can actually see how many referrals they received and how many actually converted to a sale. And if they're not converting to a sale, why not? What happens with those referrals?

[00:09:35] And because we integrate with DMS, we can actually automatically track which referrals converted to a sale.

[00:09:42] Once the customer earns a referral reward, they will receive a push notification with a little cha-ching sound. When they open the app, they will see confetti flying everywhere and it's gonna say "Happy Payday!" So it makes it fun. And exciting to earn referral rewards.

[00:09:57] Now, to find out how much they've earned and when is the payday, they click here on the wallet, and it will show right here scheduled payments, the total amount, and when is the payday.

[00:10:07] To receive the money, all they have to do is connect either their Venmo or PayPal. I'm gonna click as an example for Venmo. So to connect the Venmo, all I have to do is to put in the phone number that's connected to my Venmo account. And click Confirm.

[00:10:21] So now when a dealership processes a payment, the money is gonna go straight from a dealership PayPal account to the customer's Venmo account, and a customer doesn't have to wait for a dealership to mail them a check, or worse, having to drive to the store to pick up the check. The faster the customer gets paid or earns the rewards, the more motivated they're going to be to keep referring.

[00:10:44] And the final important part about the Referral App is the Offers tab. So in the Offers tab, this is where a customer sees what is the current referral offer and details. So a dealership can test unlimited amount of referral offers to see which offer gets the most people start referring and which offer gets the most people to keep referring.

[00:11:04] So as an example, the dealership can build a single level or a multi-level offer. A single-level offer is introduce your salesperson to people you know, and as a thank you, you get $200 for each friend who buys a car within 12 months of your introduction. So that's a single level. You always earn the same amount no matter how many people you refer to buy a car.

[00:11:24] A multi-level is what you see here in this example where you earn up to $400. So the first person you refer, you get $200. The next person you refer who buys a car, you get $300. And if you refer more than 3 people who buy a car, you get $400. The multi-level adds a little bit of gamification to keep people to keep wanting to keep referring, because the more people they refer, the more they earn.

[00:11:45] And then last but not least is you could also offer bonuses, one-time bonuses when a customer reaches a certain milestone. So for example, refer your 5th person who buys a car and you get a one-time bonus, $100.

[00:11:58] So the bonuses and milestones is the more people they keep referring, they unlock new milestone, new badge, and and they earn a one-time bonus.

[00:12:06] And you could test referral offers with bonuses, without bonuses, single level, multi-level. You could build any kind of referral offer you want and test what actually is gonna get the most people start referring and keep referring and get you the most amount of sales at the end of the end of each month.

[00:12:21] You can apply everything you've learned at your store this week, but if you would like us to implement the whole referral system for you, then click on the first link in the description below to book your introduction call with us.

[00:12:33] On this call, we will show you exactly how we would structure a referral program at your dealership and map out how many store how many referrals your store can get every month. So click on the link in the description below to book your call with us.