The “Leadoff Hitter” Approach to New Car Inventory

Auto dealerships have had to be particularly agile since the start of the pandemic, adjusting to shifting market conditions, inventory, digital retailing and staffing, to name just a few factors. And we can’t forget the continued shift in auto buyer preferences toward digital buying experiences, a trend that started long before 2020 and shows no signs of slowing down.

So when we say new year, new pivot, we’re pretty sure everyone in the Auto industry knows what we mean.

New Car Inventory on the Rise

2023 is all about selling new inventory. After months of historically low numbers, the tide has finally started to turn. New car inventory hit 1.8M in December, giving dealers their best supply of new vehicles all year. This means dealers will have to market their New Inventory again—and be ready for the resulting spike in questions and interest from potential buyers.

Source: TrueCar

With 80-95% of automotive shoppers starting their journey online, is your dealership ready to capture all these internet buyers and turn them into sales?

If your plan is to rely on human power alone to keep up with inquiries and get shoppers into the showroom, the answer is probably not. 

Human employees don’t respond to leads at 3 a.m. They don’t follow up more than a couple of times if a potential buyer stops responding. They can only handle so many conversations at once. Emails get lost in their inbox and they respond too late, risking another dealership getting ahead.

You need someone to engage with every single lead, 24/7/365. Someone to sort through all the inquiries, answer their questions, find the ones worth your team’s time, and hand them off to your Salespeople at the right moment.

To borrow a baseball term, what you need is a leadoff hitter.

AI Loads Up the Bases

Think of your Auto Sales process as a baseball game. When you set your team’s batting order, you want to give your strongest hitter (your closer) the fourth spot in hopes the 1, 2 and 3 hitters get on base and you drive in all the runs.

Same applies with Auto Sales. You need a first line of communication that loads up the bases, so to speak, so your rockstar Salesperson—your A Player—can knock it out of the park. 

That’s where AI comes in: superhuman capacity for Sales-influencing conversation for 100% lead follow-up. 

Adding an AI-powered Revenue Digital Assistant™ for Auto Sales to your team gives you rock-solid 1, 2 and 3 hitters that set up your Sales reps for a grand slam, every time.

RDAs take on the legwork of working every lead through a series of two-way conversations via text and email designed to drive buyers to the point of being “on base,” ready for your Sales team to close. 

Let the Closers Close

When an AI has already warmed up all the loads, your A Players, those top rockstars of your Sales team, don’t have to spend their valuable time sorting the wheat from the chaff. Every lead that’s passed to them has been Conversation Qualified—as in, raised their hand and said “Yep, I’m ready to talk to a Sales rep.”

And when your closers spend less time chasing unproductive, unqualified leads and more time closing deals, they’re far less likely to burn out or move on to greener pastures. Higher job satisfaction, higher retention, lower staffing costs.

We call this model the Conversica Growth Workforce: Humans and AI working in tandem, each taking on the tasks that they do best. Automate the parts of your team’s job that take the most time with the least reward, and free your human employees to focus on the prospects most likely to end in a sale, where their precious time has the most impact.

It’s 1 + 1 = 10. Or, more accurately, 46—as in, 46x average return on investment for the Auto industry.