Sixt Car Sales South Florida
Challenge
Traditionally known as a car rental company, Sixt Car Sales South Florida opened the doors to their first retail location in January 2019 near Fort Lauderdale, Florida. It was important to them to have a modern customer experience out the gate, both online and in-store, so they partnered with Roadster to launch their Express Storefront in January of 2020. Since they were so new to the market, they signed up with multiple 3rd party lead providers and were immediately inundated with customer inquiries. They struggled to manage the traffic quickly and with quality responses. Mark Zurales, vice-president of car sales at Sixt, is a former BDC manager who understands the importance of high quality leads. He would rather have his team concentrate on moving customers forward in the purchase process, than spending time fielding questions on vehicle availability or pricing confirmation. They knew they needed to find a way to more effectively manage their lead volume.
Then, COVID-19 hit. Most of their staff was furloughed and Sixt Car Sales South Florida was left with only 1 full time salesperson and 1 manager to handle each transaction from start to finish. There was no way that they could handle the lead volume on their own. It became critical for Mark to focus his team on the leads most likely to buy. They turned to Roadster and their new Express Response product to send email responses that empower customers to answer their own questions and dive deeper into configuring their deal. This enabled their small sales team to become more efficient by focusing on moving qualified customers further down the purchase funnel.
Solutions
Adding an intelligent, lead-engagement tool like Express Response has given Sixt Car Sales South Florida enormous efficiency gains. Every morning, the Sixt Car Sales South Florida team arrives to find 5-7 deals waiting for them that were generated by Express Response emails overnight. They fondly refer to Express Response as their “graveyard shift,” since a lot of their traffic arrives between 9pm-1am when the store is closed. Sixt Car Sales South Florida loves that they can now engage with the customer immediately and when it is convenient for them, regardless of the time of night. It’s even allowed the sales team to focus on in-store customers or phone leads because they’re confident that Express Response is providing quality responses to internet leads and engaging them in the purchase process.
Sixt Car Sales South Florida is seeing the results, too: their average internet closing rate is 17%, much higher than the industry average. Their furloughed employees have returned to work, and their team, which had no prior automotive experience, is now averaging 23 cars sold per month each, up from 8 or 9 sold per month.
They’ve even seen customer satisfaction gains with many customers personally replying to the Express Response emails, thanking them for such a quick follow up, not realizing the emails are not being sent by a sales agent.
Express Response is able to manage at least 3-4 BDC agent’s worth of leads. It’s allowed us to pull customers into the purchase funnel at the right time, when they actually want to be engaged with us. We know that our customers are submitting 3 or 4 leads to different dealerships at a time, and if we can reply immediately with a way to start building their deal, then they’re more likely to buy from us. When we are up against a competitor, Express Response becomes the tie-breaker every time.
Results
Internet Close Rate
increase in average internet close rate (from 9% to 17%).
After Hour Deals
of traffic occurs after hours, with 5-7 new deals received each morning due to after hour activity.
Cost Savings
BDC agent’s worth of leadsmanaged by Express Response,which has allowed them topermanently shelve their plansfor hiring an in-house BDC.
