Slow replies, templated scripts, zero urgency. But in 2025, that’s where the buyers are hiding.
In part two of this session with Stuart Wallbanks, we dig deeper into the one channel most dealers underuse.
The email enquiry.
You’ll learn:
- Why customers ghost when you treat email like admin (03:10)
- How to get commitment before the phone call (11:05)
- The word-for-word responses that actually convert (16:42)
- A smarter script for price objections (23:15)
- What your team should say when they hear: “Just email me” (27:20)
Enjoy.
About Symco Training:
Symco Training was founded in 2000 by Simon Bowkett and it was his belief that the business had to offer its clients something different. That difference was clear to Simon from his days in the dealership when he experienced many sales trainers who had all the answers, but were unable, unwilling or both to actually show the delegate how they could be implemented. It remains the ethos of the business today. You see, Symco only employ trainers that are committed to delivering not only in spiring and insightful training, but are equally as happy to demonstrate these skills and techniques with real customers in your own showroom. We believe in order for sales training to be effective and in Simon’s words ‘real world’, it needs to be tried and tested in the only place it matters the showroom floor. There is no room for theory when your goals are for your team to sell more cars, hours or parts and retain more profit. In dealerships around the world the focus applied by many of the sales executives is to try and sell a deal. Symco specialise in getting your teams to focus on selling themselves, the product and then supporting this with the deal.
To find out more visitwww.symcotraining.co.uk
Time, welcome to the Selling and the Motor Trade podcast in Association of Car Without. The online car-changing destination. Together we share tips and ideas on how to sell more cars, improve your service department, and generally put more profit into your department, dealership or dealer group. I'm your host, Simon Bowkett, or some of you might already know me as Skippy. First thing, I just want to say thank you for taking the time to listen to this podcast. Hi, welcome to another episode of Selling and the Motor Trade. Today I'm joined by Stuart Warbanks, and we have to have this conversation because we're just talking about in dealerships, you get an email inquiry that comes through now saying, hey, can you tell me, is the car available?
If so, what's your best price? And the phone number is 012-345-678. You think, how do I get hold of that customer? Well, a customer says, can you just give me an idea of what my car's worth? I won't hold you to it, just our ballpark figure. Now, we know as salespeople, we want to go from that digital inquiry to speak to the customer, to start building report. We would know we want to get them face to face in the dealership. But Stuart and I were talking about how more and more customers now are not giving us that phone number. They don't want to speak to us because you've got to remember, if customers wanted to speak to us, Stuart, what would they have done?
It's up the phone, it's not rocket science. So we almost need to earn the right to go from a digital inquiry to that telephone inquiry. So Stuart, I just want to kick around some of the word tracks that you've been talking about that might work to get a customer to go from that digital inquiry to that phone inquiry. Because that's where we can build rapport. Stuart, is it hard to build rapport on a digital inquiry with a customer or harder? Very difficult. We know in terms of communication, it's 55% body language, 38% tone. And on an email, we kind of lose all of that. We certainly lose the body language and we lose the tone.
I think that's why emojis were probably created. Of course. Yeah. Because that kind of replaces the tone, doesn't it? Now, we wouldn't be using emojis in an email with a customer. So if all we've got is the 7% words, the job becomes really difficult. Yeah, it does. So, okay, I'm going to throw this at you. We're going to kick around some of the different ideas you may or may not use. Okay. And you've got to make sure they're right and they sound like you because I believe that firstly, it has to be personalized, personalized, personalized on a digital inquiry. I don't subscribe to this. These canned approaches, where everyone gets the same email all the time.
If you're a manager, a dealer principal, and you've decided, ah, my salespeople's there. Language is not good. The grammar's not good. So I'm going to write the emails on how to deal with it. I strongly recommend you to change that approach because if a customer's sending you one email, they haven't just sent it to you. They've sent it on average to six other Toyota dealers. Okay. And if you're saying exactly the same thing because you've got one of these systems, customer's going to smell a rat and it's going to feel like a canned approach. It needs to be personalized, personalized. So sure. Customer turns around and says, hey, listen, can you tell me, is that car available?
If so, what's your best price? Now, is the car available? That's a straightforward yes or no. Okay. But on a digital cry, they say, what's your best price? How can you deal with that digital inquiry? How can we get someone to go from the digital cry to that phone? Cool. A focus on the part exchange to start with. So we know that, you know, a huge, it's just sort of around about 90% of customers have a vehicle that they're at least considering pod exchanging or the number may be about high enough. I did hear in the Irish market, I don't know other marks that I heard that was 89% of people in a franchise dealership have got a car than considering training again.
Yeah. So to start some more than nine out of 10 customers on average, I've got a vehicle they may consider part exchanging. I like those words that you might consider part exchanging as opposed to do you have a part exchange, don't be enough topic slightly. But I think it's important. The one in 10 is probably doing something with that car, right? So they could be selling it privately, call we, we've had a car that can be selling it to a mate at work. It could be giving it to their son or daughter. But curiosity, they probably like to know if what they've sold it for or agreed is a fair price. So this idea of have you got a vehicle you might consider pod exchanging or would you like to know what we would offer for your car just plays upon curiosity.
Well, that's one to your question, what's your best price? We could use one of the the word tracks we train frequently. The best price will be the lowest amount of money that comes out of your pocket. Find out what the lowest amount of money is. All we need to do is look at the vehicle that you might consider part exchanging. I'll do a professional appraisal, I can find its current market value. And then I can get you the very best price to change. When's a good time for you to pop down and see me? So I can view your car. That's if we're trying to go straight to the appointment, if we want to go straight to the phone call, whether you're available for us to have a conversation where you can give me some more details about your car, maybe how you could sort of slow it down a little bit.
I also love that. Hey, Mr. Kasmick, getting the figures right here is the easiest part of my job. And tell them why, because in the internet world, if we're not on the front page of auto trader or carzone, car sales.com, okay, we just don't get them query. But you know what, unless that car is exactly right for you, no price is going to be good enough. So listen, when's a good time? This might be on the phone. So when's a good time for us to get together to make sure that car is exactly right for you? Is that through the week or maybe weekend? It's almost fighting for it then, isn't it? Okay. You're right.
The just going back to where we started, you know, customers are emailing. When we asked the question and I'll sort of classroom training, if you like, why would a customer email? There's always a lot more answers than people have ever suspected. So it's they're nervous. Maybe they've got a previous bad experience. It could be convenience because of personal life or work. They could be analytical or the blue or the snake, as we call them. So around about a quarter of the population will absolutely want to start their journey online because they like a record of what we've agreed. And then there's no ambiguity at any point. There's no, he said, she said, and here's one of it.
Most of the listeners have never thought of. And I only became aware of this. When I was in my team, so there was a girl that I really fancied and I've never been good at talking to girls ever. But she's odd given the job that I do. Listen, don't you believe that for an instant? This particular girl, her mom taught sign language and Lisa, the girl involved, she was a translator and she was involved in those classes. So I enrolled in sign language classes. Genuinely, two years later, I'm a fully qualified translator for the deaf. So that's commitment for you. And I've got a date. You've got a date. But all of a sudden, I become involved with the deaf community and you've got no idea how big that population is because it isn't very often you see someone that's totally deaf, deaf and birth, or you're seeing sign language being used.
But that's because the majority of people who are hard of hearing are experts in lipreading. And so they need to be face to face. Now they're going to start their inquiry online because they can't pick up the phone and talk to you because they can't read your lips. So I guess the first thing I want to say is if I said to someone right, you've got a showroom walking and a inquiry on a used car, you can only take one or the other and you can't pick up the phone and say I'll phone you back, which would you rather take the answer to the walk in? And I get that. Now we know, as we've said in another podcast, when a customer walks into the business, they're there to buy a car until they say no and mean no.
But there is still that rare occasion where we do get Bob who's popped in because he's wired to the supermarket over the road. That sounds a little bit sexist, but you get the point. Never does anyone phone in to kill time. Yeah. I'm going to do it. Phone inquiry is almost more genuine or exciting than the walking inquiry. But when I say right, you've got a phone call and you've got an email inquiry, which would you rather take? It's always the phone call and I understand and I would do the same. But I guess what we've done there by process of elimination has agreed that an email inquiry is the least exciting. And almost by default, it gets the least of our attention or the least effort.
And it's almost, well, if you were really interested, you're going to speak to me on the phone. And we're writing what we're saying. We absolutely want to elevate the inquiry to an appointment. And that might be through the channel of a phone call first. But what I want the listeners to really think about is every email inquiry should be treated like a golden opportunity because it could be a valid reason why they started with an email and not picked up the phone. Oh sure. Even simply, they might be under 25. I have a 22 year old and a 19 year old. And I promise you they don't want to speak to any company. They like, if there's not a live chat, where do I speak to people?
What do you mean I can't type out what I want there? That's where the world is changing, isn't it? It's changed there. It really is. Here's one of the word tracks that we've just talked about in moving that inquiry to the telephone. And there seems to be a little bit of resistance. That doesn't make them hate this term messers. No, exactly. You hear that, oh, it's just a messer. Why? What have you seen or read or what have you interpreted that you are absolutely certain that this customer has got nothing better to do with their time than send you an inquiry when they've got no interest in buying a car. Messers don't exist on a digital inquiry.
So I'm going off track here. You're right. You and I, our phones are off because of what we do all the time. There's a company trying to sell me some stuff at the moment. I want to buy it. And this lady leaves a message all the time when the phone's off. And the message is always like, Hi, it's Sarah from blah, blah, blah. Okay, I've missed you again. Give me a call on blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. She spits the number out very quickly. Okay, she always phones from a number withheld number. Okay, so I try and phone back in our lunch break or afterwards or when I finish the course at the end of the day, of course, she's gone home.
She thinks I'm a messer. The messages end up being like, well, you know, if you don't want it, let me know. That's fine. She thinks I'm a messer. And I want to give this company some money. I want their services. But actually, I'm almost certain, like a lot of car salespeople, they think I'm a messer because if she just sends me a WhatsApp, as fact, I've got to isn't it now that we need to start communicating more with our customers with WhatsApp. We communicate with everyone else in WhatsApp. I still had some deal of principles. Oh, no, I don't want my salespeople communicating to a customer that way. That's kind of where the world's going, isn't it?
Stuart? Yeah, I'm thinking some of the clients that we work with who have standalone CSEs or call centers for one of a better word. I'm thinking of one in particular, and they have a company phone that it's on a rotor, and they're available up until 10 o'clock at night. And they will, that's for live chat on an email, but also they advertise a WhatsApp number. And so, yeah, they engage through WhatsApp. We talk about this in training. Communicate with the customer where they want to be met. Yeah, and the right to get to the next stage. Correct. So if that starts on an email or a text message or a WhatsApp, that's absolutely fine with me.
If I'm engaging with a customer, that's brilliant. I'll take it. I get asked, what do you do? Because you said if customers numbers one, two, three, four, five, six, yeah, or a false number or something like that. Yeah. So if a customer emails, but attaches a number, and it's normally management training, we get asked, what do you do? And my take on it is there's no right or wrong answer. Well, I mentioned this because I trained a chat that's like a Bentley dealership. It's lovely as that brand is. It could be any brand. And I really liked his approach. He said if a customer inquires through email and attaches a number, in the first instance, I will reply by email, because I respect the fact that that's how they've reached out to me.
But at the end of the email, and we train a positive next action, a PNA, where we only inquiry, he does a brilliant positive next action, which says, I will reach out to you shortly on the phone number that you supplied. I like that. So he's a female because it came in on email, not just, and so money just say what? So you wouldn't just pick up the phone and call them. I'm not saying that's wrong. That's not for me to say. And I guess the content of the email would probably dictate using some common sense what you did. But I thought his approach is almost if you want to go to watch right or wrong, you can't go wrong with that.
Meet the customer where they've, where they want to be met. And I will reach out to you shortly on the phone that you supplied to see how I can be a further help or to see what further questions you may have that I could answer. So many times what we do, we're in dealerships and we see a lot of these digital inquiry tracks and what ends up in a sale and what doesn't. And through our partners, Carwell, we have lots of data where we see exactly what works and what doesn't work. And for salespeople think, Carwell wasted time and how it's dealt with in the wrong way. So see lots of stuff. And too many times, one thing I always say is you've got to answer and acknowledge what every customer asks on that first inquiry.
Too many times we see a customer will ask variations of is the use car still available? And so what's the best deal you can do? And so many times salespeople just say, yeah, car is available and ignore the deal bit. Car is available, call me on. Yeah, that is there's variations that cars available, give me a call if you had any other questions. And they think if they just ignore that bit about best price, because they know all that might be a bit tricky. Okay. But if you ignore a customer in a physical environment, in a dealership, the customer's gonna felt ignored. Don't we have to acknowledge everything a customer asks all the time? Doesn't mean we need to give the best price, but we need to acknowledge they're looking for the best price.
So a lot of things like how the best price is always going to be the best balance to change. So what we need to do is get the details about the car you're looking to trade in, just get that best balance to change and monthly payments. It was the best phone number to come check in on. So it gets some details in your car. It's a reason why we go from that digital inquiry, that phone call. Yeah. And if on the email you sent or you can read some resistance, you know, let's say for example, the customer emails and asks a question and even states, please only communicate through email. Let's say the customer, let's go quite extreme.
How do you get that person onto the telephone? Because there's clearly a reason. And it could be for one of the ones I've mentioned before, maybe the harder hearing. They work not. They don't want to be working in the middle of the day. Here's what I really like. We're going to ask some questions of our own, because that's how we get a conversation, right? The customer's asked us questions. I see this all the time actually. Custom acts the question, whether this is on the telephone or on email. They answer the question and then say, if you need anything else, let me know. That's not a positive next action. That's not all sustaining control, right? If this inquiry, we need to ask some questions of our own to earn us the right to continue that conversation.
So here's the best way I've seen it handled. We will answer the question on email. We will ask some questions of our own. For example, have you got a vehicle you might consider part exchanging. And then say this, please let me know by response. Alternatively, if you would like to speak to me on the telephone, you can call me at your convenience on this number. And of course, it would be great to meet in person at any time to have a coffee in the chat. So what you've said there is, I'm happy to talk to you where you want me to meet you on email. But if you'd like to speak to me at your convenience on the telephone, you can reach me directly on this number.
So you're inviting the customer to pick up the phone and call you without putting the pressure on. But that's what they must do if they want to get any help. Again, can I add to that? I like that approach, but I would just add to it, assume they've got a trade-in. Not me, you might have a card you've considered a trade-in. What card you're looking at trading? That is something that helps there. I'm just fearful that a customer might say, no, no, no, leave that out. And they spring the trade-in on us right at the end. That's something else I want to go from track. And I'll get your views on this. Getting my number by default.
Now, what do I mean by this? More and more dealerships. I think the vast majority of dealerships have cooler display nowadays, where they know my phone number is 07949240550. If someone just takes that and calls me back on that without getting permission, I personally feel like they've got it almost by default. Now, that might be my age. I just love a simple thing like, hey, Mr. Customer, I don't see the number you're calling on, it's finishing in 556. Is that the best number to get you on? Because you know what? So many times people say, well, no, that's my work number. Don't call that one because do people want you to call them back at work?
Okay, no, I think we're going to do that. Please don't write down the number from call display and just put it in directly there. Just let them know that, hey, is that the best number to contact you on? If a customer has phoned. I know we're jumping around there, but I see that happening all the time. Yeah, no, that's definitely best practice, just ask a commission. And if they say, yeah, that's the best number, they've invited us to use that number to call the back on as well, haven't they? So, okay, so listen, back to best price. It's a digital and worry, best price, best price, best price. I know we want to try and get from a digital query to a phone call, a phone call to try and make an appointment.
If they're a long way away, listen, we need to get into remote selling. We need to get into remote selling, but something I hear all the time that sells people are missing. It's that trial, close question when they find out that someone's calling from Edinburgh and they're down in Plymouth. Okay, we've got to get into that. Hey, Mr. Customer, I'd hate to think you drive the car, drive all the ways from Edinburgh to Plymouth. If you get here and the car's secured, I just wouldn't want to do that to you. Can I ask you even get the figures right based on your description? Okay, this is all over the phone. Okay, would you be in position to secure that car with 500 pounds, another credit or debit card?
It's that if I could, would you? So many times I hear sales people go, oh, you're calling from Edinburgh. What I'm going to do is I'm going to send you through a link to the crazy app. Okay, text and photograph of your car and we'll give you a price. But we've missed that whole commitment bit with that distant sale. Yeah, it's funny. You mentioned that I was training last week and at the end of the course, pure the delegate stayed and opened up the laptops to see what they'd missed throughout the day. And I wanted to catch up on and we've been talking about email and Kieran said, help me with this one. We've got an inquiry that was very blunt, very blunt.
This is my car with a very brief description. I'm interested in your car, what's going to be the best price to trade? What using less words than that? It couldn't have been more red or assertive if you tried. Yep. And I said Kieran, I said, try this approach because we train assertiveness needs to be met with assertiveness. And if that's the approach he wants to take, then I think those types of customers enjoy a very direct approach back. So when you say red, he's like the lion customer, direct to the point. Okay. And you have to be direct to the point to that customer, haven't you? Absolutely. So this particular inquiry was blunt. I'm interested in this car.
This is mine. What's the best price to change? And Kieran's response using assertiveness was, if I understand correctly, I need to find the market value of your car to establish the balance to change. And then you'll be in a position to leave me £500 reservation fee by credit or debit card. Is that correct? Hit send. And a moment later, the response was yes. Commitment. Yeah, absolutely. So it's exactly what we're talking about. He got the deal. I hope the punchline is, he's got the deal. He absolutely did. Yep. No, we were there till quite late. There was a little bit of coming and going, but he did. He got the reservation fee off that chair.
There's another one I really want you to tell the listeners about. I really do like this approach when people are pushing for best price, best price. And it's kind of like you're damned if you do, damned if you don't. And number one, I'd always train what Elise Kepard and my apologies. I think this comes from Jennifer Suzuki. One of the two, it's on the podcast where they turn around. And I think it's Jennifer Suzuki. She said Simon, when someone says best price and you haven't got that telephone conversation, you want to try and get to the next stage. Think about the options. You got option number one, you say, that is the best price. That's it.
There's a fear that you shut the door and you don't hear from that customer ever again. Option two, you turn around and say, well, the car's up for £39.95. What were you hoping to pay for it? Ludakris, because the customer's going to kick you where it hurts and give you a really low price. Option three, you turn around and say, hey, the car's up for £39.95. I'll do it for £39.08. Give him a price. A price is never going to be good enough. And that's where it starts from. Okay? Option four, and this is what lots of salespeople do. If you really want the best price, call me. Okay? Do they actually phone? Maybe not.
And we think they're that waste that you're talking about before. Or what Jennifer Suzuki will do is, hey, keep my fingers right. It's the easiest part of my job. Okay? And she'll say, why? Because in the internet world, if we're not on the front page of auto trader, Carzone, we just don't get an inquiry. Now, having said that, there might be a little bit of room to move. There might be a gesture. Realistically, what we hope to pay for that? 39.9, 39.8, 50, something like that. When she first said that Stuart, I went, oh, no, I hate that. I wouldn't do that. She said, no, no, hold on, hold on for a second. The customers have come back to say, no, I wouldn't want to pay more than £38,000.
She'll then come back and say, hey, if we could agree £38,000, we're going to require £1000 and either credit or debit card. And I'm not allowed to take that online. What's the best phone number to contact you on to secure that car? You'll always get a phone number. And then she'll say, on the phone, hey, what's about that car? Put it on your shopping list. What's about that car? Put your attention. Hey, thank you very much for your query of that, 38,000. I'm having a look here online. It's the lowest price card in the country. So that price is just not going to be feasible. How flexible? And I love that. But you mentioned another approach that you're liking and get good results from at the moment.
Can you run through that one? Yeah. So we're training a team of CSEs and their job is to answer all inquiries. CSEs for people who might not know. CSEs are... customer service executive. Do you know you've put me up? I have no idea. I just know that. So, yes, their job is to turn an inquiry into an appointment. And we've extended that a little bit more very, very successfully. It's also not to get a reservation fee. Not deposit. I'm sure we talked about that on a little podcast. But of course they're getting the what's your best price. And historically they were saying, oh, I don't get involved in the pricing. I'm just the CSE. You'll need to speak to a sales exec.
She's doing them a little bit of a disservice. But it's also inferring that might be a discount. So now they're using, as it turns out, the Jennifer Suzuki to begin with, which is, before we go to market, we make sure that we're very competitively priced. However, experiences taught me that when the management team gets to meet our customers, they can use a little bit of discretion. And sometimes they find a gesture of goodwill, a little something as a thank you for your business. All I need to do is make the appointment to give you the opportunity to have that conversation with a manager. Let's see what extra special something they could do for you. So we're basically saying, you know, there'll be a little bit of something to sweeten the deal.
But we're not saying this is going to be even hundreds, let alone thousands of pounds. You know, the management team use a little discretion. And I'm sure they'll find a gesture of goodwill as a thank you for your business or to win your business. I can show you some good ideas there. Is there any other way that a sales person might be able to deal with a customer who's really pushing, no, no, I'm best price, best price, best price. What else could they try? Yeah. So if you're at that point where we've really tried and failed, feels like the strong word, but we haven't got the conclusion that we would like. We picked this up actually recently.
We talk about being experts in R&D, don't we? And you say, what does that mean? And it's research and development for us. It's Robin duplicate. The huge advantage we have is the amount of businesses and different franchises and sales execs. We are exposed to so much best practice and so much less than good practice. And obviously we, one of our jobs is to share the best ideas. I love this that I read recently. And it was, it was with an inquiry. What's your best price? They tried the products change. They tried the best price, but no price is going to be good enough unless that's the right car for you. And it finalized in this or ended in this.
The final price is determined at the point of purchase. We can discuss this on an appointment. So the final price is determined at the point of purchase. We can discuss this on an appointment. I love that. I think it's sort of inferring that's going to be a deal without saying there's going to be a deal. But it's a very, very polite business-like way of saying, listen, the best price is the amount of money that you pay when you've got your credit card out, which is what we hear people say, unfortunately. This is a much more professional way of saying it. Say that one again for me. So the final price? The final price is determined at the point of purchase.
We can discuss this at an appointment. Yeah, like it. Really do like it. Hey, listen, guys, there are just some ideas on best price with the digital inquiry. Last thing I want to leave is get to the digital inquiry as quick as you can. There's all these systems out there with rapid RT season, all that, all great, great systems there. So we know we need to get to the customer within that 10 minutes. But make sure they're personalized responses. And they're just not click, click, click and send it out there to stop the clock ticking that I hear. We've got to make sure those responses are personalized and earn the right to get to the next stage on it.
Anything else you want to leave, let's listen to this, Stuart? I just want to reinforce what you've said. It's so commonplace that the email inquiry is to third rate inquiry. It's the last thing that we get to. And I understand in the business, if there's a live customer in the showroom, we've got to go and speak to them. But please, everyone listen and accept the fact that anyone who inquires with you through any channel, they're buying a car. Yeah, that's true. Sure. Thanks again. Really appreciate it. Thanks as always. Cheers, Simon. To your next one. That just leaves me to say that all details of this episode and other episodes on the selling in the motor trade can be found on our website simcotraining.co.uk.
Go there to get a copy of our book, Words That Sell Cars. Go there to sign up to a free trial of our sales fitness online sales training program. Easiest way to get hold of me is Simon Bowkett through LinkedIn. Thank you.
