Work from home and get sales leads straight to your mobile phone!
Due to the current health crisis, some car dealers are now temporarily shut. Although some sales might have to be delayed for when the COVID-19 pandemic is over, making sure customers can contact you with any of their questions is now more important than ever.
Stay in touch with your customers on social media and think about setting up remote selling options for those who are looking to buy a car. Some of our connected dealers are offering delivery, which is a great selling point, ensuring it’s done with precautions – wiping controls down before handover etc.
WhatsApp click to chat allows customers to contact you directly on your mobile. They don’t need to copy phone numbers, have your number saved or even type up anything. With this tool, you’ll be able to post a short link anywhere online. All someone who’s interested in buying a used car has to do is tap the link.
Instead of taking your customer through an inconvenient contact form to fill out or annoying messaging apps for different platforms, just let them start a WhatsApp conversation with you.
How it works:
Someone sees your ad and clicks on the link to contact you.
The link will open WhatsApp for them and pre-fill their text box with a message.
All they need to do is press send – then you can pick up the lead from home, on your mobile.
Where to use click to chat?
All you need is a link, and you can insert it virtually anywhere on:
· Car advert descriptions
· Social media posts
· Your website
· Comment sections
· QR Codes on leaflets
What do I need?
You need to have WhatsApp installed on your phone. It’s a free messaging service – most people use it, but if you need to download it, search for it on App Store or Google Play.
Step 1
First, copy this template to your phone and insert it into your Notes app or anywhere where you can edit text easily.
Link template:
Step 2 – How to edit the template:
Let’s say your phone number is: 07112345678
Remove the 0, add 44 at the beginning (the UK’s country code) so it looks like 447112345678
Go back to the template you’ve copied onto your notes and type in your number with the country code where *PHONE NUMBER* is.
Now you have something like this: https://wa.me/447112345678?text=*MESSAGE*
Step 3 – How to add the message:
Go to www.urlencoder.org and type in the message you want your customers to be able to send, into the box on the top.
“Hi, I’m interested in one of your cars. ” Is a great way to start but if you use different links for different adverts, you can even specify which car advert the customer is responding to.
Click “Encode” and copy what the website has generated in the bottom box.
Now go back to your note with the link template, delete *MESSAGE*, and insert the text you’ve just copied in its place.
Step 4 – Shorten the URL
Now you have a link that will work as a WhatsApp button, but it’s a bit long. Depending on the message you chose to pre-compose for the customer, it can even be too long to post it as a tweet or in someone’s comment section on Facebook.
Go to https://www.shorturl.at/, paste your long link into the box, click “Shorten URL” and you should have something similar to this: shorturl.at/bntYZ
Now you can use this link to make it super easy for potential customers to contact you, and hopefully increase your lead generation – especially during times like the current pandemic.
Tip:
Once you are having a conversation with your customer on WhatsApp, you can suggest video calling, and you can give them a virtual tour of the car. You can also send videos and more pictures of the car.
If you liked this week’s episode – share the www.bit.ly/CCFAcademy link with your used car dealer friends to ensure they get weekly tips on digital marketing.
