Is The Personal Phone Call Dying?

The old personal phone call is fading into the background and although it will never go away completely, text message communication has already taken over the business world.

According to a study by Forbes, 50% of consumers experience difficulties when scheduling time with businesses through a live person via phone call. In addition, 75% of consumers reported that it’s often frustrating to retrieve voicemails.

In a busy service drive or any other automotive repair facility, inconsistent appointment scheduling is often the result of lost voicemails or lengthy waiting times. No one can ever anticipate walk-ins, latecomers and no-shows, not to mention chronic reschedulers.

It is also reported that 60% of sales reps waste the equivalent of six selling weeks a year just trying to get customers on the phone. Intelligent Online Appointment Scheduling raises connect rates by 20%.

Most people are simply more comfortable with typing instead of talking. It is also easier to reach more people through text since only 20% of them (more or less) answer calls that they aren’t expecting, while texts are read customarily within 5-7 seconds on average. In fact, UpdatePromise’s tools have noted that we send and receive about a million text messages per month.

Like any other consumer today, car owners demand easy and instant connection during every stage of the repair process. Online appointment tools provided by UpdatePromise’s Intelligent Online Appointment Scheduling enable your customers to connect with your department 24 hours a day, seven days a week, on the channels they’re already on – mobile, web, social or even within a Google search.

UpdatePromise combines the knowledge of artificial intelligence with the power of online scheduling with this product, by integrating online appointment scheduling tools with our AI-Driven automated communications, sentiment analysis and more.

Intelligent Online Appointment Scheduling puts an end to the constant calling, chasing and waiting game that many sales teams have always had to play. Think about BDC, Appointment campaigns and follow ups, the average wait time for a qualified prospect to respond is 3-4 days, and it takes an average of 8 cold call attempts to reach a customer. Comparatively, 90% of text messages are read within three minutes by the consumer, according to G2.

Benefits Include:

• Intelligent Online Appointment scheduling integrates via a widget with your dealership’s website and allows customers to schedule their appointments based on your dealership service menu, automating customer pay upsells
• Appointment confirmations are automatically sent to your guests via text
• Appointment reminders will automatically reach out to your customers prior to their scheduled service, thus decreasing your no-shows and boost your capture ratio
• Appointments scheduled from your dealership website integrate with your DMS*, keeping Advisors updated on their appointments throughout the day
• Using the BDC view offered with Intelligent Appointments, your BDC team can schedule appointments without overbooking. When an appointment is being scheduled, your BDC agent or Service Advisor can also view the vehicle’s history, OEM recommended campaigns and previously deferred repairs. They can also offer upsells directly in the scheduling tool using your dealer’s service menu

Everyone on your staff can benefit from UpdatePromise’s Intelligent Appointments and Scheduling system while placating customers with great expectations.

*On Select DMS only
Sources: Nielsen Media Research, Forbes, G2