SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sep. 23, 2014--
When consumers search for cars, parts or auto services on their mobile
phones and call up a dealership, one in six times their call doesn’t get
answered, meaning dealerships lose out on scores of potentially
high-margin leads just by failing to answer the phone, according to new
data released today from Marchex,
Inc. (NASDAQ:MCHX), a mobile advertising technology company.
The finding was one of many in an in-depth study released today by the
Marchex Institute, the data and insights team at Marchex. The white
paper, entitled “Mobile
Consumers Are Calling: How Inbound Phone Calls Help Auto Dealers Win
Customers, Influence Brand Loyalty,” is the latest in the
Institute’s Industry Trends series, which spotlights data in a
particular business vertical.
Using Call
Analytics technology to analyze anonymous data based on 1,000
randomly sampled mobile phone calls from consumers to dealerships across
the U.S., the Institute found that:
-
16% of customer calls to dealerships go unanswered.
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When customers do connect with a dealer representative, 63% of the
time there is no attempt to get the customers to make an appointment.
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66% of the time, representatives do not ask for the customer’s contact
information.
“What we’ve learned is critical for the auto industry, especially given
that cars, parts and services are what we consider high-margin sales,”
said Chen Zhao, Director of Analytics at the Institute, and author of
the study. “There’s no question that becoming more effective at
capturing these leads over the phone can have a direct impact on
dealers’ profitability.”
The study also found:
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77% of phone calls to dealerships are from new customers.
-
74% of callers inquire about parts and services.
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The percentage of customers calling about new or used cars, which are
considered the most valuable type of leads, was 14% – substantially
smaller than inbound phone calls for parts and services.
John Busby, Senior Vice President of the Marchex Institute, will be
talking about these findings and more at the 17thDigital Dealer Conference today in Las Vegas.
To download the white paper, please visit http://www.marchex.com/mobile_auto_dealers.
About Marchex
Marchex is
a mobile advertising technology company. The company provides a suite of
products and services for businesses that depend on consumer phone calls
to drive sales. Marchex’s mobile advertising platform delivers new
customer phone calls to businesses, while its technology analyzes the
data in these calls to help maximize ad campaign
results. Marchex disrupts traditional advertising models by giving
businesses full transparency into their ad campaign performance and
charging them based on new customer acquisition.
Please visit www.marchex.com, blog.marchex.com or @marchex on
Twitter (Twitter.com/Marchex), where Marchex discloses material
information from time to time about the company, its financial
information, and its business.
Source: Marchex, Inc.
Marchex Corporate Communications
Sonia Krishnan, 206-331-3434
Email:
skrishnan(at)marchex.com