WHAT IS IVR?

Now, before you even question how IVR works and how your dealership can benefit from it, we’re sure you’re asking yourself: what does IVR stand for? Simply said, IVR stands for interactive voice response. A good way to think of IVR is like a drop-down menu when navigating a website, but over the phone.

For example, if someone calls your dealership in hopes of scheduling a service appointment, they’ll call the number listed on your website. From there, they’ll be provided with a series of options and be able to choose a number on their phone’s keypad or use their voice to be automatically redirected to the service department.

HOW DOES IVR WORK?

As mentioned, IVR Touch-Tone Response can be utilized in several different ways. Traditionally, IVR works by the caller selecting a number on their keypad to make a menu selection. This is known as DTMF tones, or Dual-Tone Multi-Frequency tones. This could be used to immediately direct the caller to a specific department of your dealership.

DTMF tones work by emitting both a low- and high-frequency noise. This frequency is understood by a special hardware that interprets, for example, the caller pressing the number one. From there, the caller is redirected to the selected representative who can help them with their question.

Using DTMF as a base, the IVR Touch-Tone Response system can be enhanced to include voice recognition. This would take the place of using the keypad and allow the caller to speak in their natural voice and say what they’re looking for. Additionally, they can use their voice to answer a series of prompts, eventually directing them verbally through an options menu.

BENEFITS OF IVR TOUCH-TONE RESPONSE

You might be wondering what benefits IVR Touch-Tone Response can offer your dealership. In addition to ease of access for your clients, IVR will save your dealership and the caller valuable time. For you, you won’t have to worry about answering every call.

How many times has someone called and wanted to know what your showroom hours are, or if you’re open on a particular holiday? Thanks to IVR, you can pre-program these answers, leaving you with the time needed to answer other questions.

This will save your caller time, too, since they won’t have to sit on hold for extended periods of time while they wait for someone to answer the call, only to be put on hold again while being redirected to a different department. Thanks to IVR, they can get through to the department they seek right away.

WHY IVR FOR YOUR CAR DEALERSHIP?

It may sound strange to hear, but the best customer service is very often self-service. Empowering your customers to solve problems themselves, with minimal intervention on your part, is more likely to make them feel in control—and thus, satisfied.

IVR allows them to have those feelings. Before they’ve even spoken to a human at your dealership, they can choose the exact department to contact (sales, service, finance, or parts), and they’ll experience a more streamlined process.

For common, easily automated processes, your customers can handle the entire process themselves through the IVR Touch-Tone Response system. As we mentioned earlier, that frees up your dealership staff’s time to answer more in-depth questions and troubleshoot more complicated calls. It will also give your customers a sense of accomplishment that they were able to solve the problems themselves.

IVR PREPARES YOUR DEALERSHIP STAFF

In customer service, swift conversations are everything. Your customers don’t want to waste time explaining their problems or questions verbally—or clearing up any verbal misunderstandings that happen along the way. Luckily, IVR mitigates that pain point.

With interactive voice response, your dealership staff can know exactly what they’re dealing with before they’re on a live call with the customer. As the customer navigates through menus, they can choose the subcategories that match their problems.

It’s a “just the details” approach, and one that your agents will surely appreciate! They’ll be able to quickly assess what the problem is, so they can direct the caller to the dealership’s best solution. It’s a win-win.

IVR TOUCH-TONE RESPONSE BOOSTS CONVERSIONS AND SALES

All these benefits of IVR Touch-Tone Response for your car dealership sound wonderful in and of themselves. Best of all, however, they each contribute to your business’s primary goal: to convert more prospects into customers and to boost sales.

How does that work? Implement IVR Touch-Tone Response, and you’re sure to experience:

Fewer missed calls. How many calls does your dealership miss per day because the customer was put on hold and didn’t want to wait around? Reducing the call load for live agents will ensure that more customers are catered to.

Satisfied callers. We’ve mentioned that IVR streamlines the customer experience, so a caller won’t need to waste time explaining a problem verbally to an agent. Above all, a streamlined call moves a customer more seamlessly toward the point of sale!