Improve the Way You Set Appointments

Confirming Appointments

I recently had the experience of re-negotiating a car lease. As the day of the appointment with the dealership arrived I received a phone call 30 minutes before my appointment time. I could see from caller ID the call was from the dealership and my first thought was the sales rep was calling to confirm the appointment. I was surprised when the person on the phone introduced himself as the MANAGER (this title is important) of the dealership. The call went as follows:

Hi, this is _____________ from Honda I am the MANAGER of the dealership. I see you have an appointment with_______________(name of sales rep) in 30 minutes. I responded that yes, I did have an appointment.
(At this point he assumed I would be making the appointment because he never asked if I would be making the appointment.)
He then continued:
I will be here when you arrive if you have any questions please feel free to ask for me. And I want to tell you we appreciate your business.
The call ended, and I arrived for my appointment. After completing the appointment, I asked the sales rep if I could speak to the MANAGER.

As the MANAGER approached I told him what I do for business and told him I was very interested in the call he placed to me earlier that morning.

I asked why he called me instead of the sales rep. His response is something we all need to think about. He told me they had invested thousands of dollars researching a process to get more appointments to show. (Sound familiar?) The research showed that if a MANAGER called and thanked them for their business show rate went from 71% when the sales reps called to 90% when a MANAGER called.

Three important items that needed to be part of the call.

1. The call must come from a person with the title of MANAGER. He told me that on occasion a MANAGER can’t place the calls that day and if a sales rep makes the calls but uses the title of MANAGER they hit the 90% show rate.

2. It is critical to thank the person for their business. The research showed that people did not see this as a sales call but as a retention thank you call.

3. The calls need to be made the first thing each morning. The later in the day the calls were placed the lower the show rate.

I asked if part of the reason he called was to check on the reps to make sure they really have appointments. He said originally that was a consideration but as they have been using this process that concern has gone away.

Consider the impact a 20% increased appointment show rate can have on your business.
If you would like to discuss further call me at (801) 390-3726

Thanks,

Mark Davis