Appointment Ratio

Increased from
23.5% to 31.94%

Closing Ratio

Increased from
8.06% to 10.32%

Units Sold Monthly

Increased by average of
34 units

Challenge

Toyota of Tampa Bay is a dealership within Southeast Toyota Distributors, LLC (SET)—the world’s largest independent distributor of Toyota and Scion vehicles.

With more than 175 independent Toyota dealers in Florida, Georgia, Alabama, North Carolina, and South Carolina, SET dealers sell approximately 20 percent of Toyotas purchased in the U.S. Toyota of Tampa Bay came to PCG with a straightforward goal: to grow the number of cars sold from internet leads.

In all of 2015, they had 14,000 leads with:

• 23.9% appointment ratio
• 48% show to appointment ratio
• 73.4% sold to show ratio
• 8.38% net closing ratio

In January and February 2016 combined, they had 2,731 inbound internet leads and saw a similar pattern with:

• 23.5% appointment ratio
• 46% show to appointment
• 74% sold to show
• 8.06% closing ratio

Strategy

To assess Toyota of Tampa Bay’s lead handling process, PCG conducted two mystery shops where PCG team members submitted online leads as if they were real shoppers. They analyzed live leads and broke down the KPIs for the dealership, identifying specific areas for opportunity.

After monitoring the dealership’s internet workflow in the CRM, PCG found it involved too many steps and overwhelmed the sales consultants. To help relieve the sales team, PCG recommended Toyota of Tampa Bay to change their CRM work flow and adopt some of PCG’s proven email templates for more efficient and effective internet lead follow-up.

PCG encouraged managers to increase their involvement in the follow-up process—not only to engage with customers, but to also hold the team accountable to the process in the CRM.

The dealership also took online workshops in the PCG Learning Center to sharpen their skills on internet lead handling and their CRM, Elead1One.

Results

Between April and July 2016, Toyota of Tampa Bay increased their appointment ratio from 23.5% to 31.94%—a major improvement that set the stage for the remaining metrics to improve.

In fact, the dealership averaged a 10.32% closing ratio for 6,077 leads—up from 8.38% in all 2015 and 8.06% in January and February 2016. With the 2.26% bump in closing ratio, the dealership sold 137 more units than they would have sold if their ratio had stayed at 8.06%.

Toyota of Tampa Bay fully embraced PCG’s feedback as an opportunity to grow. Following the 30- and 90-day action plans outlined in the audit, the dealership saw tremendous results in a short time frame. By focusing on PCG’s recommendations and altering their lead handling process, Toyota of Tampa Bay added approximately 34 more units per month to their sales—without increasing their lead sources or volume. Assuming the average profit per vehicle sold is $2,000, this equates to $274,000 in extra gross profit in just 120 days.