Sloane Automotive

How Sloane Automotive Group Doubled Monthly Sales Using VoiceStar's Asterisk-based VoIP Predictive Dialer

Challenge

When Sloane Automotive group, the largest auto dealer in Philadelphia, first called Voicestar in December of 2003, they were looking to aggressively grow revenues in their service & parts departments. Using a standard PBX telephone system, they worked to grow their service business through direct mail, print advertising and telemarketing. Voicestar noticed a major obstacle to success immediately: sales representatives were only spending about 20 minutes of every hour talking to live prospects. The owners at Sloane realized that they needed a way to make the sales process more efficient without spending a significant amount of money or hiring a bunch more sales agents.

To address this challenge, Sloane's top marketer, Mr. Eric Schlesinger, began a search for a Predictive Dialer that would increase a sales rep's talk time by 200% or more, as well as manage all customer data electronically.

However, after contacting several vendors, Mr. Schlesinger realized that the technology being offered was unrealistic and unaffordable, with the cheapest systems starting at $25,000 for just a few agents and a very limited feature set. Even worse, Mr. Schlesinger knew that as he added more sales reps, the cost of the system would begin to grow exponentially.

Solution

Mr. Schlesinger knew there had to be a better way, and a colleague introduced him to VoiceStar's Predictive Dialer, a incredible technology solution based on VoIP that would allow Sloan to rent a Predictive Dialer system over the Internet without having to purchase any hardware or software. Mr. Schlesinger was surprised to learn that Voicestar's system would significantly reduce Sloane's monthly long distance bill, and all but eliminate the need for traditional phone lines altogether, creating further cost savings for Sloane.

"Using VoiceStar increased talk time per sales rep over 200%, which just about doubled monthly service sales for us without having to hire more reps. It also lets us track calls, collect detailed information on leads, and stores all of our customer information in a way can be easily customized. Our GM can manage our salespeople better because we can push more live prospects to them, listen to their conversations, and run reports on sales and call activities."

Implementation

Because Sloane already had a high speed DSL connection to the Internet at each of their locations, installing their VoIP Predictive Dialer took less than two days. They simply took the Digium IAXy VoIP pre-programmed adaptors supplied by VoiceStar, plugged in their normal headsets into the front of the box, plugged in the DSL cable into the back of the box, had each of the agents log onto VoiceStar.com using their usernames and passwords and suddenly their state of the art call center went live.

"At first," said Mr. Schlesinger, "I was skeptical that VoiceStar could offer me a true Predictive Dialer for such a low monthly fee. It just did not make sense because everyone else was trying to sell me a piece of hardware that cost over twenty thousand dollars for only a couple of users. What is impressive about VoiceStar is that they don't demand any super long term commitments from their customers. Their pricing schedule, attention to detail and impressive technical support made me want to try them out, and I'm glad we did. Today, we rely on the VoiceStar system as the complete solution for our phone-driven business. Happily, I didn't have to sign a lease and a personal guarantee for very expensive equipment that will be outdated in a couple of years."

Results

VoiceStar's Predictive Dialer solution has enabled Sloane to double monthly service sales for each of their sales agents by keeping them on the phone with live prospects for approximately 30 to 45 minutes per hour. The caller disposition and call recording features in the VoiceStar solution have taken customer service to new heights. The sales process is smooth, and sales reps are closing more business than ever before. In addition to outbound Predictive Dialer capabilities, Sloane uses VoiceStar's Inbound call tracking functionality to determine where their calls are coming from, which advertising campaigns are viable, how much they are spending on a per lead basis across multiple campaigns, and to capture prospect data on abandoned calls. "Because of VoiceStar, we have doubled our sales per service rep, we know which media buys are valuable, and we have the ability to take captured lead data and turn it into sales for prospects we definitely would have otherwise lost," said Mr. Schlesinger. "This changes the game for Predictive Dialers and call tracking solutions."

For more infomation on TLSolutions and VoiceStar, visit TL Solutions.