MINI Dealerships Stepping-Up Their Game on Internet Sales Leads

The last time I bought a MINI was in 2012. Back then I was still living in Europe and I was about to move back to Boston. Because I needed to drive to my job, having a car ready when I would arrive was a must. I just had two little problems to overcome. First off, living across the pond I couldn’t really visit a dealership to buy a car. Second, I could have easily gotten a MINI off the lot at my local dealership when I arrived, but that’s not the proper way to buy a MINI. In this particular case, the Internet came to my rescue and after a couple of exchanges with a Motoring Advisor, my order was processed and scheduled for completion upon my arrival. Turns out these days, buying a car on the net has become a common thing and MINI is one the brands riding this trend.
[Pied Piper](http://www.piedpiperpsi.com/), not the one from the [TV show](http://www.piedpiper.com/#hello), recently released its fifth annual [Prospect Satisfaction Index Internet Lead Effectiveness Benchmarking Study](http://www.piedpiperpsi.com/press/?tag=internet%20lead%20response). For this study, the company gathered data through “mystery shopping” across **13,637** dealerships representing all major brands in the US. Brands are ranked based on **19** factors such as, the speed of response and whether dealerships answer questions at all. This year, Lexus claimed the top spot, closely followed by Porsche, and Fiat. While dealerships slightly improved overall, **17** of the **33** brands investigated have seen their score slip this year. So how did MINI perform versus its counterparts?
Although MINI’s overall score sits below the industry average of **57,** it is one of the brands that has seen the biggest improvements in responsiveness to customer inquiries from the Internet. More precisely, MINI dealerships scored above average when answering specific questions online that required the personal touch of a salesman as opposed to an automated response. Assessing the rest of the results and how the best brands differentiate themselves, there are key areas where MINI dealers should focus to improve the overall customer experience online:
– Give customers a reason to act quickly by adding timeliness to the interaction (e.g. pitching limited-time financing offers in their responses)
– Give customers reasons to buy from a specific dealerships
– Provide customers with a detailed quote (it doesn’t necessarily need to include a discount on MSRP)
– Follow-up with a call to the customer as soon as possible
Most of us on this forum are very detailed oriented when it comes to ordering a MINI. We probably know the specs of the car we want better than the Motoring Advisor herself, and through online research we have a very precise idea of how much discount we seek. Personally, I never have and will never feel the pressure to buy a car because of a limited offer or because someone is telling me to act quickly. Given how much money buying a car represents, I’m going to take all the time I need and make a decision when the time is right. However, I can understand why would someone prefer the personal-touch and to act on quick discount. After all for most drivers, a car is simply another appliance.
All in all, the growing possibility to buy and negotiate a car online is great. It removes a lot of anxiety and stress that most people feel when stepping into a dealership. It also brings more transparency to the process in place of the profoundly irritating dance between a customer, a salesman, and their managers. Finally, it saves invaluable amounts of time because you can interact with many dealers at the same time from the comfort of your computing device of choice. The ultimate goal would be for MINI to adopt Tesla’s selling model, but given this [trend](http://www.autonews.com/article/20150202/RETAIL07/302029922/moguls-superrich-families-and-private-equity-titans-prowl-for) and how the BMW Groups is currently setup in the US, it will probably never happen.
13 Comments
<p>I used Internet site (Edmunds) to contact 3 dealers to get quotes. I contacted a 4th dealer via their website to schedule test drive and get my initial quote.</p>
<p>For contact multiple dealers in area, Edmund’s was good, but I found Edmund’s (and True Car) options list with MSRP price to be incorrect on some items. Some dealers made note of that when I spoke with them. As I used Mini the configurator I knew what the correct MSRP was though.</p>
<p>I was also going to use the Costco Auto purchase program, but didn’t.</p>
<p>Process helped me in getting significant price under MSRP. I wouldn’t rely on just one of these internet sales sites, checking multiple ones and get quotes from at least 3 different dealers. So much better than in 2004.</p>
<p>The 3rd party internet sites do nothing you couldn’t do by going directly to the different dealer websites. I don’t know.. It may seem convenient to just input your info in one place but I don’t trust many of those places. It’s not like they have deals to get discounts for the people they refer (like Costco does). They just blast your info to who knows where and get paid something like $20 from each dealership they send your info to.</p>
<p>I just don’t get this in The U.S, While purchasing my ’15 F56S, I was able to totally customize my car, and still got it in less than 3 months. ????????</p>
<p>What do you mean? Six to eight weeks for having a custom-ordered MINI delivered has been the standard for quite some time both for East and West Coast customers.</p>
<p>I have never had an ordered MINI come here to NorCal in anything less than 8 weeks and would say it is an average of 10 weeks.</p>
<p>Having been a Motoring Advisor since 2004, this is totally normal. It takes longer to ship the MINI overseas than it does to build it. Personally I encourage everyone to build a MINI. I mean how often are you able to have a car custom built for you?</p>
<p>Every dealership offers this no matter what brand but far to many people do not want to wait or just don’t even care what they drive. Every car I have owned I ordered. And when the dealership will not help me do that i move on to another dealership. Which i have done and they were totally surprised and shocked when i did (non MINI).</p>
<p>Pied Piper has shopped my dealership but I looked at their criteria and noticed some flaws right off the bat… We do well with internet leads and orders as well as walk in traffic. We be turnin’ peeps into MINIacs ova here!</p>
<p>What kind of flaws did you notice?</p>
<p>They reported that we did not follow up with the lead after our initial response which we couldn’t understand since we had lengthy notes of followup… That is a glaring flaw. Just goes to show you that not all poll and research data is accurate, theirs was no exception.</p>
<p>My first experience ordering online was in 2003*. We used CarsDirect. Even then it was fast, civilized, and we saved a substantial amount of money on the car. It was a great experience that raised the bar for car sales almost impossibly high.</p>
<p>I continue to mix in direct contact with dealers when buying cars – leave no stone unturned, and all that – but buying online removes so much of the car buying friction that it’s always where I go first. So much so, that if traditional dealerships as we understand them now went away I wouldn’t be bothered one bit.</p>
<p>I sure hope that MINI gets better. In early 2000s, a lot of dealers said things like “We have so long a waiting list you can go eff yourself!” Around 08 or so, some of the MINI dealerships had seen what was coming (like MINI of the Hamptons) And was doing great in following up on leads and the like, no matter the source. Mini of Mountain View? Um, not so good. MINI has a lot of headroom to improve because some of the dealerships really, really sucked.</p>
<p>It used to be that you’d try to talk to the Fleet Desk to get good deals, now it’s the aggressive internet sales leads that seem to get some of the best pricing.</p>
<p>Dr. O, I have to be cautions what i type here as my new car is still on its way and I don’t want my dealer (Motoring Advisor from that dealer) to recognize this post (they do read motoringfile). I had an initial good experience this year at Mini of Mt.View (now Stevens Creek Mini). It was the follow-up that I wasn’t pleased with and one of the reasons I went to another MINI dealer to order my new Mini.</p>
<p>The Motoring Advisor at the dealer I ended up ordering the new Mini from is pleasant enough and polite but it’s the follow up again that is lacking. After I placed my order and provided down payment, I sent an e-mail with 3 simple questions, only got an answer to 1 of the questions. Since then no follow-up e-mails, nothing.</p>
<p>Now this sales person had a very easy sale and outside of placing the order, didn’t have to do much. I had test driven the car at another place, knew what I wanted, brought in the print out sheet from the configurator. Only thing was the match price from the other Mini dealerships which was agreed to immediately.</p>
<p>So I’m not sure much has changed. I know the thought is MINI isn’t like other car dealerships, but in many ways they are. I remember back in 2005 or 2006, Gabe had a post about getting to know your dealer and Advisor and the positive and helpful experiences he had. It might be that Gabe ran/runs motoringfile and the dealer knew that. Maybe didn’t want negative “press”. I don’t know.</p>
<p>Again, the Advisors I’ve dealt with this year have all been pleasant and friendly, it’s the follow up after the order that is lacking. No communication. I’m not one to hound or call the dealer to ask about what stage the build is in. But an occasional e-mail saying “hey your car has been loaded on the ship” or something like that would be nice.</p>
<p>I had forgotten where the MINI car tracking build link was located (many years since my last order) and e-mailed my advisor to ask, no reply. As MF posted, MINI sales are good, so I’m guessing dealers can still have the thought of “you can go eff yourself!” if you don’t like it. Sad but true.</p>