How Nettbil and Carl sold 1,000 cars together
Hi Jonas, Carl from Nettbil here. You said you'd sell the Golf after the summer. Is that still the plan?
Yes, we got the new car last week. Can someone call me tomorrow?
1,000+cars sold with Carl
+10%EBIT
2XROI first month live
+20 p.p.pick-up rate on advisors' calls
- Industry
- Automotive
- Market
- Norway's largest car selling service
- Inbound leads
- 100,000+ per year
- Cars sold
- 22,000+ per year
- Carl's role
- Started with winback. Now supporting the full lead journey
Summary
Nettbil gets more than 100,000 inbound leads a year and sells about 22,000 cars. Leads that didn't sell on the first try went into a generic email programme, and advisors called them back only when they had time.
Carl now follows up every one of those leads in a one-to-one SMS conversation and books a call with an advisor when the seller is ready. It has engaged 70,000 leads and helped sell more than 1,000 cars, without adding to Nettbil's sales team.
After initial results, we decided to make Carl part of our core sales stack. This is how consumer sales will run in the future.
Mats VangboCEO, Nettbil
The starting point
Old leads got generic emails and the odd call
Advisors tried to win back old leads by phone when they had time, and everyone else got standard automated winback emails. Those emails had little effect on sales.
Nettbil's lead volume also swings with the seasons. Far more cars are sold in early spring and autumn than around Christmas and in the summer. In the busiest weeks, new leads took all of the advisors' time and old leads went untouched.
How Carl works
Persistent, polite and aware of context
Carl writes to each lead by SMS, one to one. It remembers the car they asked about, keeps to timelines they set (“get in touch in four weeks”) and follows up when agreed. When a seller is ready, Carl books a call with an advisor.
Most of the extra cars come from the long tail of leads, where advisors usually stop. Advisors spend their time on sellers who want to talk, and Carl keeps the other conversations going.
The results
1,000 more cars sold and a more efficient sales team
The extra sales come from leads Nettbil already had, handled by the same advisors. In the busiest weeks of the season, when advisors have no time for old leads, Carl still follows up every one. EBIT is up 10%, and Carl delivered 2X ROI in its first month on all leads.
Advisors also reach more of the people they call. Pick-up rate, the share of advisors' outbound calls that a lead answers, is up 20 percentage points, so less of an advisor's day goes to calls nobody answers.
Nettbil has now rolled Carl out to all of its leads for winback and extended it to the full lead journey.