Effective and proactive communication is paramount to keeping up with the fast-paced business world. It acts like a superfast receptionist–guiding and directing callers, noting inquiries, and ensuring no lead is missed. So, incorporating this technology into your automotive dealership’s operations will reap numerous benefits. In this guide, you’ll learn how to leverage an auto attendant phone system into your functions and transform how you approach customer service.
What is an Auto Attendant Phone System?
An auto attendant phone system is an automated system that answers calls and routes them to the appropriate person or department in a dealership. An auto-attendant phone system also acts as a receptionist, helping customers navigate various departments or services a dealership offers.
An example of a virtual auto attendant phone system would be when you call a dealership and are asked to press a number on your keypad. Therefore, pressing this number redirects you to the department of which services you require or connects you to a specific individual.
Why Do Automotive Businesses Use an Auto Attendant Phone System?
Automotive companies use an auto attendant phone system to effectively route calls to their teams. The best auto attendant phone system intuitively directs the caller to their required department using a menu option.
These automotive marketing techniques help reduce wait times and improve customer service. Therefore, using these systems, the need for manual labor is almost eliminated, leading to reduced costs and improved efficiency.
Another critical factor that adds to the efficiency of these systems is their constant availability. Automotive businesses require their customers to be engaged around the clock, so a phone auto attendant system comes into play. They provide customers with essential information even after working hours.
The 6 Key Features of an Auto Attendant Phone System for Automotive Dealerships
An attendant auto phone system has built-in features that streamline the call monitoring process and keep operations concise. Both automotive businesses and their customers can benefit from features like smart call routing, simultaneous ringing, and customized greetings. The essential features of a VoIP auto attendant phone system are:
1. Call Routing and Balancing
An auto-attendant phone system for small businesses should have a robust call-routing structure. It automatically directs callers to the relevant departments, evenly distributing the volume of calls between the team. This prevents the stacking of callers and minimizes the wait time of each caller.
2. Smart Ring Groups
This phone system auto attendant ring feature alerts multiple agents in the team at once, so every call can be answered. This also increases the chances of a call being picked up almost immediately, dramatically reducing wait times.
3. Customized Recordings and Greetings
Automotive businesses can customize the pre-recorded greetings they play to incoming calls. Greetings can contain dealership-specific information or other relevant information. Callers may also feel welcomed with hold music that plays while they wait or can be given updates regarding their position in the queue. These are innovative ways to keep customers engaged even whilst they wait.
4. Integration with Other Systems
An auto dealer phone system can be integrated into a dealership’s automotive CRM software. This can improve customer data management and aid in segmenting relevant information received from the call.
5. Call Prioritization and Screening
Queuing calls based on priority helps dealerships to pay selected attention to high-value buyers or those with urgent inquiries. High-priority customers are attended to with care, which improves satisfaction and creates lasting impressions.
6. Multilingual Customer Support
An auto-attendant phone system can provide the option of selecting multiple languages to receive instructions. This oversees a diverse customer pool and allows access to broader opportunities.
How Does an Auto Attendant Phone System Work?
A small business phone system with auto attendant follows a structured format of automated call answering and directing them to the appropriate department. These actions happen via keypad inputs or a customer’s voice input.
VoIP for automotive dealerships creates a sense of a virtual or digital receptionist as they impeccably stand in place for humans when attending to calls. They are fed all the required information to answer all customer inquiries quickly and clearly.
By integrating with other dealership software like automotive CRM systems, these auto attendants can streamline workflows and ensure consistency and effective collaboration between all teams.
The 12 Best Auto Attendant Phone Systems in the Automotive Industry
Here’s a list of the best car dealership phone system solutions available on the market, providing all-rounder solutions for your automotive dealership:
| System Name | Overview |
| Spyne | Spyne’s auto-attendant phone system facilitates instantaneous call tracking, call transcript records, and personalized follow-ups based on the call outcome. |
| Grasshopper | A solution designed for startups or entrepreneurs who need a basic VoIP solution with unlimited SMS and calling within the US with toll-free local number support. |
| Dialpad | Dialpad is a cloud-based solution that offers VoIP, chat, conferencing, and SMS. |
| 8×8 | A system that facilitates features like video meetings, team chat, and unlimited international calling. |
| RingCentral | A fairly scalable solution designed to handle larger call volumes with a queuing mechanism. |
| 3XC | The 3CX solution can scale to suit the needs of businesses of all sizes. Its features include multi-level auto-attendants, live team chat, and SMS. |
| Nextiva | Offers solutions for VoIP, SMS, team chat, and video conferencing |
| Vonage | This VoIP phone system has video, SMS, team chat, and telephoning features like an auto attendant, call groups, and visual voicemail. |
| Ooma | Its phone service includes video, SMS, and unlimited VoIP in the US, Canada, and Mexico. |
| GoTo Connect | Offers an auto attendant feature with tailored greetings and PBX solutions. |
How to Set Up Spyne’s Auto Attendant Phone System for Your Dealership: A Step-by-Step Guide
To get Spyne’s auto phone system up and running, you only have to design your desired call flow and record greetings. Spyne’s free auto attendant phone system configuration is seamless and does not require long hours.
Step 1: Sign in to Spyne’s portal using your login credentials. You will be logged in as an admin.
Step 2: Click the ‘Edit’ section in the AI call agents menu. From here, you can customize how you want your calls to be routed and which department is required to take the call.
Step 3: Record your preferred greetings. Our dealership CRM providers integrate well with an automotive phone system, so, it’s easier to record voice commands and greetings for customers.
Step 4: Configure your phone auto attendant system. You must upload your recordings, set up the call routing rules, and set timings for business and after-hours calls.
Step 5: Test our auto-attendant phone system by calling it yourself and exploring the various features Spyne has to offer.
Step 6: Save, publish, and go live! Your dealership CRM can now manage calls and track routes efficiently.
What’s the Difference Between an Auto Attendant (AA), an Interactive Voice Response (IVR), and an AI Receptionist?
An Auto Attendant (AA) is a basic automated telephone system that directs calls. In contrast, an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) presents a more sophisticated layout that allows user interaction through voice commands or more intricate tasks. An AI Receptionist uses AI to respond to inquiries, schedule service appointments, and manage calls.
All three of these automotive CRM services remove the need to have a human being present to receive, respond, and route incoming calls to your dealership.
| Auto Attendant (AA) | Interactive Voice Response (IVR) | AI Receptionist |
| An AA system responds by offering a simple menu of what to do next, such as, choosing a destination of playing music while a customer or caller is on hold. | It takes input from a customer via speech and keypad or dial-pad and directs the call to the best or next available agent or contact center. Furthermore, it offers greater depth in the menu, sub-menu, directories, and customized greetings or responses. | You can expect to interact with a solution that can understand to and fro speech and understand the intent of who is calling, answer frequently asked questions, and schedule meetings, to name a few, without human intervention. |
How Can You Choose an Auto Attendant Phone System?
Choosing the right auto attendant phone system small business requires assessing your business needs and considering technological features like IVR menus and integration capabilities.
Some key points to consider while considering a phone system solution are, for example, budget, what you are going to be using the solution for, how deep and vast you’d like the menu to be, the features that are good to have and necessary to have and finally, the intelligence, MIS you’d like to gather from your callers or customers.
Choosing your budget is the first and most critical aspect at this stage. Identifying your menu and understanding your customer and business needs will determine the complexity needed for your business. This will determine the price and time to deploy. Finally, you’ll need to ask yourself what information or intelligence you’d like the solution to provide.
The 6 Benefits of an Auto Attendant Phone System for Automotive Dealerships
A virtual auto attendant phone system streamlines call management and ensures prompt responses to customer inquiries. This plays a crucial role in retaining customer engagement and lead conversions. Below are more benefits of these systems:
1. Uninterrupted Call Flow
The reception and redirection of calls to an automotive dealership is seamless and efficient. As a result, customers are promptly directed to the relevant department, where their inquiries are taken care of.
2. 24/7 Customer Engagement
Your AI receptionist agent functions even outside of regular business hours with around-the-clock customer engagement. No matter the time, customer queries will be answered.
3. Automotive Integration Abilities
Integration with CRM in SaaS allows the dealership to manage customer information and track call records from all agent conversations. Consequently, it streamlines the communication process by providing detailed records.
4. Effective Customer Communication
With quick and efficient customer connection to the correct department, a small business phone system with auto attendant enhances customer engagement. This proactive communication between automotive CRM providers and the customer solidifies a dealership’s reputation.
5. Higher Conversion Rates
This automotive dealership service tremendously boosts lead conversion rates through prompt and effective customer communication. With automotive CRM tools, better clarity on call leads to reliability and assures customers that their requirements are met.
6. Strengthens Dealership Presence
A service like an auto dealer CRM would give your business a competitive advantage. In other words, they showcase a superior advantage with more efficient customer service that would help you stand out in the automotive industry.
The 6 Challenges of an Auto Attendant Phone System
As efficient as these systems are, they do have some hiccups. For example, frustration due to the lack of personalization, difficulty understanding complex needs, and potential missed calls when technical issues are faced. So, based on the challenges of this system, you can decide whether you want a salesperson taking calls or an automated system.
1. Impersonal Interactions
Customers may prefer speaking to a human being over a machine. Because of the limitations of technology, auto attendant phone small businesses may not be able to grasp the in-depth needs of a customer.
2. Technical Glitches
An unresponsive system does not bode well for a business. Therefore, frequent technical malfunctions or a poorly designed routing menu may lead to longer waiting times and customer dissatisfaction.
3. Initial Investment Costs
The implementation costs of the attendant phone system may need upfront investment in hardware or software. Thus, these can be expensive, along with the additional training costs required to be covered by the system’s administrators.
4. Complex Integration Process
Integrating an auto phone system with an auto sales CRM may be complicated. As a result, it may cause frustration with beginners in training and require technical expertise.
5. Limited Information
No matter how extensively the AI bot is trained, the automation may only be able to provide limited information. Specifically, an automated receptionist agent might be unable to denote specifics, which may lead to repeated, redundant information.
6. Potential Missed Calls
Calls that were unanswered or customers’ inquiries kept waiting too long may be sent straight to voicemail. Undoubtedly, this hampers the possibility of the sales team immediately seeing the query, leading to missed opportunities.
How Spyne’s Auto Attendant Phone System Helps Your Automotive Dealership
Integrating Spyne’s car dealer CRM system with its phone system would unearth many benefits for your automotive business. The key to these operations running parallel is the seamless integration that makes for an uninterrupted flow of information between the two channels.
1. Automated Call Tracking
Our AI receptionist agent ensures that every call to your dealership is monitored and recorded during and after the conversation. Consequently, each call is generated as a transcript and can be accessed in your automated phone system. As a result, this transcript helps monitor customer information, update your team on any actions taken, and understand their vehicle preferences.
2. Around-the-Clock Engagement
The problems of skipped opportunities and missed calls are solved with Spyne. With our proactive and ever-present AI receptionist agent, customer calls are immediately routed and asserted with prompt information. This aids in maximizing CRM automotive retail management.
3. Lead Prioritization Based on Caller Identification
Spyne’s phone system automatically identifies the caller’s phone number when your dealership gets a call. Our CRM for small businesses plays a vital role by searching the database for a matching record. Furthermore, this aids in segregating these calls based on buyer value and helps you focus on golden sales opportunities.
4. Monitors Call Logs for Personalization
Spyne’s intuitive phone system can log minute call details such as the duration and outcome. These updates are automatically fed into our automotive CRM software, providing a concise view of customer information. Therefore, your automotive dealership can work toward more individualized service with this neatly displayed data about customer preferences.
5. Data-Based Lead Recovery
Recover lost leads with Spyne’s automotive CRM solutions. So, if a match based on an old call or earlier history is detected, our auto attendant phone system can use this information to re-engage with the lost lead.
Conclusion
When intelligent solutions meet one another and begin to work together, it’s bound to be a happy ending. In other words, we’re talking about boosted sales, higher lead conversions, and skyrocketing customer loyalty for your automotive dealership. So, with our auto attendant phone system, your dealership can excel at managing extensive customer data and fortify yourself as the best in the automotive industry.
  
