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Last week, I spent two days in Milan for a few interesting meetings. I was invited by Smile.cx, one of the largest customer contact centers in Europe, active in sectors like the Italian automotive industry. What they’re doing there is comparable to what we’re building with CARMEN Automotive BDC in the Netherlands — but on a much larger scale.

As I wrote in an earlier article: a lead is merely the starting point of a dialogue with a potential customer. That customer has submitted a request, and that’s your first chance to actively start the dialogue—through the thank-you page and the autoresponder. However small the effort via such a page may seem, the effect can be significant. The beauty is that you only have to get such a page right once, for all future leads. The thank-you page on your own website is under your control, unlike, for example, the one from Marktplaats.

I’ve been working with online leads for over twenty years. They come in all types: first-, second-, and third-line leads, active and even passive ones, and of course, online or by phone. Honestly, not much has changed over the years. The customer searches for information, doesn’t find it, and takes action. That moment is the starting point of a dialogue!

Three years ago, I thought I had it all figured out. I was 100% sure of my plan. A Ligier dealership was on the way, born from an idea in my head, and just three months later, Ligier Store Doesburg launched—on my birthday! That first month, we were active online only. Then the idea grew into the first Ligier Store in the Netherlands—and immediately the largest. But looking back on those three years: did all the bold plans come true?

Over the past few days, some colleagues from Marktplaats and Autotrack joined me at Autobuzz in Berlin. This was a global conference by and for automotive portals and suppliers. They discussed how to continue offering added value to their customers—especially to advertising car dealerships. AI in Automotive Of course, AI was not missing from the […]

It’s late in the evening as I write this – it’s been three full days with Brian Pasch and our #DCDW events. The events in Antwerp and Almere are attracting more and more visitors, and with that, the pressure these days bring is also increasing. What needs to change? What can be improved? What is already good?

You know what it is? Some things never change. As soon as sales and marketing have to work together, it’s like trying to win two championships at once—but everyone’s playing on their own field. Sales shouts that marketing delivers bad leads; marketing shouts that sales can’t close. And in the meantime, more mud gets slung than opportunities are seized.

Of course, everyone wants to pay less if you’re a dealer or car company, especially on marketing and portals in particular. Actually, that’s strange. In many countries, we see movements emerging where people find it ‘horrible’ that the ‘power’—if you can even call it that—lies with a number of car portals, and that the prices there, like everything else, only keep rising.

Since the beginning of #DCDW, we’ve been highlighting the most abused lead of them all: the phone lead. Often originating from portals like Marktplaats or Autotrack, this lead has the highest conversion rate to appointments and sales. Yet it is mishandled in two major ways.