Getting online car shoppers to request price quotes is an easy way to make initial connections between potential buyers and dealers. What can be more difficult is getting dealers to accept the requests as valid leads because of inaccurately entered data – a problem Saab Cars U.S.A. Inc. has overturned with a web-based customer data verification system that has helped quadruple the number of leads processed, Richard Amling, director of marketing analysis, tells Internet Retailer.

"Dealers get really upset if we pass data to them that’s bad," Amling says. In the past, dealers couldn’t be sure if consumers had entered accurate or valid information online, and so may have wasted time and money following up on fictitious names or mailing brochures to inaccurate addresses.

To avoid such problems before implementing a web-based data verification system from Melissa Data Corp., Saab would have its call center agents each spend about two hours per day checking personal information by contacting people who had registered on SaabUSA.com to communicate with a local dealer for a price quote or to request a test drive. Not only was that a costly effort, but it would often result in potentially lost sales from customers who would lose interest after waiting too long for a response, Amling says.

Under the old system, it could take hours for the online shopper to get a response, because it could take that long for a customer service agent to confirm a consumer’s data and relay the verification to a local dealer, and for the dealer to then prepare a response to the consumer. "Online shoppers expect a response within a couple of hours, but with our back-up of data checks, it could take several hours – so we may have lost customers," Amling says.
The entire process now can take minutes from the time a shopper enters an online request to the time she gets an online response, he adds. Instead of relying on call center agents for verification, customer-entered data is instantly checked against a web-based postal address database hosted by Melissa Data, which is certified by the U.S. Postal Service to run a postal address database on its own server. The data-entry forms on SaabUSA.com for requesting quotes and test drives are hosted by web site services firm ByteJam Inc., which relays consumer address data over the web to Melissa Data’s address database. Once it receives the verification, ByteJam relays it back to SaabUSA.com. The verification usually takes a fraction of a second, Amling says.
The new system has brought major benefits to Saab, Amling says. It has freed up its call center agents to spend more time helping customers, and it has helped SaabUSA.com quadruple the number of leads it processes every month to dealers, to more than 4,000 from 1,000. The system has also attracted new methods of participation by dealers and other partners. In exchange for getting accurate consumer address data, for instance, one dealer partner is providing an online tool for figuring estimates on traded-in automobiles.
 
Amling says he’s already seeing an increase in the number of dealers sales initiated online. "This is still in the stages, but it’s having a good impact on the number of purchases initiated online," he says.