At a glance
Client: a used truck and trailer dealership. Product: CWARE Connect on Meta’s official WhatsApp Business Platform. Used for: qualifying buyers at any hour and handing them to sales with make, budget and timing already captured.
The problem
A used truck is a six-figure purchase made by someone who is usually driving, loading or on site during business hours. The dealership’s two routes to that buyer both leak.
The phone only works while somebody is there to answer it. A website contact form asks a buyer to type their details and then wait, with no idea whether anyone read it, and tells the dealer nothing about what the buyer wants until a salesperson calls back and starts from scratch.
What the yard needs is not more enquiries. It is enquiries that arrive already saying which vehicle, what budget and how soon, at whatever hour they happen.
The conversation
The buyer messages the number from an advert, the gate, a listing or the website. What follows is the short qualifying interview a good salesperson would conduct, run every time and at any hour.
- A menu: used trucks, trailers, trade-in, parts, or speak to someone.
- If trucks, which make, drawn from what is actually in stock.
- What they will spend, and how soon they need it.
- Matching stock comes back with a link, or the enquiry is passed to a salesperson with every answer attached.
A trade-in is handled the same way: the buyer sends photographs and details in the chat, and the yard receives a file rather than a voicemail asking for a callback.
Across 42 731 messages, 83.1% of everything the dealership sent was opened and read.
From enquiry to salesperson
The fall between the first two stages is the honest part: most people who message a dealership are browsing, and the journey lets them browse without occupying anyone. What matters is the bottom bar. Every one of those 478 arrived at a salesperson with the make, the budget and the timing already captured, work that would otherwise have been a callback.
Of those who named a product line, 833 wanted trucks and 339 wanted trailers, a split the yard now knows without asking.
Four months
| Measure | Result |
|---|---|
| Buyers who messaged | 5 488 |
| Enquiries handled | 5 462 |
| Told the yard what they wanted | 1 208 |
| Gave a budget | 953 |
| Gave a timeframe | 892 |
| Passed to a salesperson | 478 |
| Started outside 08:00 to 17:00 | 2 670 (48.9%) |
| Messages exchanged | 42 731 |
| Messages delivered | 96.7% |
| Messages read | 83.1% |
The finding
2 670 of 5 462 enquiries, 48.9%, began outside 08:00 to 17:00.
Nearly half of this dealership’s demand arrives when there is nobody at the desk. Before WhatsApp, those buyers either left a form and waited, or went to whoever answered first.
They are now met immediately, asked the same qualifying questions a salesperson would ask, and either sent matching stock or queued with their answers attached. The salesperson starts the next morning with a list of people who have already said what they want and what they will pay.
That is the whole case. Not that WhatsApp is cheaper than a phone call, but that the half of the market which shops at night stops being lost.