How CarTimes increased lead conversions by 20 to 30% with Privyr for Teams

With Privyr, Lenus Choo from CarTimes Singapore improved their lead conversion and simplified the sales process for over 100 team members

Lenus Choo, Head of Marketing at CarTimes Group, has spent over a decade in marketing in Singapore.

Founded in 2001, CarTimes Group started as a used car dealer in Singapore and has since expanded to provide a suite of auto solutions including retail, financing, insurance, parallel imported new cars, repair, maintenance, and servicing. It was acquired by CARSOME Group in 2022, which gave the business additional digital capabilities.

Today, CarTimes has facilitated over 350,000 transactions across their business verticals

Challenge

“We used to have a response time of around 10 days.”

How do you take a traditionally face-to-face business online?

This is the question CarTimes and many businesses had to grapple with during the COVID-19 pandemic, which sent businesses and buyers around the world into isolation for several months, without a clear end to the restrictions.

“Normally, we would meet the customers and the customers would need to see the car, but none of that could happen,” explains Lenus. “As a company, we needed to go digital fast.”

Lenus rose to the challenge and created an array of digital ads that would reach their target audience from the safety of their homes. With multiple ads running from various lead sources, her hard work paid off. She received hundreds, even thousands of leads, which was promising but also brought its own set of challenges.

“Then I had a problem because back then, the team was me alone,” she says.

Every morning, she woke up, sat down in front of her computer, and exported all of her leads from all of her lead sources – by hand. She’d distribute the leads to sales team members in a spreadsheet as fast as she could. Still, she knew they were struggling to achieve the quick outreach that they knew their prospects required.

“We used to have a response time of around 10 days,” she says. “That’s when I thought ‘Maybe I should Google and see if there’s something for me’.”

Discovering Privyr

“Ultimately, the reason why I chose to try this app is because it’s mobile-first.”

In her quest for a solution, Lenus came across Privyr, which offered her the ability to instantly receive leads to her mobile phone and contact them in a few taps – without the time it takes to manually export leads with a spreadsheet.

“I started off with an individual account for myself just to test out its functions,” she says. From the beginning, she loved the way the CRM worked but didn’t know how she would replicate the process for her team. But Privyr for Teams was the game changer for Lenus.

“I realized that with Privyr for Teams, I can actually add people from my team to start receiving the leads instantly,” she says.

Soon, Lenus had half of the sales team testing Privyr, and the feedback was promising. Privyr was easy to use, and they liked that they could use the app to send auto-personalised and customisable sales content like WhatsApp messages.

Solution

“When Privyr for Teams came out, I realised I can actually add people from my team to automatically and instantly receive their leads.”

Getting CarTimes’ sales team to use Privyr wasn’t difficult for Lenus, because the team experienced the benefits firsthand.

“I think they see the usefulness for themselves: the time that they save, and the convenience they have to manage everything through their own mobile phone,” says Lenus.

Because CarTimes has a large sales team and such an intricate lead generation process, Lenus also found the Team Dashboard useful. Team Dashboard is a feature exclusive to Privyr for Teams. With it, they could easily keep track of how quickly team members were reaching out to their leads.

“We would notice if there was any discrepancy. Like, if suddenly the response time went up a lot, we could ask what happened, if this person was on leave or something,” she explains.

Privyr’s Team Dashboard also helps Lenus make sure team members are only taking on the leads that they can handle. Otherwise, team managers like Lenus can easily reassign leads, to keep the team operating efficiently.

“It’s a win for the management side because with the app, we can see report statistics and a lot more data about our team and our performance,” she says.

Lenus’ Story

When the pandemic ended, CarTimes’ sales process kept their mobile-first, digital lead generation methods. Today, Lenus receives the team’s leads from multiple lead sources including Facebook Ads, TikTok Lead Generation, their website, and more.

“The lead generation wasn’t that much of a problem,” she says. “It’s more about how we engage with them after we get them.”

The time after receiving a lead is crucial, and CarTimes knows they must act quickly to engage the prospect while they are most interested. CarTimes’ marketing team sends the leads to the sales team to handle. Their salespeople also provide feedback to the marketers about how qualified the marketers are so they could further optimise the campaigns.

If the lead seems qualified, the CarTimes sales team engages with the lead via WhatsApp, then a phone call. Next, they invite the customer to the showroom for an in-person meeting.

“For new cars, because of the COE bidding which is unique to Singapore, the sales process can take up to three months from the day they inquire until they collect the car,” says Lenus.

Privyr allows CarTimes to instantly receive and contact leads, while Automatic Lead Assignment makes sure that the right lead gets assigned to the right salespeople – very important as CarTimes’ team has so many members.

Results

“We increased lead conversions by 20 to 30%.”

With Privyr, CarTimes successfully increased their lead conversion from 20 to 30%. Lenus also noticed massive improvements in the business’ sales processes.

“With Privyr, what we saw was immediate and automatic lead distribution. The lead is directly assigned to the salesperson and they pick it up immediately,” says Lenus. She gained back the time she used to spend manually assigning leads. Meanwhile, she noticed greatly improved response time from the entire team.

“We saw that we could immediately and automatically assign leads,” says Lenus. “It’s directly assigned to the salesperson and they pick it up immediately.”

As CarTimes’ success grew, Privyr was able to grow alongside the business.

When asked if Privyr is more of a sales or a marketing tool, Lenus finds it hard to say, because in her mind, the two groups have to work so closely together to be successful. Privyr helps bridge the gap between the two.

“Historically, there is always this divide. Sales is sales, and marketing is marketing,” she says, “but with a tool like this, we can actually connect.”

Lenus’ story is just one of many customer successes with Privyr

Start writing your own success story today with Privyr. Don’t have a Privyr account? Create one here.

For more about how sales teams can use Privyr to boost their success, why not check out this article about 4 ways you can automatically assign leads to your team?

Or, if you’re sending out a lot of messages, files, and brochures to your team, maybe you’ll want to learn about how to manage your sales content for your team effectively?