We live in a mobile phone world. The longer it takes your customers to thumb-tap their way to an answer, the more of them are going to abandon your site and never return.
Just like that owl in the old Tootsie Pop commercials asking “How many licks does it take?”, we’re looking at two of our favorite competitors and asking “How many thumb taps does it take?” on this edition of TradePending TV.
TradePending’s Thumb Taps
The TradePending process to get a trade-in estimate takes a person 6-7 thumb taps and takes 10-20 seconds max. It’s fast, and as a result, sees form completion rates upwards of 50-60%.
For this comparison, we’re choosing the “Make and Model” route to get a value, since most people don’t remember their license plate and won’t get off the couch to get their VIN.
How Many Thumb Taps for KBB ICO?
It’s no secret our biggest competitor for a trade tool is Kelley Blue Book’s Instant Cash Offer. If you go through the ICO process on your mobile phone, it requires a minimum of 33 thumb taps and takes 1-5 minutes when you choose the “Make and Model” route, and how detailed you want to get with completing all of the requested information.
That number of thumb taps jumps to over 50 if the customer starts detailing every single scratch the vehicle has. If the customer selects to input a VIN or license plate number, those thumb taps ramp up even higher still.
How Many Thumb Taps for AccuTrade?
AccuTrade provides a similar trade-in tool. Going through the “Make and Model” route requires a minimum of 35 thumb taps, takes around 2-3 minutes, and in this case fails to deliver a final value because they really, really want you to enter the VIN. How freaking frustrating must that be for your customers to do all of that work and then get no final value?
There is a wrinkle here, though. AccuTrade will give the customer a trade-in range after entering basic details, but the customer hasn’t yet entered in any contact information. The customer just looking for a quick trade-in estimate has what they need and now has no reason to enter contact information, and the dealer gets nothing in return, no lead, no email, no phone number to call.
Choose a Trade-in Tool Based Upon Your Strategy
I’ll leave you with a question. What do you want your trade-in tool to do? Do you want it to convert as much website traffic into leads, or do you want it to create a small handful of super leads?
Choose based upon your strategy, but thumb taps and time kill website conversion.
