SIP trunks for
automobile dealers
For automobile dealerships, the ability to communicate quickly and reliably with customers is mission-critical. One dropped or missed call can mean thousands of dollars in lost profit, and the numbers back that up.
According to the National Automobile Dealers Association, car dealerships can lose roughly $1 million a year simply by failing to follow up with voicemails or mishandling transferred calls. That is why so many dealers are moving away from physical phone lines and toward cloud-based unified communications using SIP trunking.
The constant tension between providing excellent customer service and keeping costs predictable makes SIP trunking a smart choice. SIP trunks for automobile dealers connect your existing PBX to the internet, eliminate per-line PRI costs, and give every location the flexibility to scale up or down on demand.
What is SIP trunking?
Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) trunking is an alternative to traditional physical telephone lines. It enables voice and unified communications over your existing high-speed internet connection, without the need for PRI lines. With a SIP trunk connected to a compatible PBX system, dealership staff can place and receive calls from any phone number. Each SIP trunk supports a number of SIP channels, and the channel count determines how many calls can be active at one time.
The terms SIP and VoIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) are often used interchangeably, but they are not the same. SIP is the technology that makes a VoIP call possible, but SIP channels can handle more than just voice traffic, including fax, video, and messaging.
Benefits of SIP trunking for automotive dealerships
There are several compelling reasons SIP trunking is so popular with dealers. The right SIP trunks for automobile dealers replace aging infrastructure while improving call quality and reliability.
Costs savings
SIP trunking reduces costs for car dealerships by eliminating the expensive PRI (Primary Rate Interface) physical telephone lines and their long-term contracts. And because SIP.US offers a flat monthly rate for all calls to most of the US, your phone bill is significantly lower and more predictable, no matter how many calls you make. You also only pay for the number of channels your location actually needs.
Industry research shows businesses can cut telecom costs by 25% to 65% by switching from legacy PRI lines to SIP trunking.
Flexibility
With SIP trunking, you can easily add more channels as your dealership grows, or cancel ones you no longer need. This lets dealerships scale up or down to meet demand without extra hassle or expense. You can even add lines seasonally if model launches or year-end sales drive higher call volume for a few weeks.
Less IT involvement
IT resources are scarce and expensive for most automotive dealerships. With landlines, you are supporting two separate networks: a telephone network for voice and a data network for internet access. With SIP trunking, you have only one network to manage for all of your voice, data, fax, and other unified communications needs.
10-digit direct numbers
With SIP.US, you can provision separate 10-digit phone numbers for different employees or departments. This increases the flexibility of the call flow for your showroom, service drive, parts counter, and F&I office. If you already have DID numbers or main numbers you want to keep, we can port them to your new SIP trunks.
Disaster recovery
With traditional telephone lines, if a weather event or another emergency prevents employees from getting into the office, your callers are out of luck. With SIP trunking, calls can easily be forwarded to other locations or mobile phones. In addition, SIP.US has redundant data centers, so a problem in one location will not impact your calls.
How are dealerships actually using SIP trunking?
SIP trunks for automobile dealers solve real, day-to-day problems across every department.
Showroom and sales floor
Sales calls are time-sensitive, and buyers often contact several dealerships before deciding where to visit. SIP trunks support direct inward dial (DID) numbers for individual salespeople, ring groups for the floor, and instant transfers between extensions. That means hot leads land with the right person on the first try.
Service drive and BDC
Service and parts are a massive revenue driver. NADA reports that service and parts sales exceed $164 billion, indicating that every missed service call has a measurable cost. SIP trunks let dealerships build call queues, route after-hours service calls to a BDC or voicemail-to-email, and capture call detail records that managers can review for coaching and follow-up.
Multi-rooftop dealer groups
For groups operating multiple locations, SIP trunking connects every rooftop to one unified communications platform. Calls can be transferred between stores, overflow calls can roll to another location during peak hours, and centralized billing simplifies accounting. Adding a newly acquired store to your phone system takes minutes, not weeks.
After-hours and disaster recovery
When the showroom is closed or a storm knocks out local infrastructure, SIP trunking keeps the phones working. Calls automatically reroute to mobile phones, secondary PBXs, or a PSTN failover number, so customers never hit a dead line.
Why SIP.US is the perfect fit for dealerships
There are many advantages of SIP trunking for dealerships like yours. Of course, not all SIP services are the same. SIP.US has built its platform to meet the needs of businesses like automotive dealerships that need to provide outstanding service while keeping costs in check.
FAQs
At the same time car dealers are moving to SIP trunking, many are moving off their physical PBX and choosing a hosted solution. This places the responsibility for managing the system in the vendor's hands and frees your IT team to focus on other priorities. For dealerships that want to keep control over the physical PBX system, there are many low-cost and even free, open-source alternatives available. SIP.US works with all of these options.
If you have an old phone system that is not internet-ready (also called IP-enabled), we may still be able to help your dealership by using an inexpensive device called an ATA (analog telephony adapter). This article explains how in more detail.
Find out how your dealership can benefit from SIP trunking by getting your free trial today.
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Customer feedback
Here is what our customers have to say about working with SIP.US.
Simple Interface.
We were able to get our systems up and running with SIP.US in a matter of minutes using the simple online interface.
Matt Harrison
Elevate Audio Visual
Low cost and good!
It’s easy to be low cost, but it’s a lot harder to be low cost AND good! In my opinion, SIP.US should be on anyone’s short list of primary providers.
Michael Dodds
Doddstech
All the tools I need.
The SIP.US Control Panel gives me all the tools I need to add, change and delete phone numbers. I can even order all the DIDs I need and set them up instantly. I love having access to these self-service tools, but I know the support team is also there if I need additional help.
Colin Cook
Thimble River
Up and running in minutes.
We are able to get our Switchvox systems up and running with SIP.US in a matter of minutes using the simple online interface.
Mike Crockett
BITS Technology
Quality support, low price.
I wasn’t sure how to configure my Asterisk system to work with SIP.US. The SIP team was able to remotely access my system and set it up for me. I didn’t expect that level of support for such a low price.
Greg Galvin
The Galvin Law Group
Fast and easy set-up.
I don’t have any experience with SIP trunking, but connecting my Asterisk PBX to SIP.US was fast and easy.
Eddy Pareja
Sangfroid Web Design
Excellent support.
The reason we moved most of our VOIP to you is because of your excellent support. We moved from another provider but your support makes the extra money well worth it.
Brian Marshman
CEO BMI SmartCloud