ChannelVantage will score GM’s online customer leads by their propensity to buy in a matter of sec

Urban Science, a global retail consulting firm, announced today that it has launched its second generation, comprehensive lead qualification (scoring) solution. Urban Science’s wholly owned subsidiary, ChannelVantage, will roll out the lead scoring portion of the solution with General Motors this spring.

ChannelVantage will score GM’s online customer leads by their propensity to buy in a matter of seconds, providing GM dealers with a prioritized list of vehicle buyers versus tire-kickers. “We get thousands of internet leads every month. Without a way to identify the serious buyers, our dealers have no choice but to treat each lead the same, and to spend the same effort on each lead,” said Lisa Grutta, Manager- Retail Internet Strategy. “With ChannelVantage’s lead qualification solution, we will have a method for telling our dealers who the buyers are so they can focus their time and marketing effort with a real opportunity to make a sale.”

Urban Science has been a leading provider of lead qualification solutions since 2001 for automotive and financial services clients in the U.S. and Japan. Building on six years of experience, the company has doubled the accuracy of its lead qualification models, providing their clients with superior results and expert consulting services to effectively prioritize leads for treatment differentiation. Their end-to-end lead qualification and reporting solution collects, scores, and assigns different treatment to leads from the internet or other channels; distributes those leads to the right part of the organization for follow-up; and provides full reporting on everything from the number of leads delivered, to the marketing actions taken, to close rate analysis.

Urban Science’s lead qualification solution is powered by its proprietary, award-winning GainSmarts® data mining tool, twice recognized as superior to the competition in the leading Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery competition in the world – the KDD cup competition.

“The automotive industry is allocating an increasing percentage of its resources to generate and manage leads. Recognizing and prioritizing those leads for automotive dealers, or any retailer for that matter, is a natural progression in improving retail effectiveness,” said Jim Anderson, President and Chief Executive Officer of Urban Science. “We are proud that our experience and proven track record have allowed us to add GM to our growing roster of clients in this area.”

Founded in 1977, Urban Science takes a scientific-based approach to help companies identify where they should allocate resources in order to increase market share and profitability in the most effective and efficient manner. With headquarters in Detroit, Urban Science serves its global clientele from offices in the United States, Spain, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Australia, China, Mexico and Japan. For more information on Urban Science, visit www.urbanscience.com.