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Customers expect personalized, relevant marketing from dealerships. But delivering personalization at scale—while balancing multiple departments, tools, and staff members—is often challenging.   

Automotive Marketing Platform powered by VinSolutions simplifies marketing processes, engages customers, and delivers personalized marketing experiences across the ownership lifecycle with advanced data insights, automated workflows, and the hands-on support of a Marketing Account Manager. 

Dealers with Automotive Marketing Platform see an average return of nearly seven times their investment in the tool, based on analysis of VinSolutions dealers with Automotive Marketing Platform powered by VinSolutions from June 2020 to November 2021. 

See for yourself how Automotive Marketing Platform engages shoppers and boosts results. 

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Marketing moves fast. The tools, tactics, and technologies that were effective just a few years ago have given way to new approaches that prioritize personalization. It’s no longer all about the business—it’s about what your business can do for your shoppers. 

Traditional dealership marketing tactics, like birthday cards and purchase anniversary emails, aren’t cutting it anymore. Today’s consumers expect your dealership to provide real value with every interaction. They want personalized, relevant marketing that meets their needs, when they need it.  

Failing to provide the experience shoppers expect means limiting your sales potential. Is your dealership’s marketing meeting consumers’ expectations, or is it holding you back? It isn’t always easy to identify when there might be a problem.  

Whether you think your marketing is doing just fine or you know you have room for improvement, keep reading for six signs that your marketing might be limiting your success. 

1. You’re Seeing Declining Marketing Results  

Let’s start with the most obvious sign first: declining marketing results. Marketing—and the technology that powers personalized customer connections—moves pretty fast. It can be a lot for any dealership marketing team to keep up with constant changes.  

Falling behind the marketing times often results in poor or declining marketing results from your website and digital advertising, fewer calls, less traffic, and fewer unique hits.  

The key to reversing declining marketing results is getting to the true root cause of the problem. Whether the issue is your technology, your messages, the way you’re using your budget, or some combination, identifying specific problem areas is a crucial first step. Making changes—even sweeping ones—when you don’t know what is underperforming probably won’t help.  

2. You’re Having Difficulty Tracking ROI  

A solid understanding of your marketing ROI can give you an accurate, data-driven picture of where you are and where you’re going. It can help you make course corrections and understand what kinds of messages are most effective at engaging your customers. Unfortunately, another sign that your marketing might be holding you back is that you don’t know how your marketing is performing or it is very difficult to track.  

Non-integrated marketing tools make monitoring marketing campaigns cumbersome. It requires pulling information from fragmented systems and compiling and comparing data to determine marketing effectiveness.  

When you streamline your auto dealership software and your marketing vendors, however, you also streamline your ability to monitor your marketing campaigns. You can quickly make changes to poor performing campaigns and make strategic marketing decisions across your entire business. Simplification of systems equals simplification of tracking marketing effectiveness. 

3. You Have a Fragmented, Generic Marketing Approach 

To truly personalize your marketing, you have to rely on tools and data to give you insights about your shoppers. If you have an incomplete view of your consumers, that is impossible to do. Without the right data, you’re forced to deliver disjointed, generic marketing. This type of marketing treats every consumer the same—sending the same standard messages into the universe, hoping that something sticks. 

Using multiple software tools from multiple marketing vendors often creates disjointed marketing messages. These multiple tools and vendors might get the job done in a roundabout way, but they’re also unnecessarily expensive and not very good at communicating or sharing data with each other. 

The solution to disjointed marketing is to streamline your software tools. Rather than trying to balance multiple marketing vendors and tools that don’t speak to each other, find an automotive marketing solution that lets you quickly and easily leverage shopper data to personalize marketing campaigns with relevant and timely content. 

4. You Rely Solely on Third-Party Data 

Many advertising technologies today rely on third-party cookies to find, track, and reach consumers. But many major web browsers—including Google’s popular Chrome browser—have stopped or plan to stop allowing third-party tracking cookies.  

If your automotive marketing solutions rely solely on third-party cookies rather than your own first-party data, your marketing will soon be in trouble. And even before cookies become obsolete, relying on third-party data means you’re missing out on valuable opportunities to personalize shopper journeys and connect online and in-store experiences. 

Fortunately, there is a solution to this problem. While third-party data becomes more regulated and less useful, your dealership’s own customer data (known as first-party data) and the data supplied by partners (known as second-party data) will become more valuable. Using data that your dealership gathers through its own consumer interactions, you can reach specific consumers more effectively with personalized marketing messages.  

To reach a broader population, you’ll want to partner with trusted vendors that integrate with highly visited third-party consumer sites, such as Kelley Blue Book and Autotrader. With a robust set of first- and second-party data, you can smoothly transition away from third-party cookies without losing the ability to personalize your message and marketing approach.   

5. You Have to Manually Execute Everything Yourself  

There’s no way around it; delivering the type of marketing that today’s consumers expect is complicated. Personalizing marketing requires using a variety of data and tools, and doing it all manually and on your own is often a painful experience—for you and your shoppers. If you’re executing all your marketing strategies manually, you’re likely missing out on opportunities to improve efficiency and return.  

Automation is dealership marketer’s friend. By automating your marketing workflows, you can deliver dynamic, proactive, and personalized content to consumers, without having to manually manage and execute every step.  

And because automated marketing content and timing is informed by real-time data about each shopper, you can know that you’re delivering the right message, to the right person, at the right time. Plus, the follow-up for best next steps in reaching out to your shoppers is already in motion. 

Beyond automation, look for vendors who provide experienced marketing support. A marketing account manager—someone who is experienced in the industry—can help ensure your marketing is executed in a way that aligns with your strategy, as well as keep you up to date on best practices and changes in technology.  

A good marketing account manager can help your dealership implement the right tools, get the most out of those tools, and ensure that you’re maximizing your marketing investment—giving you more time to focus on selling cars.  

6. Your Marketing Solution Isn’t Integrated with Your CRM 

When your dealer CRM and marketing tools don’t share data, your sales team can be left in the dark, not knowing what marketing shoppers have seen and engaged with.  

But when your marketing solution integrates with your CRM, your sales team is equipped with more information to help them connect with consumers and close deals. In addition to having shopper data at the ready, your sales team can see all personalized marketing activity that has reached each consumer.  

Instead of having to check both the CRM and a separate marketing tool, robust integration between tools lets your team leverage real-time shopper data and activity directly from the CRM customer record. It streamlines sales workflows and allows your team to be more informed in their conversations and assigned tasks.  

Get More from Your Marketing  

Is your marketing holding you back? Are all the signs and symptoms pointing to lack of personalization and integration in your marketing approach? If so, how do you get back on the path to better profits with more personalized marketing messages meant for each individual shopper?  

A modern marketing solution—one with advanced data insights, automated workflows, seamless CRM integration, and the hands-on support of a marketing account manager—can help you engage buyers by delivering the right message at the right time, every time.

Webinar | Reach Todays Buyer’s with Intelligent Marketing 

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It’s the trifecta of service department success — your customers, your team, your dealership. When your service department prioritizes all three, you win. 

But, how do you triumph in this balancing act? Technology. Specifically, your service scheduling technology. It initiates the entire service experience and brings all three priorities together from the onset.  

So, let’s make sure you have the right solution in place.  

Evaluate your service scheduling technology with the following Q&A, curated to help you deliver the experience expected of your service department, internally and externally, today. Does your technology meet the needs of your customers, your service team, and your dealership? 

Key Consideration 1: Your Customers 

Question: Is there digital-to-in-store continuity for customers?  

Answer: Customers need to see and hear the same service recommendations and pricing at every touchpoint, from booking and check-in to approval and payment. With the right technology, your customers will see the same recommendations with the same quoted price throughout the service process, creating continuity and building trust. 

Question: Can I streamline the customer experience and reduce check-in and wait times?  

Answer: To do so, you need to control the flow of customers into your service department. The right scheduling tool will help you balance your day, reducing bottlenecks during the most sought-after appointment times. Your technology should also facilitate your customers’ ability to make decisions about repairs during the scheduling process. When your customers have every piece of necessary information, including services that are currently due on their vehicles, open recalls, and previously declined services, you can streamline and optimize their experience.  

Question: How do I create a more individualized experience for service customers? 

Answer: Personalize everything — reminders, notifications, and all communications leading up to and throughout the service process. Your technology should even facilitate your ability to greet the customer by name when they pull into the service drive. Personalization increases the quality of customer interactions. 

Question: How can I make the service process easier and more convenient for my customers?  

Answer: In addition to fast appointment booking from anywhere, anytime, your customers need vehicle service to fit into their busy schedules. The ultimate service experience begins with scheduling technology that incorporates transportation options like service pickup and delivery. 

Question: How can I improve the service experience to increase customer satisfaction and retention? 

Answer: Customer satisfaction is a function of convenience, transparency, and trust. Find service technology that facilitates all three to keep customers coming back with advanced capabilities like rideshare or pickup and delivery, and flexible customer financing.

Key Consideration 2: Your Service Team  

Question: What’s the best way to maximize my team’s productivity?  

Answer: Help your service department reach its potential with robust shop management.  
Manage capacity for a steady flow of appointments, balancing your day and reducing peak-time bottlenecks. You service scheduling technology should help you visualize capacity so you can adjust when needed for optimum daily service business, while accounting for the scope of skill-specific services to create an efficient and productive workload for technicians. 

Question: How do I know it’s the right scheduling tool for my team? 

Answer: The right solution will be easy to use, provide helpful support, and boost the efficiency of your team. User-friendly tools include intuitive interfaces that look like the technology your team interacts with in their everyday lives. 

Question: How can I ensure that all service-related calls are answered in a timely fashion and my team isn’t overwhelmed with too many calls?  

Answer: Implement tools that allow customers to quickly schedule service online and communicate with your dealership digitally. These tools should free up time for advisors and technicians to focus on customers. 

Question: Can I help my staff to organize their day and be more efficient? 

Answer: Your team should be able to get a sense of appointments, walk-ins, and waiters to help prioritize and organize their day with a scheduling solution that also allows you to load your shop in a manner that maximizes your service department’s potential. Look for the ability to designate the scope of skill-specific services to create an efficient and productive workload for technicians. 

Question: Is there a way to identify and capture more recalls? 

Answer: Yes — automate recall identification. Your technology should actively search each VIN for open recall campaigns during appointment scheduling, whether it’s done online by the consumer or internally by your team, and at check-in. This functionality identifies all service needs up front, gives your team helpful recall prompts, no matter how busy the service drive, and helps you properly manage capacity to ensure more recall business.  

Key Consideration 3: Your Dealership 

Question: How do I address poor scheduling practices that result in inefficient ROs? 

Answer: Manage shop capacity so that your team can maximize every RO. You may miss out on additional service recommendations if your capacity is not optimized for top performance — find technology to help you place daily caps on your less efficient service work and support your team’s ability to thoroughly inspect each vehicle. 

Question: Should I expect a good return on investment from my scheduling technology? 

Answer: Yes, you certainly should. The key is a scheduling solution that displays previously declined services and open recalls from the outset, so customers can browse options and book and approve services before their vehicle ever arrives at your shop. And, because this information is also visible to service advisors and BDC reps, your technology can help your team quote consistent pricing and keep your service drive running like a well-oiled, profit-producing machine. Convenient transportation options in the scheduling process also help drive your return on investment — a Cox Automotive study showed consumers using service pickup and delivery spent $275 more per RO.  

Question: How do I give my customers the service experience they expect?  

Answer: Driven by interactions with companies like Amazon and Starbucks, today’s customers expect to schedule their service appointment right from their phone with all the information they need at their fingertips. They are busy and appreciate convenience. Your scheduling technology should make online booking fast and easy and provide added time-saving benefits like service pickup and delivery.   

Question: How do I know if my current scheduling solution is outdated? 

Answer: First, confirm the tool you’re using was actually created to facilitate a more efficient, productive, and profitable service drive. For instance, your dealership’s DMS was not meant to function as a scheduling tool and likely keeps you from delivering the digital, convenient service experience your customers expect today. The technology you need will help you control your shop capacity, automatically routing customers to the right advisor and specific services to the right technician. Not only does this promote more efficient workflows and generate additional revenue, it creates happier, more satisfied customers, leading to better online reviews and higher CSI scores.  

Question: Is there a better way to recapture previously declined services and generate additional revenue?  

Answer: Your service scheduling technology should automatically serve up previously declined services at the next customer interaction, reminding customers of recommendations at the beginning of the scheduling process, driving more fixed ops revenue and a better overall customer experience. 

Conclusion 

Your customers. Your team. Your dealership. When your scheduling technology works to elevate all three, you prevail, delivering on performance expectations both internally and externally. The questions above are your thought starters and a means to evaluate your service scheduling technology.   

You can win the trifecta with the right service scheduling technology for your dealership. Book an Xtime Schedule demo today. Let’s get the conversation started. 

VinSolutions’ Connect CRM helps you identify and capture more leads sooner, accelerate the path to purchase, and engage ready-to-buy customers earlier in their car-buying journey — before they ever submit a lead.  

With proprietary technology that incorporates exclusive Cox Automotive consumer insights into your sales processes, you know each shopper’s next move before they make it—so you can guide each person through a distinct buying journey.  

Want to experience these top-notch solutions for yourself? Well, you can create a personalized demo and take a self-guided tour of VinSolutions products that would be most relevant for your dealership. 

It only takes five easy steps:  

Step 1: Click here to access the demo webpage. 

Step 2: Choose the things you care about most to personalize your demo on a scale of very important to not important. 

Step 3: Select “Continue” 

Step 4: Fill out the form with a few pieces of information.  

Step 5: Begin your demo of the VinSolutions products based on your top preferences.  

Create a personalized demo today to see how VinSolutions can provide you with the tools to identify better opportunities sooner, accelerate the purchase process, and improve sales. 

Delivering a customized, flexible car-buying experience is key to getting more car buyers in your dealership pipeline and closing more deals. Consumers prefer a unique, personalized car-buying journey, and successful dealerships are adapting.

You don’t want to be left behind – both you and your consumers deserve better. 

With VinSolutions, you get proprietary technology that incorporates exclusive Cox Automotive consumer insights that no partner in the industry can match. This allows you to know each shopper’s next move before they make it, allowing you to:

• Guide each customer through a distinct buying journey
• Streamline each interaction with flexible, integrated solutions
• Find shoppers who are nine times more likely to buy*

Watch our new video to see how you can use VinSolutions to access unmatched data, improve your sales processes, and guide each person through a distinct buying journey.

• *VinSolutions Connect Automotive Intelligence Data predictions for 30 days prior to purchase from September 2022 – March 2023

When you stitch together technology, you don’t get the complete consumer view nor the data you need to win in today’s market.  You need a solution that enables you to create next-level consumer experiences and elevate profits with efficiencies across all departments. VinSolutions is part of a powerful set of solutions from Cox Automotive that helps sales, marketing, service, and operations at your dealership stay in sync. Here is a preview of some of the capabilities to make sure you win in today’s market. 

Capitalize on Your Data  

With proprietary technology that incorporates first-party Cox Automotive behavioral data from Autotrader, Kelley Blue Book, and Dealer.com, you can identify shoppers who are 15 times more likely to buy.* With VinSolutions, you’ll know each shopper’s next move before they make it — so you can guide each person through their personalized buying journey. 

VinSolutions digital sales tools, including Connect CRM and Connect Automotive Intelligence, enable you to capitalize on your data and find in-market shoppers with real-time insights before they submit a lead. You can meet consumers where they are in their car-buying journey, accelerate the path to purchase, and improve the shopper experience.   

Personalize Every Consumer Interaction 

74% of consumers say that a personalized experience at dealership is important.** With actionable consumer insights from VinSolutions, including the make and model of interest, you can deliver a personalized experience to every shopper.  This actionable consumer data gives you an in-depth understanding of your shoppers’ interests and intents, so you can personalize the sales process and accelerate the path to purchase.  

Automotive Marketing Platform powered by VinSolutions, which integrates with Connect CRM, uses advanced data insights so you can send 1:1 marketing messages to engage shoppers better and deliver personalized marketing experiences at scale. 

Streamline the Buying Process for Shoppers  

In the end, isn’t it all about a streamlined, convenient, and flexible buying process for shoppers? Vinessa Virtual Assistant helps you respond to shopper questions 24/7 and capture after-hours internet leads. Vinessa can automate key sales tasks, including responding to consumers via text and email, setting appointments, and scheduling follow-up tasks. At the same time, salespeople can focus their energy on ready-to-buy shoppers. 

Creating a connected, cohesive car-buying experience is essential, whether shoppers are finalizing the deal in-store, online, or some combination. But many shoppers are forced to restart their deal-making process every time they interact with the dealership. Connect Desking streamlines the buying process through integration with Cox Automotive Digital Retailing solution Accelerate My Deal, which brings online deal information directly into the CRM so you can always pick up where you left off.  

*VinSolutions Connect Automotive Intelligence Data predictions for 30 days prior to purchase in Aug 2020–Feb 2021 

**2019 VinSolutions Technology & Transformation of Retail Study 

The keys to service department profitability are efficiency and a superior customer experience. You can achieve both when you unlock the power of your service teams. Xtime is the partner that boosts the efficiency of your technicians and advisors, while creating the service experience your customers demand and additional revenue for your dealership.

Dial up your service team to boost profits—to the tune of $123 more per repair order.

With the help of Xtime, you can build customer transparency and trust. Using innovative technology across the service experience—including online appointment booking, self-check-in, and online approvals and payment—you can:

• Satisfy consumer demand for a convenient service experience
• Boost revenue and shop efficiency
• Maximize your service department potential

Watch this video to see how you can unlock the power of your service teams to maximize the opportunity of every RO and build a second-to-none service experience that can make you more money.

VIEW YOUR PERSONALIZED DEMO

Create a custom demo to see how Xtime helps you deliver the ultimate service experience for better retention, more dollars per RO, faster approvals, and higher profits.

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