Xtime Performance Manager Tiffani Stefanescu provides a step-by-step overview to help you and your team create well-organized, professional video walkarounds, with tips for preparing for your presentation, looking professional for the customer, and useful talk tracks.
At Dealer.com we believe partnership and accountability are key to lasting success at your dealership.
That’s why we have a talented team of Performance Managers to offer expert digital marketing for car dealers. From delivering monthly insights to tweak your short-term digital marketing strategy, to ensuring you’re using our technology to seize every opportunity, your Performance Manager is always focused on your success.
Are you already a Dealer.com and want to know how to best partner with your Performance Manager? Or are you thinking about partnering with the only end-to-end digital marketing in the industry? Here’s an overview of how our digital marketing experts can give you the tools to run a successful dealership.
What to Expect
You can expect your Digital Storefront Performance Manager to work with your team to show you the dos and don’ts of digital marketing and retailing, the strategies that drive sales, and the winning formulas that have worked with other dealers. With Dealer.com, you get
The Power of True Digital Marketing Partnership
Your Digital Storefront Performance Manager is always focused on your dealership’s success. Through regular consultation meetings, you get expert digital marketing and digital retailing advice and insights to customize your digital marketing strategy and ensure that you’re getting the most out of your solution to seize every sales opportunity.
“We could not be happier with our experience from the website management to the automotive digital advertising. But most importantly the genuine team effort that our Performance Managers bring to the table.”
Kara Berry Marketing & Communications Coordinator, Keller Ford, Michigan
Get The Most from Performance Management
With an average of at least three years of experience in automotive sales, Digital Storefront Performance Managers deliver digital marketing expertise, unrivaled industry knowledge, and a unique understanding of Cox Automotive technologies to help you run a successful digital dealership. Follow a dedicated support model with a team comprised of directors, managers, and digital marketers committed to implementing strategy changes.
Ready to put the power and expertise of our Digital Storefront Performance Managers to work for your dealership? Schedule a consultation today.
At Napleton Auto Group, a five-store dealership in Wisconsin and Illinois, people come first. It’s not just a slogan. The auto group sincerely believes that when you put people first — customers and staff alike — success follows. Customers return regularly, and employees find fulfillment in the workplace.
Napleton goes the extra mile to implement a proven people-first plan. They support their team with the right tools and time-saving technology to ensure high customer satisfaction, transparency, and trust.
Time-saving Technology
As a company that respects their customers’ time, Napleton Auto Group wanted a service technology that would give customers more control over their experience — a technology that would allow customers to quickly and easily schedule a service appointment directly from the dealership website.
Napleton turned to Xtime to save time and simplify the service scheduling process. Giving customers the ability to book appointments on their own terms has provided the auto group more control of workflow and shop capacity, ensuring a speedy, highly efficient service experience. Napleton also uses Xtime to send service recommendations with pictures and video, streamlining the approval and payment process, further growing efficiencies.
Above and beyond the conveniences and advantages of the technology alone, Napleton Auto Group appreciates Xtime’s commitment to their success. Helpful sales reps and performance managers go out of their way to answer questions and provide key time-saving employee support — savings that eventually gets passed along to appreciative customers.
“If they don’t have the answer to all my questions, they know someone who does,” said Danny Randolph, President/Co-Owner of Napleton Auto Group. “It’s always easy to get an answer in the right amount of time in order for us to make quick decisions.”
Ensuring Satisfaction
“The customer comes first” has always been the first rule and the first step toward a successful sales and service strategy. But it’s also easier said than done. When push comes to shove, it’s easy to sacrifice service experience in favor of convenience. But Napleton Auto Group believes dealerships can do both.
With Xtime, customers get personalized check-ins, tablet reception, and the ability to review and approve service recommendations based on pictures and videos. All of these features work together to create the kind of service experience customers seek out. They build transparency into the service process, which in turn grows customer trust in your service department.
“Let’s be honest, car dealerships in past generations haven’t had the best reputation,” said Danny. “I think that’s really starting to change these days through trust and transparency. When you leverage systems like this that lay everything out for the customers … they trust it and they trust us more when we utilize tools like (Xtime).”
Thanks to Xtime, Napleton’s service employees are more engaged, and workflows are easier to manage while they provide a better service experience for customers. This focus on providing a superior service experience has resulted in more billable hours that have really added up and a faster, more efficient service experience for the auto group.
With the help of Xtime and connected Cox Automotive technologies, Napleton Auto Group continues to find success by taking care of their most important asset — people. Integrations between technologies save time, improve ease-of-use, and ensure a superior sales and service experience for customers and employees alike.
Ready to save time and give your customers a superior service experience like Napleton Auto Group? Book a demo to see how Xtime can help your dealership put your people first.
VinSolutions Performance Manager David Basil explains how Connect Automotive Intelligence helps you accelerate the path to purchase with Buying Signals that show you relevant vehicle recommendations that lead customers to the right car, sooner.
Learn more ways Connect Automotive Intelligence delivers unmatched insights that can help your dealership uncover more leads and improve the customer experience below.
Change isn’t always easy, but it can be managed. You’ve put in a lot of work to select the technology your service department needs to drive revenue, generate a return on investment, and give your customers a fully digital service experience.
Now it’s time to implement the technology. Use this guide to lead a successful service technology transition at your dealership. For a smoother process and buy-in across your dealership, we’ll walk you through four important actions to take leading up to your technology launch:
Discuss
Designate Ambassadors
Define Milestones
Support & Sustain
When it’s time to invest in technology, you do due diligence to fully understand what you need so that you purchase the right technology. The research and purchase of a software solution for your service department requires the same.
With the right internal team gathered, there are specific questions you need to address and discussions that will help you determine what you actually need your technology solution to provide for your dealership. And when it’s time to demo, there are specific inquiries you need to make of the solution vendor.
Section one of this checklist will help guide your internal team conversations to outline your requirements.
Section two will help you address your requirements with the service technologies you consider.
There is a lot that goes into the decision to purchase technology, or change the technology, in your service department. So, you need to be absolutely certain before you select and install new software. We want to help you find the solution that delivers what you need.
This buyer’s kit is the key to finding the best solution for your service department:
Seven questions to ask yourself when evaluating new service lane technology
Demo checklist for service technology platforms
Customizable PowerPoint to guide the conversation with your stakeholders
Customer retention is key to your dealership. To keep your customers coming back through multiple stages of vehicle ownership, you must find ways to convert sales customers to service customers, and vice versa. It’s the cycle of dealership success.
Join special guest Kyle Mountsier, Partner/COO at Automotive State of the Union, and Tiffani Stefanescu, Manager of Performance Management at Xtime, to learn how you can leverage Xtime solutions to own customer retention. Webinar topics will include:
• Setting up your service department as a customer acquisition channel
• Communication tips to improve the customer experience
• Improving the sales-to-service handoff
Finding innovations to help your service department stay efficient can pay big dividends to your dealership. To give you a head start in your hunt for the most impactful technologies, check out these trends, specifically meant to help you get more cars through the service lane faster, make it easy for customers to say yes to recommendations, and drive profits in 2023 and beyond. (Experience the Power of One and schedule your Xtime demo at NADA 2023 today.)
Technologies that Build Trust
Trust might be the single most important factor in the car owner-service department relationship. Your customers trust you to provide recommended repairs and follow through on your promises. When trust (and more specifically, information) is lacking, your customers will find another place to service their cars. Technologies that can help you bridge this information gap and build trust between customers can bring in more business, improve retention, and increase your service department’s overall profitability.
Starting with the very beginning of the service relationship, look for technologies that can help you create uniformity in your quoting process. When customers get a different quote for the same service, every time they contact your service department, they may question your intentions, even if they’re good. Technology that allows you to store quotes in your system, while also allowing you to convert those quotes into appointments, creates consistency, accuracy, and helps you build trust with your customers.
When it comes to the actual inspection and repair approval process, trust is paramount. Seek out technologies that break down barriers between what you and your customers can (and can’t) see. Leverage everyday devices that are already in your customers’ hands to give them an inside look at the repair process. Use technologies that facilitate sending pictures and video of needed repairs, along with ASR approvals. Doing so can help you foster a healthier, more trusting relationship with your customers and get more ASRs approved faster.
Technologies that Maximize Service Capacity
Every dealer service department can diagnose and repair a vehicle. Those service departments that optimize available time and technician talent to service more cars in less time are significantly more profitable. It’s a balancing act that favors prepared, well-organized service departments. In 2023, look for technologies that allow you to maximize every service minute and get the very most out of your team and your service department.
Start with your scheduling technology. Are you overselling or underselling shop capacity? Do you have peak bottleneck times, followed by periods of downtime for your team? Find a scheduling software that can help your team optimize service capacity and enjoy a smoother service experience — for your team as well as your customers. That might mean incorporating technologies like text confirmations and reminders and vehicle history, so you can keep cars flowing through the service lane with minimal complications or interruptions.
When it comes to interacting with customers, a fully digital service experience from booking to payment, can free up your advisors and technicians time and help you optimize your service capacity. In addition, a digital multipoint inspection process can help you maximize your shop control and identify additional revenue opportunities in less time. If you’re feeling understaffed in your service department, you might not need to hire new employees, you might just need a service technology that can help you get the most out of the talent you already have.
As you consider new technologies to grow profits in 2023, your service department is key. Find and incorporate solutions that can help you build trust with your customers and maximize your service capacity.
When you pair the right service technology with a great service team, you get more cars through the service lane faster, make it easy for customers to say yes to recommendations, and drive profits for your dealership.
Tiffani Stefanescu is feeling the holiday spirit and so should your dealership! Whether you’re trying to advertise your holiday promotions, or you just want to let your customers know how thankful you are for their business, Xtime Invite can help you get the word out.
