The pandemic accelerated the rate of consumer adoption for many online shopping experiences, from ordering takeout to buying groceries. Automotive retail was no exception as car buyers showed increased interest in shopping and purchasing cars online. In this session, we’ll discuss the new and evolving expectations of your digital retail shoppers. You’ll learn how to adjust your processes, make better customer connections, and close more deals. For example, we’ll teach you how to send shoppers links that they can use to build their own deals and how you can complete those deals with eContracting.
The latest marketing solutions in the automotive industry are more data-driven than before, and leveraging first-party consumer data is the best way to create a shopping experience that’s more flexible, personalized, and customized for shoppers.
In this podcast, Mike Shean, Senior Manager of Product at Cox Automotive, discusses how Cox’s digital marketing solutions use auto shopper insights from Kelly Blue Book and Autotrader that allow dealers to more accurately predict customer behavior to get the most opportunity.
Every year, new technologies make the car buying process better. As the new year approaches, the latest technological advancements in the automotive industry have the potential to change the way consumers shop, and dealers do business.
At NADA 2022 in Las Vegas, you can get a sneak peek at these new technology trends and learn how dealerships are already benefiting from tomorrow’s technology today.
Predictive Consumer Insights
Today’s consumers spend the majority of their in-market shopping time online. They visit dealership websites and third-party sites that help them research vehicles and narrow down their options. And as they do so, they leave behind clues about their buying interests and intent.
Today’s successful dealers are uncovering those clues and using them to meet consumers on their purchase path. With the right tools, dealerships can identify how likely a consumer is to buy and the vehicle they are most likely to buy—before the shopper ever submits a lead. VinSolutions’ auto dealer CRM and suite of supporting solutions help dealers leverage exclusive Cox Automotive consumer data, including data from Dealer.com websites, Autotrader, and Kelley Blue Book, to identify shoppers that are 15 times more likely to buy*—before the competition.
Personalized, Relevant Marketing Messages
Modern consumers want an individualized car buying experience, and that includes personalized, relevant marketing that’s tailored to their specific interests. But delivering this kind of personalization to every consumer in a cost-effective way is a tall task for any dealership.
Advanced marketing tools can do a lot of the heavy lifting for dealerships. Automotive Marketing Platform powered by VinSolutions uses proprietary data and technology to engage consumers with targeted, personalized marketing. The tool also integrates with VinSolutions’ car dealer CRM, which helps simplify and automate the entire process for dealers. By using intelligent, automated workflows, VinSolutions helps dealers deliver the right message at a time when each consumer is most likely to take action.
Always-On Virtual Assistant Technology
As more consumers shop outside of normal business hours, dealerships need to be ready to connect with shoppers at any time—all hours of the day or night. But with a dealership’s limited resources, connecting with every shopper at all times manually is virtually impossible.
With new technology, your salespeople don’t have to answer every consumer message themselves. Virtual assistant technology can take on many tasks, increasing customer engagement and improving sales team productivity. VinSolutions Vinessa Virtual Assistant automates key sales tasks, including responding to consumers via text and email, setting appointments, and scheduling follow-up tasks, when team members aren’t available. Vinessa is fully integrated with Connect CRM, which helps dealership sales teams capture more opportunities by giving them more information about consumers, even when they can’t be there in person.
Connected Dealership Technology
New technology, by itself, can only take a dealership so far. To be truly effective, today’s technologies have to work together to facilitate communication between departments and bring together all aspects of a dealership’s operational objectives.
Technologies that combine workflows across sales, service, marketing, and operations can bring an entire dealership in sync, enabling increases in efficiency and elevating the entire consumer experience. Cox Automotive has increased the level of connection between its products and now offers a unique set of solutions that leverages first-party transactional data from trusted consumer automotive platforms—Autotrader and Kelley Blue Book. With connected technologies, unmatched proprietary data, and performance experts focused on dealer needs, the connected suite facilitates workflows across departments and enables dealers to deliver next-level consumer experiences.
Even as car sales becomes more complex, the rule for winning consumers is simple. When you know more, you win more. These new technologies can help dealers increase their consumer knowledge and sustain an advantage over the competition to win more deals.
*Source: VinSolutions Connect Automotive Intelligence Data predictions for 30 days prior to purchase in Aug 2020–Feb 2021
The new year is a natural time to think about improvement and productivity. How do you plan to dial up more efficiency in your service department and drive more profit? For many dealers, it may mean adding new tools and technologies that promote time savings, smoother processes, dealership customer retention, and help grow market share.
While dealer service department market share is up one percent since 2018 and dealerships continue to be the most used service provider, according to the 2021 Cox Automotive Service Industry Study, there is a lot of room for growth and improvement — and $214 billion in revenue available to capture.
Let’s explore some technology trends that can help you to increase your team’s productivity and make your service department more profitable in the upcoming year.
Streamlining and Automation
Parts delays and staffing troubles are the two biggest operational hurdles in the service department. Take a look at your quoting processes to determine where you can give your team a hand and boost their efficiency. Do they know when parts are available? Where are your opportunities to add speed and accuracy?
Chances are, your team (and your profits) would appreciate technology that helps eliminate duplicate data entry, saves time and the hassle of third-party lookups, supports quoting the right price to customers every time, gives your team the power to manage your service catalog, and keeps them up to date on part stocking status. Look for a single solution source that helps you streamline and automate in 2022.
Enhanced Digital Service Capabilities
The long time it takes to have repairs or maintenance completed is the number one frustration among service customers. The fact that those who don’t wait at the dealership spend more on repair orders shows that eliminating waiting room time may increase your profitability.
To capitalize on this opportunity, look for solutions in 2022 that continue to transform the service experience from in-person to fully virtual interactions. Some features to consider include customer online capabilities for check in, checkout, payment, securing financing, and choosing transportation. Consider tablet enabled technology that can aid your service advisors’ ability to deliver a digital service lane experience.
Pickup and Delivery Services
Convenience is the customer side of the service department efficiency coin. And service pickup and delivery are the ultimate in customer convenience, which makes it highly desirable — 89 percent of consumers are more likely to choose one dealership over another based on its availability.
Service pickup and delivery allows your customers to service their vehicles without ever leaving the home or office. It also provides dealers with an opportunity for additional revenue as they elevate the fixed ops experience to retain customers and increase profitability, with 51 percent of consumers completing more services when utilizing service pickup and delivery.
Consider solutions that make it easy for the vehicle owner to request and schedule pickup or delivery. It is as much about your efficiency as it is customer convenience because the right solution will also help you manage the complex logistics of an increasingly digital service experience.
Multimedia Driven Communications
Thriving dealerships provide customers the opportunity to review and approve estimates online. But how do you build the trust necessary for them to say yes, digitally? You do it with pictures and video.
Emerging multimedia technologies allow you to develop that trust through transparency, improve the customer experience, and make it easy for the customer to approve recommendations. Xtime’s Enhanced Multi-Media users saw an 82 percent dollar per RO uplift when using video.
Connected Technologies
With all the complex systems and processes that make up your dealership, there’s no better way to increase efficiency than to build connections between various tools and technologies in 2022.
Because when your marketing, sales, service, and operations are all in sync, you win.
Evaluate technology by its ability to help you drive real growth. Implement a solution that will help you create next-level consumer experiences and elevate your profits with unrivaled insights — generating efficiencies across all departments.
Conclusion
As we enter the new year, take time to assess your dealership’s technology and decide how the latest tech trends might help your team service more vehicles in less time while maximizing every repair order opportunity and capturing more market share. To learn more about how new technology can dial up your service team in 2022, visit us at NADA.
Does it feel like your auto dealer CRM is slowly dying, infected with dirty data and outdated processes? Does it feel like it might be easier to switch systems, putting your old CRM out of its misery instead of cleaning up your data?
Join Jesse Gray, Performance Manager at VinSolutions, as he teaches you a set of simple steps for making your CRM cleaner—and more useful—right now. You’ll see how processes like fuzzy matching can get rid of dirty data and identify potential duplicate customers on the way to updated processes.
Learn how VinSolutions can help you find better data, better leads, and better deals.
Is accountability a scary word at your dealership, or is it a driver of performance and improvement? If you’re afraid to evaluate and incentivize the performance of your management team, they’re probably not serving your customers or building your business as effectively as they could.
Join Clint Carr, Sr. Performance Consultant at VinSolutions, to learn how top-performing dealerships utilize VinSolutions to track, manage, and improve business performance. Along the way, you’ll discover how to use accountability to inspire confidence, improve collaboration, and increase cashflow.
Learn how VinSolutions can help you find better data, better leads, and better deals.
Dealer service departments are resilient. Despite major industry challenges, dealer service center market share is up 1% since 2018 and dealership service departments continue to be most used service provider, according to the 2021 Cox Automotive Service Industry Study. But there is a lot of room for growth and improvement, and a lot of potential revenue ($214 billion) still up for grabs.
Tracy Fred, Tracy Fred, VP Operations — Dealer Sales and Service Solutions, sat down with CBT News to discuss the 2021 Cox Automotive Service Industry Study and how dealerships can have a consumer-first focus to increase revenue. Specifically, she discussed how dealerships can:
Better leverage digital tools to meet and exceed modern consumer expectations
Overcome barriers that prevent consumers from returning to dealer service departments
Offset operational challenges by creating convenient consumer experiences
Strengthen consumer relationships by offering and promoting digital tools and services
By improving the consumer experience, dealer service departments can overcome industry challenges and common consumer frustrations to increase revenue and attract new customers. To learn more about how your dealership can have a consumer-first mindset, download the complete 2021 Cox Automotive Service Industry Study.
If you missed the Dealer User Summit 2021, we’ve got you covered. Here are a few of the highlights. One common theme that really stood out? The most successful dealerships all have a heavy focus on fixed operations.
Leverage Fixed Operations to Keep Profits High While Inventory is Low
Today’s inventory shortage challenges call for a comprehensive, cross-departmental strategy. Your service department, in particular, can be a rich resource for sourcing and selling vehicles.
During the event, Tiffani Stefanescu, Senior Performance Manager with Cox Automotive, discussed ways to leverage Xtime to address inventory shortages and acquire used cars. She walked through how to effectively promote used car purchases, identify and reach out to trade-in prospects, and get notified when those prospects are in for service.
The Habits of High-Performing Fixed Ops Dealerships
Forming good dealership habits takes time, but making changes now to build a strong workplace culture and embrace technology can help you build a world-class service experience.
Gerald Gregory, manager of Performance Management at Xtime, shared the specific habits, techniques, and practices that separate good service departments from great ones. He taught how to anticipate future needs and make changes to provide the experience and culture your customers want.
Digitize Your Customer Experience to Increase Customer Satisfaction
Every year, customers become more tech savvy, more interested in digital experiences, and more likely to manage vehicle service online. So every year your service department does nothing to adapt, it risks falling behind.
In his session, Matt Hamby, Senior Performance Consultant at Xtime, displayed Xtime’s ability to help you overcome daily inefficiencies and give your customers and staff a modern, world-class digital experience. Atendees learned how to change their client experience to achieve higher retention levels and greater profits.
See! You don’t have to miss a thing. When you’re ready, our experts will show you how to digitize the service experience and improve customer satisfaction to earn more revenue from your service department.
You’ve witnessed the first phase of digital transformation. With more personalization and more options, there are more ways than ever before to meet the needs of today’s consumers. Deliver a great experience—no matter which purchase path your buyers choose—with a comprehensive suite of digital tools.
Download this ebook for the new rules of engagement when interacting with customers during the car-buying process. You’ll learn the best practices and technology tips for engaging customers and closing more deals in today’s digital-first retail environment.
