Your service department’s name says it all. Yes, you’re in the vehicle service industry, but you’re also in the customer service business, and your customers expect a streamlined, top-of-the-line service experience. Join Xtime Performance Manager Tiffani Stefanescu, with special guest Patti Tremonti, managing partner at MTN Automotive Training Systems, for a webinar all about improving the customer experience with Xtime. Topics include: making appointment scheduling seamless for customers, best practices for greeting service appointment customers, keeping the customer updated and satisfied while their vehicle is being worked on and effective follow-up steps to keep the customer coming back and increase retention.
By Heather Ellis, Dealer.com AVP of Dealer Marketing
The auto industry often talks about the idea of being “better” in the market, but in truth there still is a lot of work to do to before automotive can catch up with other verticals. Time and again, “better” is a marathon and not a sprint. It is a continual, ongoing drive to fix what is broken, an unrelenting desire to push and to optimize.
It’s not easy to unwind the nuances of automotive digital marketing, and no one-size-fits-all playbook exists to address the myriad challenges across all tiers of the marketplace. We are seeing an industry-wide common goal to create advertising programs that spend less and sell more, and ultimately move closer toward a trusted digital experience across the board.
To accomplish this, it is imperative for both OEMs and dealerships to have the best consumer data at their disposal, and arguably it is even more important to know what to do with it. By harnessing the right data into the right insights, OEMs and dealers can work more efficiently to eradicate overmarketing and instead target their advertising to go directly where there is demand.
Leading with first-party and audience data, maximized through strategic partnerships, results in improved connectivity that dives deeper and provides a crisper, clearer view of consumers to help automotive companies cut through the noise and propel the entire industry forward.
Advertising strategy is complex and the market is ever-changing. Traditional advertising is not as effective as it used to be, and infinite other channels are competing for consumer attention. Failing to utilize a data-driven, multichannel strategy, dealers decrease the leads they generate by an astounding 164%, according to the Dealer.com Advertising Product Summary.
The most successful dealers utilize a multichannel marketing strategy and approach auto advertising based on their unique goals. They can identify and target qualified audiences at the right time with the right message, to sell more cars profitably and deliver a superior dealership experience. At a time when inventory is tighter than ever, having an automated platform can help dealers instantly recommend the best match for their customers from current inventory without any manual input.
That real-time targeting can only be fueled by first-party data across different channels. The right advertising maximizes return on investment by connecting real-time data across channels, and increasing website traffic, quality visits, engagement, and conversions.
In this changing landscape of consumer demand, industry players will discover the solutions lie in working together toward a common goal to sell more cars and make more profits. To help get there, we should continually align the necessary jobs, prioritize them, and check them off one by one. We are going to have to adapt and change the way we do business to combat industry challenges using our best and brightest resources.
Once the industry understands that the best solutions focus on activating based on behaviors and audiences first, and then matching channels, tactics and messages to that secondly — that is when the auto industry will be firmly on its path to “better,” finally starting to catch up with other verticals slaying the marketing game.
There is an accelerated need in the auto industry for innovation and focus on the total consumer experience, a practice that is now commonplace in other industries — including first-visit personalization and first-party data application. OEMs and dealerships will celebrate success and collectively win when there is a common focus on the end consumer, and collective work to solve their problems.
Ultimately, we all want an experience that’s efficient, productive, and complete, so it’s imperative to find the right partner offering the advertising solutions that deliver that level of flexibility and transparency.
A version of this article originally appeared in Auto Remarketing.
By Noah Lee, Director of Sales Engineering for Dealer.com
Used-vehicle inventory levels are at the lowest point in almost nine years. Twenty years from now, economists will not have much difficulty explaining what happened. A confluence of factors, starting with the semiconductor shortage and pandemic-induced consumer behavior changes, upended supply and demand.
With fleet and rental car providers scrambling to regrow fleets, and consumers leasing less because of rising costs associated with supply constraints, reliable channels for used vehicles have dried up. Based on current forecasts, it doesn’t appear 2022 will offer much of a respite.
The market conditions that restrained the used-car market show no signs of reversing soon, with U.S. new-car production reduced by 3.4 million units in 2021. During this period of lean inventory, dealers have looked beyond traditional methods for acquiring inventory, in many ways transforming the fundamentals of auto retailing.
To withstand the used-car shortage expected in 2022, dealers must consider sourcing vehicles outside of the traditional box and through channels beyond billboard and TV advertising.
Service Bay as an Inventory Source
For many consumers, dealerships are points of service. And with used cars appreciating in value during 2021, dealerships should expect that most customers will elect for repairs, as fixing a used car likely is more economical than trading it in for a new one.
Nevertheless, dealerships cannot discount the service bay as an opportunity for inventory. Dealers should be identifying weary customers who may not be ready to take on a large repair bill. With appointment management platforms, used-car managers can easily track upcoming service appointments, proactively looking for vehicle owners who are likely to trade or sell their cars. They also can tailor their search to target customers with high-demand used cars to maximize inventory. This type of technology helps find the needle—a.k.a., your inventory—in the haystack much faster.
The rise of ecommerce in the auto industry has led many to question the role of physical dealerships. However, their relevance remains clear. There always will be a segment of the population who wants to test-drive a car before making a purchase, and dealerships are still a “go-to” when it comes to repairs.
By servicing cars already owned by consumers, dealerships have a whole ledger of used vehicles that could serve as potential inventory in 2022. Used-car managers must be proactive and precise to take advantage of this valuable data.
Customers as Sellers
During times of economic uncertainty, there is an urge for dealerships to cut advertising. But when dealers are competing with each other and consumers at the same time for used cars, they run the risk of empty lots.
If used-car managers hope to fill lots, they must consider “We’ll Buy Your Vehicle” auto advertising, leveraging the dealer’s website to promote the purchase of used vehicles. With modern platforms, dealers can brand and proactively market their car-buying processes using banners and website landing pages.
Data is King
Many dealers are sitting on troves of valuable customer data that can optimize their automotive digital marketing. Data-driven dealerships can establish campaigns to source inventory from customers who have high interest rates, substantial equity, or a history of frequent repair. Though few and far between, off-lease vehicles also remain attractive and can help boost dealership inventories.
With the right data points, dealerships can create personalized content that informs consumers about selling their current car to the dealer quickly and without friction.
Undoubtedly, dealerships are facing precarious times. To succeed, they must be savvy to the habits and needs of their buyers while remaining the trusted, go-to resource for existing customers who are in a prime position to sell their cars. Ultimately, the goal is to help used-car buyers understand that they have options, and there is no need to settle when it comes to making a purchase.
Now is the time for dealerships to leverage the latest tactics, tools and tech to help expand their inventory with more options, enhance the used-car buying journey, and help buyers forget all about the inventory shortage—because they got a fair deal and the car they wanted.
A version of this article originally appeared in CBT News.
When was the last time you took a close look at your CRM?
As priorities in the auto retail industry and within your dealership change, the way you use the CRM and other sales tools at your dealership should also change.
But there can be a lot of factors to consider when examining a tool as complex as a CRM and figuring out exactly what to do can be a monumental task.
In this webinar, Mark Vickery, Senior Director of Performance Management for Cox Automotive, will share actionable tips for evaluating your CRM, including key questions to ask and strategies for spotting gaps.
Watch the webinar for tips on reevaluating your sales tools.
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.
