Current inventory shortages have caused dealers to look inward to find other sources of revenue. The most natural place for most dealers to look is the fixed ops department, which accounts for about half of the average dealer’s revenue, but only about 1/10 of the overall marketing focus.
Dana Ayer, manager of Performance Management at Dealer.com, recently spoke to dealers about how to find hidden profits through fixed ops merchandising. He shared how dealers can increase customer engagement, boost auto sales leads, and drive revenue with the right fixed ops messaging. Key takeaways from the presentation included:
A review of current market challenges and why fixed operations can increase profits
What vehicle owners expect from dealerships and their fixed operations departments
Fixed ops improvements that have been most impactful for thriving dealers
Best auto dealer marketing practices to get the most out of your fixed ops merchandising
Watch the webinar to see how your dealership can drive operational efficiencies, outpace your competitors, and improve profits by amplifying your fixed ops messaging.
Half of a consumer’s decision to repurchase or recommend an automotive brand or dealer is based on trust. While dealerships and car salespeople have long suffered from a lack of consumer confidence throughout the purchase process, gaining trust most certainly is possible when dealerships act intentionally. A leading way to win over auto sales leads is through a digital buying experience—if it is done properly.
Even with digital sales methods, dealerships need to bolster consumer relationships to meet their goals. Ensuring that the digital sales process is developed and grounded in trust ultimately benefits both the car buyer leads and the dealership. Here are five ways your dealership can build trust with modern car buyers.
1. Understand the power of digital
Automotive sales have been trending toward an era of online shopping for some time now. But within the past 18 to 24 months alone, the percentage of vehicles purchased digitally has skyrocketed from 2% to almost 30%—a massive and sudden shift in consumer preferences that dealerships simply can’t ignore.
This preference to purchase vehicles online is still gaining momentum. More than three-quarters (76%) of automotive dealer leads are willing to consider a complete online purchase process. This movement toward digital or hybrid purchasing is not likely to go away anytime soon, and savvy dealerships understand that the sales process has been permanently disrupted. Having the right technology available is a necessary basis for initiating customer relationships, anticipating their needs, and building trust from the get-go.
2. Evaluate technology to ensure you have the right solutions in place
Whether your dealership has digital experience tools already in place or if you’re just getting started, it’s important to evaluate available technology so it is serving both your customer base and internal needs. With the right functionality, these tools can guide automotive leads through the sales funnel, close deals with more efficiency, and increase profits.
Connecting those dots and getting the technology right ultimately impacts your bottom line. Dealerships surveyed earned 25% higher front-end gross profits and 24% higher back-end gross profits, compared to traditional dealer leads. The right technology will meet customers where they already are in the sales process, providing tailored support that demonstrates your business recognizes their unique needs.
3. Use customer data to keep deals moving forward
Through responsible customer data usage, dealerships can target buyers with relevant automotive digital marketing in spaces that are of most use for them, resulting in a win-win situation. Admittedly, it’s not easy to do. About half of dealerships say that it is a challenge to leverage data and systems to identify opportunities, while 86% of dealers agree that having accurate and complete customer data is a dealership priority. However, the right software and tools can assist.
Customer data can come from a variety of sources, including the consumer sharing it directly with the dealership, the consumer sharing it with a trusted third-party partner, or outside entities collecting it. Ideally, the dealership combines its own data with that of trusted partners for the most well-rounded view. The data can help your dealership understand the customer’s vehicle type preferences, budget, stage in the sales process, communication preferences, and more.
Your own data should provide the insights you need to offer personalized online user experiences like recommendations, specials, and fixed operations content based on their previous shopping behaviors. Customer data provides a 216% increase in lead form submission rates, based on a Dealer.com study of 524 franchise dealers who subscribed to Experience Optimization. Dealerships using Experience Optimization showed that customers were three times more likely to initiate a trade-in deal. Salespeople can use data to inform their approach to a deal and to better assure customers that they are being supported throughout their ownership journey.
4. Give customers control of their buying experience
Customers want to be in control of their shopping experience, so most successful dealerships offer a range of online and offline communication options to help make customers comfortable and enable open dialogue. Offering a hybrid experience that combines the functionality of brick-and-mortar operations with the convenience of shopping online is key for building strong relationship with a wide range of customers.
With this hybrid model, customers can do as much of the shopping online as they would like, and then come to the dealership when they’re ready. This level of flexibility helps bolster confidence and trust in the process. Two-thirds of dealer leads say that they want to complete more of their next car-buying process online compared to their prior vehicle purchase. If a customer can purchase on their own terms, they’re more likely to give your dealership good reviews/referrals and remain a loyal customer.
5. Gather and utilize feedback from recent happy buyers
Consumers familiar with shopping online are overwhelmingly satisfied with their dealership experience, with 77% expressing this sentiment. Harness the power of your happy customers and make it easy for them to spread the word for you. Build the feedback-solicitation process into the car-buying experience.
This is especially important because 90% of consumers read online reviews before visiting a business, and almost the same percentage trust these reviews the way they trust personal recommendations. More than half of shoppers say that the most important factor when choosing a dealership is the dealer’s reputation.
Building trust with the modern car buyer will help enhance and solidify your reputation. You can accomplish this by understanding what car buyers want, utilizing technology to your advantage, giving customers the ability to shop online, and then seamlessly moving the process forward. To learn more about how you can build trust with modern car buyers, visit Dealer.com.
A version of this article originally appeared in Digital Dealer.
As a dealer, you understand that selling cars is a people business. There’s an actual human being at the other end of every transaction. Every car you sell or service is connected to a person with an opinion. And in a day and age when everything gets shared on online, their opinions about your dealership and their experience are fair game.
Unfortunately, far too many opinions that get shared online tend to skew negative. The squeaky wheels get the grease and the happy customers are less likely to share their views. But there is a way to generate more positive reviews and leverage positive opinions to your advantage.
If you don’t have a system in place for generating reviews and giving voice to satisfied customers, the unsatisfied customer reviews will probably paint an inaccurate picture of your dealership online.
Make online reviews a priority. Take the time to research the right technology and technology partner to realize the benefits of this resource. Doing so can help you generate more positive reviews and turn those reviews into a viable auto dealer marketing tool to build your brand and boost sales.
Make It Personal
Consumers that had a negative experience with your dealership are more prone to leaving reviews. But if you ask your happy customers to leave a review, you may be surprised how many come through for you.
The key to these requests is personalization. Your customers are much more likely to respond to a review generation request when you make it personal to them because they’re already receiving so much spam.
An always-on, customizable, personalized review solicitation solution makes it easy for your customers to leave positive feedback. By sending a text (on of your customers’ preferred way to communicate) either from your phone or automatically, right after a sales or service transaction, you can increase the overall volume of positive customer reviews.
Integrate Your SEO and Review Generation Services
Did you know that 59% of shoppers believe reputation is the single most important factor when choosing a dealership? Having a coordinated digital strategy can unify your online presence, communicate the same coordinated messages across your digital channels, and build your brand reputation.
When actual customers share reviews that reflect the same messaging as your automotive SEO, it reinforces your customer service commitment online and delivers valuable content that attracts additional shoppers.
This type of coordinate car dealer SEO and Review Generation effort also involves monitoring all relevant digital properties and thoughtfully responding to all reviews in lockstep with auto SEO service best practices. It’s a smart way to turn every customer interaction into a powerful selling tool.
Start with the Right Team
Just as there are real people at the other end of every dealership transaction, it takes real people to manage your dealership’s reputation. To implement a successful review generation strategy and generate more positive review, you have to have a dedicated team that knows the automotive industry.
Take the time to find a team that can deliver real results by creating a customized review and review response strategy that is informed by proven best practices. And, make sure that team is made up of knowledgeable, industry-savvy marketers, not just review generation experts.
Every customer has an opinion, and the overwhelming majority of those opinions are positive for most dealerships. If you can harness the power of those opinions by prioritizing review generation, making review solicitation personal, integrating your digital strategy, and partnering with the right team, you can generate more positive review and drive business.
The dealership website experience—and the new ground a website must cover—has changed.
Today’s dealership websites must do more than navigate shoppers to your car inventory. With consumer behavioral shifts, more flexible buying processes, and profitability fluctuating at the dealership, dealer websites must be configured to play a central role in every transaction, and every interaction.
The website experience must cater to consumers from all stages of the buying journey, and more importantly, it should play a part in the success of your digital marketing strategy.
What consumers expect from the car buying experience has also changed.
2020 showed us that digital marketing is no longer simply a channel or a box for dealers to check. It accelerated the need for innovation and a focus on the entire shopping and buying experience—from vehicle consideration, selection, negotiation, selling, and commerce.
Digital marketing experts help dealerships take their website to the next level.
As dealers, you must manage multiple vendor relationships on top of managing the business of the dealership. That’s why it’s important to have specialized digital marketing expertise to help take your digital marketing strategy to the next level. You deserve a digital marketing that does more than help implement your website but stays ahead of emerging trends and best practices across all relevant focus areas including SEO, reputation management, creative, and video.
More than a website provider, Dealer.com is the industry’s only complete digital marketing solution, fortified by unsurpassed customer insights, that provides dealerships with the technology and expertise to delight automotive shoppers and increase profits.
Is your digital marketing equipping you to adapt and thrive? Consider your capabilities in these key areas:
Does your digital marketing prioritize data and have meaningful integrations? Reliable consumer data is critical to success, not only for automotive digital marketing but also for overall dealership profitability. The right data enables you to generate more automobile leads by personalizing every touchpoint a consumer has with your dealership Dealer.com leverages the exclusive, first-party Cox Automotive data which includes insights from two out of three U.S. car buyers (2020 Cox Automotive Car Buyer Journey).
Is your digital marketing partner implementing tools and processes that make your work easier? If you haven’t updated your processes to incorporate new capabilities, you’re missing out on opportunities to improve—and on opportunities to deliver the best possible consumer experiences.
Is your digital marketing partner making your job easier and acting as a true partner in your success? Or are they a little more than technical support? There’s no way around it—the right tools and the right data are critical to providing premium consumer experiences. But there’s a third critical element: the right people. Without the right people, even the very best tools and data will fall short. At Dealer.com, a meaningful partnership with our dealerships is at the core of our business. Your success is our success. With the right people behind premium consumer experiences, we can all win.
You deserve a digital marketing partner who does more than check boxes. You need a data-driven partner who helps create a successful digital marketing strategy, maximizes your marketing ROI, and minimizes confusion.
