Alex
I agree with your observations and predictions. Google has to socialize their SERP's to provide more value to their users. The interesting challenge will be how they use Facebook likes or Google Places reviews.

These too can be gamed. We already are seeing services that will post fake reviews or "like: your posts on Facebook for a fee.

Mashable just covered a story on a new startup called Likester and you can read up on this at: Startup Makes Facebook Likes Searchable. The idea of using "likes" to spot trends and popular thought is interesting. Google must be thinking along the same lines.

The beauty of good SEO strategies is that content can be optimized to attract search visibility for a set of keywords, which may not be intuitively connected to the company.

When you compare that to reviews, sites like Google Places, give you five categories to classify the business. There are other places for additional text but for now I see that business directories pigeonhole a business into a limited number of silos.

If Google uses weighted reviews, it could possibly assist the SERP rankings in those chosen categories.

For example, if A Japanese restaurant gets high reviews it would make sense that a local search for Japanese Restaurants might place them at the top of the list, in the future. But would these reviews help when someone searches "Kobe Beef Steakhouse" which is not a category or text that is in the review?

I'm just thinking out loud. In any case, dealers looking to create more relevance to their primary marketing website would be well served if they:

1. Add Social Media Sharing Buttons on all pages.

2. Add compelling content on their website that would attract readers to click the like button on that page to share it on their Facebook Page or to Tweet it out.

3. Actively engage their customers using social media to develop a powerful communication channel which now may also have search optimization benefits.

4. Remember that videos are more apt to be shared on social media channels so start to leverage buying tips, consumer protection advice, customer testimonials, walk-arounds, and human interest stories that help brand your dealership as the "expert" in your town.

When you create good content and compelling videos, the next step is to syndicate that content to increase the chances that it will be found ,shared, and social relevance links created.

All good points, as are Charles' above. I was curious about how consumers aside from me felt about this so I sent this article over to the KBB Market Intelligence team, who posted it as a poll on kbb.com between May 6 and today, May 9.

The results did lean in my favor, but I do understand a little bit better now after reading the responses to this article why it's done the way it's done.

Question: Would you be more likely to test drive a vehicle if you weren't required to ride with a salesperson?

67% Yes, I would prefer to test drive alone
29% No, I don't have any problem test driving with a salesperson
3% Yes, I would rather ride with any dealership staff other than a salesperson

(253 responses)You can see the pie chart posted along with results from some other polls here: http://mediaroom.kbb.com/driver-input

Charles - you make some great points about the legal/insurance/financial reasons and I also agree that some customers are either not tech savvy enough to understand certain features and/or certain features are sometimes too complex to immediately understand.

@twitter-15780597:disqus,

I would caution any dealer from taking your advice without consulting an attorney. What you are in effect creating is a gender biased policy at your dealership that could run afoul of state and federal laws. If not done properly, your business could be vulnerable to gender discrimination suits. You are less vulnerable if you tell these "creepers" to get off your lot than if you create an employee policy as you outlined.

I am sorry that your wife had such an awful experience. Thank you for sharing this story with the rest of us as we are now challenged to come up with a process that protects ALL of our employees (regardless of gender) while also protecting the dealership and other individuals who may be put in harms way by "throwing" the keys to the wrong person.

The author of this post began by asking which of three test drive options is a procedure at our stores. The OP on this thread asked are there legal reasons why a store wouldn't use test drive #3 as its preferred method. I answered this question directly.

@google-45b444e2f8a19db2e548f40663b4aad8:disqus
had the credited response. Is there a place for unaccompanied test drives? Sure. Are there ways you can create an unaccompanied test drive process that reduces your exposure? Sure, as Mel pointed out.

I don't believe that our only choices to protect our employees are either to create a gender-biased process or to "throw" someone the keys and put countless more people in danger.

SideBar: Different Test Drive rules for the sales gals!

My wife sells cars and there are creepers out here. My wife had a creeper break her 4 right turns and refused to comply. He went off and took her to show her "his place". She cued up 911 on her cell, gave him one last warning and he turned around. NOT GOOD.

SALES GALS:

Your pic is on the net. Never ever leave on a Test drive until you CYA (Cover Your Ass). Always trust your instincts. Single adult males of any age are to be considered potential trouble. TELL EVERYONE YOUR LEAVING AND BE VOCAL. Get copies of the drivers lic. Get keys of other car to your manager, bring along a lot guy or send them alone, do what ou have to do to keep yourself out of a bad situation.

Managers,

CYA! If they fall into bad hands, lawyers will descend on you like rain in Seattle. Write special test drive rules for your sales gals.

Mr
Charles Gallaer wrote of the costs and risks of 1,000 mile joy rides. I'd take that expense any day over a EMPLOYER ENFORCED test drive that ends in personal tragedy.

Shopper WANTS Test Drive#3, but sometimes a little product knowledge and a joint Test Drive#1 is what the shopper NEEDS.

In my case, We're a #3 store AND we sell used that are NOT cert'd pre-sale. Hmmm... I smell trouble. Great post Joe W!!!

New opportunity to explore! WEBB RADAR UP AND SCANNING!

As a marketing director that's paid by the number of cars we put over the curb, I have to ask myself, If you send the shopper off alone in an un-cert'd used
car, when they return, what skilled followup questions do we ask?

(grr... will my to-do list EVER get smaller??)

So, is a test drive the same as a demonstration, or are they different?

I say they’re different.

When salespeople allow themselves to be sold on the belief that they are commodities, they add little or no value to the purchase process. This is what happens when a salesperson allows a customer to drive on their own without any targeted demonstration of the desired features and benefits in action.

Also, even when salespeople do accompany them, many customers leave a dealership without knowing what the vehicle they drove can TRULY do for them. This is largely because in many cases, a customer drives first on the test drive.

If you think about it, the word DEMONSTRATION implies that one party is showing another about something. In the automotive retail world, wouldn’t you agree this should be the salesperson showing the customer something about the vehicle they intend to purchase?

Unless you are MAGICAL at getting your customers to drive a vehicle the way you want them to, the BEST you can hope for is that they will drive the new car like they drive their old one. The worse case is they’ll drive the new car TIMIDLY because they’re not familiar with it. Either way, if they drive first, most customers won’t fully discover the value the vehicle holds before they leave your store.

The successful salesperson differentiates his or herself by providing a remarkable experience, a great part of which is a quality demonstration. The salesperson must first actively discover their customer’s needs and intended usage for the vehicle, then be willing to tailor their demonstration to how each person in their party will be using it.

A quality demonstration is actually more about the customer than it is about the vehicle, salesperson or dealership. Our job is to help our customers clearly picture improved life experience through ownership of our product and an ongoing relationship with us.

Would I allow customers to drive on their own if they ask?

Of course, but only AFTER I've shown them what the car can do and they've signed an assumption of liability.

So drive the car first with them as passengers and show how the vehicle will make their day to day lives better. Then help them try all the things you showed them. Since you know the car better, help your customers round out their intellectual knowledge of it with the visceral understanding a quality demonstration provides.

THAT’S when you’re adding value to the purchase process, when you’re no longer a commodity.

Tracking UPS is what we do. Our system identifies the true number of UPS that come on a dealership lot which is typically much higher than the number input into most CRM's. Once you identify the true UP count and you know how many you sold, the formula is simple.

The over 5 million UPS, I referred to are from over 100 dealerships across the country including highline, imports and domestics.

Woah woah woah... not going on the test drive with a customer? YOU'RE FIRED!

I believe 90% of the time option 1 should be executed, in the back seat if there's a spouse (if there's kids you get to play with em ), and you should make the test drive about THE CAR and not about the salesperson/dealership. This is a great time to show off how much better your brakes work than their old ones, how much smoother your suspension is than their older one, and make sure they spend some real time in the car and not just go around the block. Selling Nissans I was all about the test drive! Many customer wouldn't be comfortable doing the things I told them to do on the test drive without me there (like passing cops and honking horns at strangers).

Now, I have the other 10% of the time let customers drive by themselves. You can get a sense of when someone would be better sold if they drove alone, and at times I've insisted they drive alone. Especially if it's a wife/husband.

Woah woah woah... not going on the test drive with a customer? YOU'RE FIRED!

I believe 90% of the time option 1 should be executed, in the back seat if there's a spouse (if there's kids you get to play with em ), and you should make the test drive about THE CAR and not about the salesperson/dealership. This is a great time to show off how much better your brakes work than their old ones, how much smoother your suspension is than their older one, and make sure they spend some real time in the car and not just go around the block. Selling Nissans I was all about the test drive! Many customer wouldn't be comfortable doing the things I told them to do on the test drive without me there (like passing cops and honking horns at strangers).

Now, I have the other 10% of the time let customers drive by themselves. You can get a sense of when someone would be better sold if they drove alone, and at times I've insisted they drive alone. Especially if it's a wife/husband.

How did you go about tracking these 5 million UPS? Through data entered into a CRM system or though polling of customers?

The answer to that question could put the 56% figure on test drives into a better perspective.

I think going on the test drive with a customer is one of the most important things you can do. I don't know how many times during a test drive a customer has made a comment about a like or dislike with a vehicle while driving down the road that will make or break the sale.

For example you are driving down the road and the customer makes a comment about the road noise in the vehicle. Now being a professional salesperson you know you are currently driving a a base model and they have less sound deadening, so when you get back you grab the next level up and take them out for another test drive, this time the noise is gone and you are back on the road to the sale.

Now if we had gone with option #3 the customer came back, handed us the keys and all we would know is that the customer has decided this is not the vehicle for them. So I guess my question on #3 would be, how many sales are lost on simple objections that would have been overcome with a salesperson along for the ride?

Interesting post. From a consumer perspective, I feel most comfortable with #3 because I don't negotiate as well with someone I have any real connection with (if I don't know you, I don't care as much if you make an extra $500). However, it's true... Test Drive #1 makes me feel cared about . There's nothing as intimate as announcing, "Hold on, Joe, I gotta check out her 0 to 60," or "Put down your coffee, Joe, we're gonna find out about her 60 to 0," as I slam on the brakes. After one of my test drives (which I do in several models), I know, deep in my heart, you deserve that extra $500.

Depending on your particular state and how the law has advanced, you could limit the scope of recovery of damages if the customer decides that option #3 includes a test drive of 1000 miles to another state or a fender bender. The dealership's insurance policy may also preclude covering losses that occur on test drives that fall into option #3. And, by looking at the customer's insurance card, how can the employee know with certainty that the customer has sufficient insurance to cover an accident, or if his or her policy covers accidents in another vehicle altogether?

Around the NYC area, there is a serious problem with staged accidents. Option #3 would increase a dealership's vulnerability to this kind of fraud.

Joe, I wish your article would have expressed the benefits to the salesperson to accompany the customer on the ride. With proper training, sales people will see the test drive as value added and can easily overcome a customer's request for option #3. The internet has strengthened the argument in favor of sales people accompanying a test drive. Contrary to popular belief, just because a customer spends a few hours looking at a computer screen they do not become experts on a product. Take an internet customer and ask them to walk though the operation of SYNC or MYFORD/MYLINCOLN Touch on a Ford vehicle to see what I mean.

The reasons for not using option #3 as a dealership's preferred test drive policy far outweigh the possible benefits.

Interesting then that the entire gate for getting #3 is sales process. I guess my questions now are:
1. Is giving the customer what they want on a test drive more or less important to dealers than controlling the entire sales process?
2. Is there another time during the sales process that you can convey value in the vehicle, the salesperson, and the dealership?

This is a great post regarding test drives.

The issue regarding test drives that we have discovered in tracking over 5 million UPS is that it is not done. We know on average that the test drive only happens 56% of the time. So almost more important than how this 56% gets handled is what about the other 44%?

In my opinion the test drive is two fold.
1. to build value in the vehicle (which if done properly will build gross)
2. to build rapport and value in the sales person and dealership.

So my question is how much business is being missed when test drives are not done effectively or not done at all?

Great post, Joe. As someone who hasn't sold cars before, I can only comment from a consumer perspective that I greatly prefer #3. On a test drive, I want to see if I can build a relationship with the car I might be spending thousands on later today and driving for the next 5 years, not the salesperson. My relationship with the salesperson, as nice and great as they might be, will likely only last a cumulative 5 hours through the lifetime of the vehicle at most.

I also want my wife sitting next to me in the passenger seat because it's important to me that she's comfortable in the car in the spot that she'd normally sit in.

Is there a legal/insurance reason why option 3 isn't done more often or is it just the sales reasons listed above? Every time I ask to do it that way, the salesperson looks at me like a deer in headlights and has to disappear for 15 minutes to ask permission from the GM.

Uncle Joe stated "4-6 years ago, SEO and CRM were rather new to the world"
This is precisely why I asked Alex to revisit this topic. So, with today's CRM what are the strenghths and what are the weaknesses? For instance, back in the day it was server vs web-based. What's the niche today? Integration with DMS? Who has the best Fixed Ops solution?

Hi ya JC!

UI issue = Dealer purchase error?
Well... kinda. That's like saying SEO issue = Dealer Purchase Error. There's some product evolution goin' on here. 4-6 years ago, SEO and CRM were rather new to the world and only the most progressive dealers knew of SEO and knew of CRM's usability problems.

The dealer forms a partnership with the vendor. The vendor understands they must evolve their platform or lose the client at the contracts end.

Next, Dealers are not experienced in buying technical tools. Most dealers do not have an in-house player that has technical knowledge, business knowledge and knows how to get a car over the curb. I've seen web vendors show off SEO skills by ranking #1 for ridiculous low volume car search terms. The unknowing dealer sees the #1 rank and therefore assumes that lots of free traffic will come from this vendors "secret formula".

Hell, DR ranks #1 for: social media rainbows fairies unicorns
Should DR be making dealer websites? hahaha

I believe there is a BIG opportunity for independent consultants in our industry because now more than ever, DEALERS NEED SKILLED ADVICE.

Crmsalesguy and Uncle Joe both have touched on what seems to be a struggle for most. But, is utilization % really a UI issue or a training issue? If it's a UI issue I must question how much homework was done prior to making the decision to partner with the vendor. How to buy a CRM | Part 1: Introduction – DealerRefresh. If your situation is training then this opens up a myriad of questions such as middle mgmt buy-in, dealership implementation, vendor support and ofcourse dealership approach to accountability which Uncle Joe broke down in the typical Uncle joe fashion. Nice job Joe!

CRMsalesguy nailed it. Word to the DR community, if building a CRM was easy, then... where is it?

Building a CRM that ALL users like is very very difficult. Another way to say it is building CRM for one store is easy. The design challenge comes from 10000 managers that need a custom CRM solution that works for them.

CRM product managers, please find a way to HIDE THE HORSEPOWER behind an ultra-simple design.

One way is to hire OUTSIDE players (3rd party User Interface(UI) consultants and independent CRM consultants) to go out into the field to record and SCORE your current UI. SilverBack is a great way to use video at the dealership level to bring back user research Silverback 3. Silverback will help you see what reps & managers use, don't use and don't understand. Find ways to bury complexity, yet, make it accessible for power users. A real design cluster F*! Another way is to gather data is to fly all the CRM consultants to a summit, put them in a focus group and pay them to tear your UI up.

More Data Points:
CRM product managers, Score yourselves! Design a usability test!
#1). How long does it train a NEW HIRE on how to use CRM?
#2). How long before the rep masters his daily tasks?
It's should be 30 minutes & few followups and master it in one to two days.

More Data Points:
Create a test to give to current reps & managers that already have been "trained" and have them perform tasks from simple to complex to gauge their understanding of the UI (are we helping them get the job done?).

Let these results drive your design.
The UI should be intuitive.
The UI should be intuitive.
The UI should be intuitive.
The UI should be intuitive.

Anything else = FAIL.

If you find UI bottlenecks (aka confusion), see vAUTO. They have looked at each and every touch point and added little hyper-linked "question marks" that contain great info on that helps the user move forward (hello REYREY! Anyone home!??!)

Also, If your dealers are using 10% of the CRM's potential and they don't call your support, you need to fill that hole too. The managers need for you to supply a personal CRM genius to help them as needed, but, they don't call (because they don't know how to ask the right question!). Pay/reward this CRM genius based on the on the dealers depth of use. See CallRevu's brilliant staffing model. Also, see Cars.com dealer relations model. My Cars.com gal calls me each and every week & I never need her, but if I do, I've got her name burned in my head (Jen!).

As a % of total product use, I'm interested to hear feedback on the "explosive growth in technology".
Just because there is more on the menu, can a store really do more with it? Is your answer the same as the Dealers?
What % of your CRM product do you think your store really utilizes? Not just you as an individual, but your store as a total.
Does your store get today out of the product what they forecast at time of purchase?
Have you been through multiple CRM launches because someone wanted new functionality when they didn't even use 1/3 of what you had?
If you'd had to use your 1st CRM offering (with included upgrades) for the last 10 yrs, would you be better off because you'd be such a better user than your shiny new toy that "does it all?"

The reason I asked Alex Snyder to revisit this topic(The CRM Arena)is due to the explosive growth in technology not to mention the numerous vendors that have seemed to have whithered away. Why is this? Though technology has improved have we inturn improved our utilization? If so, how? What are voids in the CRM arena today? Fixed ops? Video? DMS integration? Inventory Module? Desking? Currently I use VinSolutions and love the tool. In the past was a avid iMagic user and was also involved with implementing what was then FireSocket commonly known as DealerSocket at Pinnacle Nissan/Infiniti for Vantuyl. Is the answer a holistic platform integrating website, CRM/ILM and inventory module? Kevin Frye seems to think so and I must say he made some very valid points in his session at DD10. So I say to the entire DealerRefresh Community. Let the games begin!!

I just want my CRM to be easy to use, i'd like to see folders to organize the leads perhaps? I have an internet / bdc department and i'd like to see better reporting for them. I see constant conflict with sales and management, using the system. The CRM is only as good as the data you put into it. I am a huge fan of CRM.