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Seeing The Forest Rather Than Just The Trees
This article is very interesting to me for a number of reasons. First, I spend an awful lot of time on dealership's websites combined with many years of retail experience and I can tell you from what I have seen we have a long way to go. I think we are missing the big picture like the title of this post eludes too. Here are my ten thoughts. I know Jeff it is amazing I have one thought much less ten 
1. People buy cars- So as a dealership we must go where the people congregate and that currently means leveraging Social Media platforms. Don't worry Joe most dealerships will get it wrong and waste time and resources chasing the gold at the end of the Social Media rainbow leaving plenty of car sales for you.
2. Websites are mostly the same- It is rare to find a dealership website that is so unique that it makes me want to stay and hang out on it. Being unique on the Internet is difficult at best but definitely possible. It just takes being creative and carving your own non-template trail.
3. We live in a world of instant gratification- I blame Google for this one. I can find anything I want instantly with just a couple of words in a search box. The automotive sales process still forces shoppers through too many hurdles. Fill out a form, get an email, a phone call if you are lucky and the Sales Gods are smiling on you. We then force the shopper through the same old processes AKA wolf in sheep clothing.
4. Lack of Consistent Processes- For all the years we have been selling cars I can't believe we haven't gotten this part down to a science. Henry Ford standardized manufacturing within a couple short years yet we have been unable to produce consistent processes in the retailing side in over 100 years of selling cars. We need to sit down, write out processes and live them day in and day out.
5. Email is dead- To clarify what I mean email is dead in its current form. It is a dated technology that limits number 3. Chat is gaining momentum but I can tell you we are only touching where this technology will take us. Think Google Wave, video, mobile and who knows what else will come down the pike. The key is to be open to new ideas and try them out. They won't all work but who cares; that is not the point. The point is you are either going to get on this train or your not.
6. Learn about split testing- One thing that the web offers that brick and mortar will never have is the ability to test two similar webpages or elements on the page and measure which produces the best results. This allows you to create "Kaizen" continuous improvement. Without it you are a ship at sea without a rudder.
7. Customer care is the future- One thing that we need to learn about all this Social Media and reputation management is that peers and networks will have an influence on who will do business with who. It won't be the only reason but creating new and innovative ways to roll out the red carpet for shoppers both online and at our dealership will do one thing-deliver happy satisfied customers.
8. Generate your own leads- Every dollar you spend should be building your brand. Every dollar you take away from that builds someone else's brand. This is the first thing I learned in marketing 101. We spend a lot of money every month paying to build the brands of other companies that provide leads. I know some of these companies do a lot to generate traffic and sales for our dealerships but at what cost?
9. Listen to your phone calls everyday- If you are not listening and critiquing phone calls every day you are missing a huge opportunity. Just ask Jerry Thibeau. He will school you in the importance of actively listening to calls and improving how you and your team handle them.
10. Spend time with customers- Sometimes we get so caught up with all this technology mumbo jumbo that we miss the key to make our business better and that is talking with our customers every day and uncovering the reasons why they purchased from our dealerships. Shoppers both who bought and didn't are a great resource to understanding what we are doing right and wrong.
Brian, I think you did and awesome job on this article and you point out some of the fundamental issues facing retailing cars online. I think we have a long way to go still but the key is to get on the road and start moving in a direction. Put one leg in front of the other and within a short time you will be amazed at how far you have traveled.
Todd
1. People buy cars- So as a dealership we must go where the people congregate and that currently means leveraging Social Media platforms. Don't worry Joe most dealerships will get it wrong and waste time and resources chasing the gold at the end of the Social Media rainbow leaving plenty of car sales for you.
2. Websites are mostly the same- It is rare to find a dealership website that is so unique that it makes me want to stay and hang out on it. Being unique on the Internet is difficult at best but definitely possible. It just takes being creative and carving your own non-template trail.
3. We live in a world of instant gratification- I blame Google for this one. I can find anything I want instantly with just a couple of words in a search box. The automotive sales process still forces shoppers through too many hurdles. Fill out a form, get an email, a phone call if you are lucky and the Sales Gods are smiling on you. We then force the shopper through the same old processes AKA wolf in sheep clothing.
4. Lack of Consistent Processes- For all the years we have been selling cars I can't believe we haven't gotten this part down to a science. Henry Ford standardized manufacturing within a couple short years yet we have been unable to produce consistent processes in the retailing side in over 100 years of selling cars. We need to sit down, write out processes and live them day in and day out.
5. Email is dead- To clarify what I mean email is dead in its current form. It is a dated technology that limits number 3. Chat is gaining momentum but I can tell you we are only touching where this technology will take us. Think Google Wave, video, mobile and who knows what else will come down the pike. The key is to be open to new ideas and try them out. They won't all work but who cares; that is not the point. The point is you are either going to get on this train or your not.
6. Learn about split testing- One thing that the web offers that brick and mortar will never have is the ability to test two similar webpages or elements on the page and measure which produces the best results. This allows you to create "Kaizen" continuous improvement. Without it you are a ship at sea without a rudder.
7. Customer care is the future- One thing that we need to learn about all this Social Media and reputation management is that peers and networks will have an influence on who will do business with who. It won't be the only reason but creating new and innovative ways to roll out the red carpet for shoppers both online and at our dealership will do one thing-deliver happy satisfied customers.
8. Generate your own leads- Every dollar you spend should be building your brand. Every dollar you take away from that builds someone else's brand. This is the first thing I learned in marketing 101. We spend a lot of money every month paying to build the brands of other companies that provide leads. I know some of these companies do a lot to generate traffic and sales for our dealerships but at what cost?
9. Listen to your phone calls everyday- If you are not listening and critiquing phone calls every day you are missing a huge opportunity. Just ask Jerry Thibeau. He will school you in the importance of actively listening to calls and improving how you and your team handle them.
10. Spend time with customers- Sometimes we get so caught up with all this technology mumbo jumbo that we miss the key to make our business better and that is talking with our customers every day and uncovering the reasons why they purchased from our dealerships. Shoppers both who bought and didn't are a great resource to understanding what we are doing right and wrong.
Brian, I think you did and awesome job on this article and you point out some of the fundamental issues facing retailing cars online. I think we have a long way to go still but the key is to get on the road and start moving in a direction. Put one leg in front of the other and within a short time you will be amazed at how far you have traveled.
Todd
Seeing The Forest Rather Than Just The Trees
Is "Call Us" Or "Email Us" Really the Best We Can Do On Our Dealership Websites?
Let me congratulate you for being on DealerrRefresh. That act alone puts you at the forefront of one of the biggest trends to ever hit the car industry: The Internet.
Now let me challenge you with a question:
“Why does your dealership have a website?”
In 1995, NADA recommended that every dealership get one as the future of the industry was going online.
It is now 15 years later, NADA’s recommendation was achieved many years ago; yet what is different?
From a business standpoint, today there are fewer cars sold, consumers have unprecedented access to information, and a hugely improved ability to negotiate. Dealers have many new costs (3rd party leads, websites, CRM tools, Internet staff, paid search) and traditional media is less effective than it used to be (i.e. newspapers, radio).
Yet as our friends in the newspaper industry know all too well, fortifying your defenses is effective against predators but useless against environmental change. This is the Internet, where copies of information are free, everyone could be a customer, your competitors are just a click away, and customer loyalty isn't merely a consequence of geography.
To treat the Internet as a threat to the way things “should be or were” is to miss the point that it's a new medium which favors some business models and hurts others. It is this insight which leads to the “ah ha” stage of where I am going with this.
The high level answer to the question of “Why you have a website” is of course that you want to sell cars. Yes you want to sell service and parts too, provide consumer convenience to your map and hours, communicate your about us, etc. but above all we all want to and need to sell cars.
With that single goal in mind, drill in to what you actually do online and see if you like what you find. Specifically, what do you ask consumers to do on your website? Call? Email? Fill in a web form? Chat? A pop-up coupon? Do you present an ocean of VIN decode data, pictures and video then ask them to talk to you?
Is your online competitive presence structured around how well you organize these “calls to action” and how well you respond to what you get from there?
Now put your consumer hat on for a moment. You probably use the Internet all the time. If you were in the market for a car, would you find the functionality that you provide attractive, engaging, and appealing? How about when you filled in a form and then your next point of contact was a phone call from the dealership where you were told that the next step in the process was to set an appointment to come in to the dealership for a vehicle, trade, and credit consultation?
Not feeling the love? Your customers aren’t either. They’re playing this game under protest and they’re telling you with things like 98% bounce rates from your website and non-response to your attempts to follow up.
As an aside, (and please argue with me, DealerRefresh is a blog not a newspaper) it is my opinion that social networking services such as Facebook and Twitter are not going to change how consumers feel about the experience you provide online. To me these services have a role in branding, attraction, consumer engagement, and search engine optimization, but as a profitable sales channel of their own, or as a means to get consumers to do what you want, they are a waste of time.
It is 2010 not 1995. Is call or email and come on in really the best we can do? Is that the future of the Internet for car sales: to use it as an interactive yellow pages that generates leads so we can drive consumers offline and into our showrooms so we can sell the way we used to?
I originally planned on writing this blog post about how dealer websites needed to be fundamentally overhauled so as to have structured workflow with sufficient depth to the consumers’ process and thereby guide consumers down paths to produce effective conversion rates by answering their vehicle need questions, getting them to engage, respond, etc. but that seemed too technical and quite frankly, self-serving since that service (custom websites) with the associated shopping cart product is what my company provides.
So here is my question to you:
“If call or email isn’t the future or the best we can do, what is?”
