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5 Shocking Stats That Will Change The Way You Sell
- By johncolban
Reality check. We’re not living in the Information Age anymore.
Newspaper and banner ads have long been forgotten across sales & marketing meetings around the world. Our most basic vehicle for communicating and information gathering, text, is now being replaced with video, emojis, GIF’s, augmented reality, and voice assistants.
1. Consumers will purchase an average of $2,276 over the vehicle base price to get the tech features they want.
Here are a few of the latest tech features that are steering purchasing decisions: V2V Communication, Apple CarPlay/Android Auto, 360-Degree Cameras, Bluetooth Connectivity, Mobile Wifi, Blind Spot Awareness, Wireless Device Charging, Autonomous Vehicles, Heads-Up Display, Keyless Entry, and Forward Collision Avoidance.
Focusing on tech features with your customers is a no-brainer, but it’s also important to know which features they have their eye on like connectivity, convenience, or safety. Your customers are already doing their research on auto tech before they get to you. 87% of consumers will research the latest vehicle technologies before purchasing a new vehicle. The key is to be there when they look. The beautiful thing is they’re all totally demonstrable. Turn the spotlight on these features when you’re selling, whether it’s face-to-face, in your walkaround videos, or on your website.
2. 4X as many customers would rather watch a video about a product than read about it.
The consumers have spoken, time and time again. If you’re not using video in your sales process, you should have started yesterday. Statistically speaking, your competition is using video and they’re gaining sales because of it. Shoppers who view video are 1.81X more likely to purchase than non-viewers. Here is just one of the ways to use video to sell cars:
Login to view embedded media View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKjCmRkunEg
3. US social-media ad spend will top $8.5 billion this year and reach nearly $14 billion in 2018.
There is a reason that 93% of marketers use social media for business, whether it’s spending money for advertising or simply having a presence. The reason is because there are 1.65 billion, with a “b”, active mobile social accounts globally. Your customers are there, so why can’t you be too? It doesn’t mean you have to spend your portion of the 8 billion, but start somewhere. Being that it's free, infusing your sales efforts with a social business account that's active and engaging is a great start.
4. 71% of millennials say it's important that my car syncs with all other technology in my life, versus 44% of baby boomers (Gen Z 66%).
Are you selling cars to millennials the same way you’re selling cars to baby boomers? This statistic isn’t so much about syncing your phone as it is about the vast contrast in priorities and mindset of these two generations. It’s key to adjust your style based on the generation you’re dealing with. Millennials value your transparency and resources over a lengthy sales pitch like the baby boomers are comfortable with. Millennials and Generation Z will increasingly dominate the pool of car-buyers as time goes on, so it’s imperative to do your research and adjust accordingly.
5. The number of email users in the U.S. is projected to grow to 244.5 million by the end of 2017, and grow to 254.7 million by 2020.
There are 325 million people in the U.S., so that is a huge percentage of emailers out there. What does this mean for you? It means if you’re not taking advantage of email marketing in some form or another, you are seriously missing the boat here. Email marketing yields an average of 4,300 percent return on investment for businesses in the United States.
Don’t forget to focus on personalization and mobile when emailing customers and prospects. If your emails are not mobile-friendly and don’t display correctly, 71% of people will delete it immediately. Harsh, right? Also, personalized emails are proven to improve click-through rates. 74% of marketers say targeted personalization increases customer engagement, and emails with personalized subject lines are 26% more likely to be opened.
For even better results, send an email WITH a video! Marketing trends show that including the word [Video] in an email subject line can:
- Boost open rates by 19%
- Boost click through rates by 65%
- Reduce unsubscribes by 26%
Question...
What changes have you, and/or your dealership, implemented to keep with the current trends?
The Enormous Untapped Potential of Live Chat for Service - Part 2
- By todd.smith
Your service department is integral to the success of your dealership. Service brings in vital revenue and often accounts for the majority of a dealership’s profit. Yet, it’s highly likely that your service department’s manpower and resources are already stretched to the max, limiting the number of service leads and appointments your dealership is able to generate.
In Part 1 of this article, I explained how live chat benefits your service customers. But, have you thought about what automotive live chat can do for your service department’s processes?
Live Chat Increases the Productivity of Your Staff
Your service advisors should not be sitting behind a desk all day picking up chats. A properly managed chat team, whether in-house or outsourced to a provider, can handle a much higher volume of service inquiries, increasing your revenue potential and decreasing your staffing costs.
You can also streamline procedures -- such as helping online shoppers set appointments and sending them straight into your DMS -- by offering live chat for service. If you think your service customers aren’t using chat to set appointments, A) your chat provider is pulling a fast one on you and B) you’re missing out on significant revenue opportunities. In fact, 30-40% of ActivEngage chats are related to fixed ops. And the #1 question asked is: “Can I schedule an appointment?”
According to the Cox Automotive 2016 Maintenance and Repair Study, while having appointments is convenient to shoppers, setting them is another story entirely.
Then again, today’s consumers have a weird sense of entitlement to fast, easy-to-do experiences -- so it could be laziness on their part. And while service scheduling software has made leaps and bounds towards simplifying appointment-setting, many online shoppers still prefer the easiest, quickest method available for setting a service appointment. That’s why they click to chat.
If your dealership’s service drive has been impacted by OEM recalls recently, your ASM was most likely going crazy juggling between scheduled appointments, walk-ins and everything in between. Having live chat in situations such as this one to manage online appointment setting takes a load off your service staff, which allows them to focus on people at the store.
Some managed chat providers even integrate with popular service scheduling software to set service appointments on your behalf. Having these tools working together will save you time, increase your team’s efficiency, and help you fill more service bays.
Live Chat Helps You Streamline Communications
How long does it generally take to build your repair order and answer all customer questions over the phone? Too long? Imagine what would happen to your service team’s efficiency if you could have all of the information for your service tickets delivered to you without even having to pick up the phone.
With chat, your staff has access to vital customer information ahead of time. And unlike lead forms on your website, it gives your team the opportunity to acquire additional need-to-know information and rapport, like:
At the same time, the instant communication of live chat allows customers to ask and learn about warranty information, how long a repair will take, estimated cost of repairs, and loaner vehicle options. In that way, chat can streamline and enhance your service lead generation process while helping you build repair orders ahead of time.
Additionally, if you’re using your DMS for service (and I hope you are), you can opt for a live chat solution that integrates with it for access to and tracking of the lead information and appointment updates. This smooth transfer of data provides a more efficient way for the service team to obtain information.
Technology + Processes Drive Service Success
Like most digital marketing tools, live chat success doesn’t happen on its own. Incorporating chat into your service department’s processes takes planning. You can have the most amazing online conversations in the world, but if your staff isn’t properly following up with your customers, you won’t be reaping all the rewards from chat.
Plan for a successful lead follow-up system at your dealership, and you’ll see just how much chat can do for your business.
And remember, technology can be your service drive’s best friend; don’t limit yourself by refusing to embrace tools like live chat. By integrating technology with well-designed processes, your dealership can set the standard for convenience, value, and trust while maximizing your team’s performance.
In Part 1 of this article, I explained how live chat benefits your service customers. But, have you thought about what automotive live chat can do for your service department’s processes?
Live Chat Increases the Productivity of Your Staff
Your service advisors should not be sitting behind a desk all day picking up chats. A properly managed chat team, whether in-house or outsourced to a provider, can handle a much higher volume of service inquiries, increasing your revenue potential and decreasing your staffing costs.
You can also streamline procedures -- such as helping online shoppers set appointments and sending them straight into your DMS -- by offering live chat for service. If you think your service customers aren’t using chat to set appointments, A) your chat provider is pulling a fast one on you and B) you’re missing out on significant revenue opportunities. In fact, 30-40% of ActivEngage chats are related to fixed ops. And the #1 question asked is: “Can I schedule an appointment?”
According to the Cox Automotive 2016 Maintenance and Repair Study, while having appointments is convenient to shoppers, setting them is another story entirely.
Then again, today’s consumers have a weird sense of entitlement to fast, easy-to-do experiences -- so it could be laziness on their part. And while service scheduling software has made leaps and bounds towards simplifying appointment-setting, many online shoppers still prefer the easiest, quickest method available for setting a service appointment. That’s why they click to chat.
If your dealership’s service drive has been impacted by OEM recalls recently, your ASM was most likely going crazy juggling between scheduled appointments, walk-ins and everything in between. Having live chat in situations such as this one to manage online appointment setting takes a load off your service staff, which allows them to focus on people at the store.
Some managed chat providers even integrate with popular service scheduling software to set service appointments on your behalf. Having these tools working together will save you time, increase your team’s efficiency, and help you fill more service bays.
Live Chat Helps You Streamline Communications
How long does it generally take to build your repair order and answer all customer questions over the phone? Too long? Imagine what would happen to your service team’s efficiency if you could have all of the information for your service tickets delivered to you without even having to pick up the phone.
With chat, your staff has access to vital customer information ahead of time. And unlike lead forms on your website, it gives your team the opportunity to acquire additional need-to-know information and rapport, like:
- The last time the vehicle was serviced
- The car’s make, model, and mileage
- Any other concerns such as strange leaks
At the same time, the instant communication of live chat allows customers to ask and learn about warranty information, how long a repair will take, estimated cost of repairs, and loaner vehicle options. In that way, chat can streamline and enhance your service lead generation process while helping you build repair orders ahead of time.
Additionally, if you’re using your DMS for service (and I hope you are), you can opt for a live chat solution that integrates with it for access to and tracking of the lead information and appointment updates. This smooth transfer of data provides a more efficient way for the service team to obtain information.
Technology + Processes Drive Service Success
Like most digital marketing tools, live chat success doesn’t happen on its own. Incorporating chat into your service department’s processes takes planning. You can have the most amazing online conversations in the world, but if your staff isn’t properly following up with your customers, you won’t be reaping all the rewards from chat.
Plan for a successful lead follow-up system at your dealership, and you’ll see just how much chat can do for your business.
And remember, technology can be your service drive’s best friend; don’t limit yourself by refusing to embrace tools like live chat. By integrating technology with well-designed processes, your dealership can set the standard for convenience, value, and trust while maximizing your team’s performance.
The Enormous Untapped Potential of Live Chat for Service - Part I
- By todd.smith
New vehicle sales in the US came in below Spring’s market expectations, evidence the industry is starting to experience the decline analysts have been expecting despite new vehicle incentives. As new car sales flatten, the service drive will play a critical part in dealership revenue. Not that it hasn’t in the past:
According to recent NADA data, fixed operations account for nearly 50% of dealership revenue. But for some reason, dealers still don’t give the service drive any digital love. In fact, a recent study by the National Automobile Dealers Association indicated that dealers are only leveraging 3% of their digital marketing to optimize service drive performance. Fortunately, you probably already have the tools available to vastly improve your service department's digital presence and your bottom line. One of those powerful tools is live chat.
Before I get into the ways your service drive can utilize chat to boost ROI (I’ll save those tips for another article), let’s go into WHY chat is the untapped potential of your digital fixed ops and, specifically, service.
Live Chat Caters to Today's Automotive Consumers
At last year's NADA convention, Peter Leto, the Head of Automotive Retail at Google, shed light on some interesting consumer trends:
According to Google, online car buyers behave much differently than traditional car buyers. They prefer a digital conversation first, before making the commitment to come into the dealership to move forward in the buying process. As a result, online chat and text have become an increasingly popular method of communication to connect and communicate with online shoppers.
Advances in technology have created more lines of communication for the online consumer. They no longer want mass-produced, one-way messages, but rather personal and instantaneous two-way communication. Digital tools such as chat can provide real-time communication and provide the dealers with sales and service customers.
Think about it: tech giants like Google and Facebook understand the value of real-time digital conversations for both consumers and businesses, which is why instant messaging tools have propagated themselves into exciting new avenues like Facebook Ads and Google Adwords.
In fact, this evolution of social communication channels has allowed some of the most innovative chat providers to assist in bringing new integration features to market that help your dealership’s service department expand its reach online. So essentially, your service department can maximize its digital footprint across platforms, get more out of current marketing efforts, and ultimately give the people what they want with one tool.
Live Chat Can Vastly Improve Your Satisfaction Scores
Popular sites like Amazon invest heavily in review quality because they understand shoppers want to hear other customers’ experiences
More and more dealerships are following suit and leveraging reviews to build their service department’s reputation. And reviews are everywhere -- Google, Facebook, review sites, dealer websites, etc. But if you’re service drive gets the wrong kind of attention on any of these, it’s not so easy to move the needle on overall satisfaction.
Imagine a car owner whose check engine light turned on right after receiving service. Or a customer who came into the service drive and didn’t receive the care he or she expected. In situations like these, live chat can serve as a medium for mediation! Upset customers just want to be heard, and live chat gives them the opportunity to express their concerns. Meanwhile, you get a second chance to address the situation and protect your CSI.
Much like face-to-face conversations, live chat interactions have the power to create lasting impressions on your service customers. Just like a service advisor would in-person, online reps have the opportunity to:
Final Food For Thought
Look, today’s service customers aren’t easy to win over. They’re impatient, have preconceived notions of what to expect at the dealership, and even if the come in for service once, there’s a chance they might never come back.
But while building lasting relationships with your fixed ops shoppers can be a challenge, it’s not impossible. You just need to bring the human touch to the online world -- regardless of technology, people still want to buy from people. Tools like live chat will HELP you deliver an efficient, outstanding experience - both on and offline - that your customers will remember, and come back for.
Believe it or not, customers can be loyal -- if you treat them like people, one conversation at a time.
Continue reading Part 2
According to recent NADA data, fixed operations account for nearly 50% of dealership revenue. But for some reason, dealers still don’t give the service drive any digital love. In fact, a recent study by the National Automobile Dealers Association indicated that dealers are only leveraging 3% of their digital marketing to optimize service drive performance. Fortunately, you probably already have the tools available to vastly improve your service department's digital presence and your bottom line. One of those powerful tools is live chat.
Before I get into the ways your service drive can utilize chat to boost ROI (I’ll save those tips for another article), let’s go into WHY chat is the untapped potential of your digital fixed ops and, specifically, service.
Live Chat Caters to Today's Automotive Consumers
At last year's NADA convention, Peter Leto, the Head of Automotive Retail at Google, shed light on some interesting consumer trends:
According to Google, online car buyers behave much differently than traditional car buyers. They prefer a digital conversation first, before making the commitment to come into the dealership to move forward in the buying process. As a result, online chat and text have become an increasingly popular method of communication to connect and communicate with online shoppers.
Advances in technology have created more lines of communication for the online consumer. They no longer want mass-produced, one-way messages, but rather personal and instantaneous two-way communication. Digital tools such as chat can provide real-time communication and provide the dealers with sales and service customers.
Think about it: tech giants like Google and Facebook understand the value of real-time digital conversations for both consumers and businesses, which is why instant messaging tools have propagated themselves into exciting new avenues like Facebook Ads and Google Adwords.
In fact, this evolution of social communication channels has allowed some of the most innovative chat providers to assist in bringing new integration features to market that help your dealership’s service department expand its reach online. So essentially, your service department can maximize its digital footprint across platforms, get more out of current marketing efforts, and ultimately give the people what they want with one tool.
Live Chat Can Vastly Improve Your Satisfaction Scores
Popular sites like Amazon invest heavily in review quality because they understand shoppers want to hear other customers’ experiences
More and more dealerships are following suit and leveraging reviews to build their service department’s reputation. And reviews are everywhere -- Google, Facebook, review sites, dealer websites, etc. But if you’re service drive gets the wrong kind of attention on any of these, it’s not so easy to move the needle on overall satisfaction.
Imagine a car owner whose check engine light turned on right after receiving service. Or a customer who came into the service drive and didn’t receive the care he or she expected. In situations like these, live chat can serve as a medium for mediation! Upset customers just want to be heard, and live chat gives them the opportunity to express their concerns. Meanwhile, you get a second chance to address the situation and protect your CSI.
Much like face-to-face conversations, live chat interactions have the power to create lasting impressions on your service customers. Just like a service advisor would in-person, online reps have the opportunity to:
- Build rapport with web visitors via text-based conversation
- Add value and transparency to the online experience through real-time education and customer service
- Assist in online service scheduling by leveraging software technology
- Guide conversations into conversions using word tracks and live chat data
Final Food For Thought
Look, today’s service customers aren’t easy to win over. They’re impatient, have preconceived notions of what to expect at the dealership, and even if the come in for service once, there’s a chance they might never come back.
But while building lasting relationships with your fixed ops shoppers can be a challenge, it’s not impossible. You just need to bring the human touch to the online world -- regardless of technology, people still want to buy from people. Tools like live chat will HELP you deliver an efficient, outstanding experience - both on and offline - that your customers will remember, and come back for.
Believe it or not, customers can be loyal -- if you treat them like people, one conversation at a time.
Continue reading Part 2
VIDEO: How to Turn Customers' Phones Into Cash Registers
- By ryan.gerardi
This is not only the viewpoint of Drive Motors Founder and CEO, Aaron Krane, but also what inspired him to form the San Francisco based company in 2015. And it's this simplicity that is so infectious with franchise dealers.
During my recent interview with Aaron, our second in the last 12 months, one thing was particularly clear to me - Aaron isn't bent on being disruptive to the vehicle transaction process. Quite the opposite. He's seeking to enhance it, for dealers and consumers.
When I first spoke with Aaron in June 2016, we had recently published a piece by Prodigy CEO Michia Rohrssen titled, "Online Sales Isn’t The Future Of Car Buying…" that re-kindled a discussion thread in the forums that began in March 2015 titled, "Online Shopping to Online Buying." The debate was (and has remained) one of the most heated discussions on DealerRefresh of all-time.
The reason why is this...if you look at (or pursue) the idea of online checkout as a disruptive threat to the dealer and the sales professional, then you're missing the point.
As Aaron stated in our interview, studies continue to show that consumers prefer to purchase their vehicle from a person at the dealership. But by giving consumers the OPTION (and that's the key, the option) to facilitate some or all of the process online, on their own time, on whichever device they prefer, this can give your dealership a competitive advantage.
Why? Because nowadays, people are accustomed to buying things online and this it's become an expectation for them.
When do people buy cars online?
During our discussion, Aaron points out that depending on which state you're in, car buying may never become a full online experience - as some documents can only be signed offline.
However, there is a growing segment of car buyers that prefer to make their vehicle purchase on their own time. In fact, based on 4,310 vehicle orders across 140 dealer websites using the Drive Motors online checkout within 5 months, 58% of the transactions happened during office after hours, from 5 PM to 10 PM.
More purchase intent than the average TV customer
Drive Motors is helping to facilitate more than 1,000 vehicle orders each month across its dealership base. This comes to about 50 per day, and 40-50 per month per dealership, with an average gross profit of $500-600 per unit.
Through all this, there are two key metrics they are observing:
- The drop-off abandonment rate is relatively high compared with other forms of e-commerce. This is to be expected however when you consider the novelty and newness of buying a car online, and the fact that it's a car which requires significantly more time and information.
- The return rate is noticeably higher than typical e-commerce levels, also to be expected when you consider the nature of the product being purchased.
But here's the most interesting point. Although the abandonment rate is high, the ratio of people who enter the online checkout funnel and complete the process entirely is higher than the average for e-commerce retail.
As Aaron suggests, the purchase intent of people doing online checkout is higher than your average TV customer.
Give Customers What They've Come to Expect
The average online checkout time with Drive Motors ranges between 15 and 30 minutes, plus about 30-60 minutes at the dealership. But as we stated earlier, most abandon the first time.
This is why Drive Motors recently added a feature to their checkout system which saves all of the buyer's preferences, including their trade-in and financial information, for a later time. When the buyer comes back to the dealer's website to complete the transaction, all of the information they entered remains.
This was a key feature introduced as an answer to the high abandonment rate - because as Aaron says, "almost no one will complete the transaction in the first visit, but they will the second or third time."
Aaron says that the online checkout system has to be developed to match the psychological buying process that buyers are used to.
It's about helping dealers integrate a simple online checkout
This is Aaron's goal with dealers - to turn customers' phones into 24/7 "cash registers." Those are his exact words. The online checkout system needs to complement the buying process, not turn it upside down and certainly not replace the existing one already in place. This is accomplished but giving dealers and consumers a simple yet intelligent tool that integrates seamlessly with the dealership website, inventory, and their back office.
Online checkout isn't a magic pill by any means. In fact, when you listen to the interview, you will hear how Aaron is clear about the online checkout component being part of an already well functioning process and customer experience.
Chat and Mobile
When I asked Aaron about mobile adoption, he stated that 30 to 40 percent of online checkout users are on a mobile device. Plainly put, your online checkout experience must be designed with mobile in mind - first.
Additionally, the chat experience is also an integral component leading up to the online checkout process. Listen...
Highlights of my interview with Aaron Krane
Login to view embedded media View: https://youtu.be/p8obXVaCet0
Continue the Conversation
Do you think online checkout is right for your dealership? Continue the conversation in the forums using the link below and also be sure to check out our new podcast featuring this interview with Aaron Krane.
[highlight color="#f7b32e" font="black"]Discussion: Online Shopping to Online Buying[/highlight]
[highlight color="#CCE6FF" font="black"]Podcast: Episode 1 - Online Checkout, 56k modems, and more...[/highlight]
About Drive Motors
Drive Motors builds ecommerce experiences for auto dealers. With the Drive Motors online checkout experience, car buyers can order directly from the dealership website, day or night, including financing, leasing, trade-ins, vehicle upgrades, and pickup or same-day delivery. For more information visit www.drivemotors.com.
4 Reasons You’re Not Getting Great Dealership Reviews
- By johncolban
We watch a lot of videos around here, that goes without saying. Almost 1,000 videos come through on any given Monday, so it’s pretty easy for us to have a grasp on what’s important to car salesmen.
Customer reviews are at the top of the list, it’s not surprising considering 84% of people trust online reviews as much as a personal recommendation. They can make or break not only dealerships, but individual salesmen as well.
Over the years there has been an increase in videos centered around review requests; but in addition to that, the requests are getting more innovative and direct with a variety of strategies.
4 REASONS YOU DIDN’T GET A GREAT REVIEW, OR ANY AT ALL…
1. You didn’t squash issues beforehand
This is a strategy we see a lot now, “Please contact me before submitting your review if for some reason you don’t feel completely satisfied, I can try to fix whatever it is.” Address any negative feelings before the customer submits a review and tell them you need all 10’s and perfect scores for it to count.
2. You didn’t make it easy.
Most people will think it’s a hassle to leave a review... they’ll have to provide too much information, create accounts, it’ll take too much time, etc. Be sure to address these objections ahead of time. -- Provide links in your emails, online profiles, and social accounts. Let them know which ones will or won’t need an account along with detailed instructions. Give people ideas on what to say and prompt them when they’re most likely to be available, which is weekdays during work hours.
3. You didn’t ask
7 out of 10 customers will leave a review if they’re asked. The truth is most salesmen don’t directly ask for the review, and they don’t convey the importance of them either. Asking for reviews in person or on video is the best way to show customers how essential they are to your business. Try not to automate requests to multiple people at the same time, make it personal and genuinely ask each customer.
4. You didn’t give a good experience
Why wait until after the encounter to think about reviews? Go into every single sale with a “pursue the review” mindset. There is a great review in every customer, you just have to be good enough to get it out of them. Consider that a challenge!
Video can play a major role in helping you remind the customers to leave you a review, walk them through the process, etc... Check out this great video from Jennifer Baker at Causeway Honda. She sent this directly to the customer's inbox and phone:
Login to view embedded media View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYSRer9QWtM
A few tips about reviews…
The more engagement, the better the reviews. If you do get a negative review, always respond. There’s nothing worse than a negative review with no response. Studies show that dealer review response rates positively correlates to a higher average star rating.
Train your sales team on how to ask for reviews, or bring up a reputation marketing strategy at your next meeting. The greater success of the dealership, the greater your success. Use video to personalize the experience even further.
Reviews are essential to the millennial buyer. It’s no secret millennials are research experts. They rely on word-of-mouth and online reviews in making purchases more than any other generation.
What are you and your team doing to make sure you're getting perfect 10's?
Customer reviews are at the top of the list, it’s not surprising considering 84% of people trust online reviews as much as a personal recommendation. They can make or break not only dealerships, but individual salesmen as well.
Over the years there has been an increase in videos centered around review requests; but in addition to that, the requests are getting more innovative and direct with a variety of strategies.
4 REASONS YOU DIDN’T GET A GREAT REVIEW, OR ANY AT ALL…
1. You didn’t squash issues beforehand
This is a strategy we see a lot now, “Please contact me before submitting your review if for some reason you don’t feel completely satisfied, I can try to fix whatever it is.” Address any negative feelings before the customer submits a review and tell them you need all 10’s and perfect scores for it to count.
2. You didn’t make it easy.
Most people will think it’s a hassle to leave a review... they’ll have to provide too much information, create accounts, it’ll take too much time, etc. Be sure to address these objections ahead of time. -- Provide links in your emails, online profiles, and social accounts. Let them know which ones will or won’t need an account along with detailed instructions. Give people ideas on what to say and prompt them when they’re most likely to be available, which is weekdays during work hours.
3. You didn’t ask
7 out of 10 customers will leave a review if they’re asked. The truth is most salesmen don’t directly ask for the review, and they don’t convey the importance of them either. Asking for reviews in person or on video is the best way to show customers how essential they are to your business. Try not to automate requests to multiple people at the same time, make it personal and genuinely ask each customer.
4. You didn’t give a good experience
Why wait until after the encounter to think about reviews? Go into every single sale with a “pursue the review” mindset. There is a great review in every customer, you just have to be good enough to get it out of them. Consider that a challenge!
Video can play a major role in helping you remind the customers to leave you a review, walk them through the process, etc... Check out this great video from Jennifer Baker at Causeway Honda. She sent this directly to the customer's inbox and phone:
Login to view embedded media View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYSRer9QWtM
A few tips about reviews…
The more engagement, the better the reviews. If you do get a negative review, always respond. There’s nothing worse than a negative review with no response. Studies show that dealer review response rates positively correlates to a higher average star rating.
Train your sales team on how to ask for reviews, or bring up a reputation marketing strategy at your next meeting. The greater success of the dealership, the greater your success. Use video to personalize the experience even further.
Reviews are essential to the millennial buyer. It’s no secret millennials are research experts. They rely on word-of-mouth and online reviews in making purchases more than any other generation.
What are you and your team doing to make sure you're getting perfect 10's?
INFOGRAPHIC: Reaching Customers with Increased Personalization Through AI
- Off Topic & Everything Else
- 0 Replies
Artificial Intelligence used to be something you'd only see in science-fiction novels, comics or movies. But these days AI isn't just for Terminators and space ships with an axe to grind. Car dealers are now able to use AI to improve personalization on their website and engage customers more fully - engagement that can be turned into conversions if you know how to use the tools properly.
Personalization is the newest way to connect with customers and stand out from the sea of advertisements and content jockeying for customer attention. By using AI technology, dealers can create smarter pop-ups, customized advertisements and better search engine results that place their dealership front and center.
Did you know that?
- Smart Popups increase conversions by an average of 30%
- Retargeting can boost ad response by 400%
- 82% of marketers report that SEO is becoming more effective
[highlight color="#d65a3e" font="#ffffff"]
>> Infographic - AI Today: Reaching Customers with Increased Personalization <<
[/highlight]
Learn how to apply AI to every step of the shopping process!
As AI develops, it will dramatically scale dealership customer service to reach a larger market, provide excellence to every customer, foster loyalty and return business, and increase revenue.
Get Your Free Infographic from AutoLeadStar Now
VIDEO: Does Your Website Attack Visitors?
Did you know that e-commerce sites spend on average only $1 of their advertising budget on converting website traffic for every $92 spent driving website traffic [Source]? This could very well be one reason that more than 38% of website visitors leave a website due to poor design and layout? If you're looking to maximize your ad spend, these might be two specific areas to consider.
Converting website traffic is arguably one of the more over-looked and under-utilized practices on dealership websites. Most dealer sites "attack" users with numerous calls to action the moment they arrive, and the barrage is ceaseless.
For example...
Example of Dealership Homepage "Attacking" Visitors
Example of Dealer Website with Multiple CTAs
Considering that this is not an uncommon look for your typical dealership website, what can dealers do today to enhance the shopper experience on their sites and maximize their ROI?
[highlight color="#d65a3e" font="#ffffff"]
>> Free White Paper - Creating a Personalized Dealership Website <<
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In a recent live web chat with AutoLeadStar's Head of Business Development, Ilana Zur, Jeff and I took the opportunity to explore what dealers are doing wrong on their sites regarding calls to action, and what they can do to improve, and how.
During the webinar on how to "Declutter Your Website and Tighten Up Your VDP's," Ilana touched on three key points that dealers can and should be considering when it comes to their websites. She also gave examples of common mistakes dealers make on their sites, such as forcing too much information in one place for visitors to notice, not taking into account user friendliness.
Three Takeaways
Check out the edited 'mini version' of the webinar below where we introduce these three talking points and offer up a few suggestions. You can view the full recording on YouTube.
Login to view embedded media View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJ6po2fAiU4
[highlight color="#f4b945" font="white"]Join Discussion in the Forums with Other Members[/highlight]
[highlight color="#309ad3" font="white"]Listen to Corresponding Podcast Episode 2: Does Your Website Attack Visitors?[/highlight]
[highlight color="#d51d29" font="white"]Watch Full Version on YouTube - Trimmed for Quicker Viewing[/highlight]
Converting website traffic is arguably one of the more over-looked and under-utilized practices on dealership websites. Most dealer sites "attack" users with numerous calls to action the moment they arrive, and the barrage is ceaseless.
For example...
Example of Dealership Homepage "Attacking" Visitors
Example of Dealer Website with Multiple CTAs
Considering that this is not an uncommon look for your typical dealership website, what can dealers do today to enhance the shopper experience on their sites and maximize their ROI?
[highlight color="#d65a3e" font="#ffffff"]
>> Free White Paper - Creating a Personalized Dealership Website <<
[/highlight]
In a recent live web chat with AutoLeadStar's Head of Business Development, Ilana Zur, Jeff and I took the opportunity to explore what dealers are doing wrong on their sites regarding calls to action, and what they can do to improve, and how.
During the webinar on how to "Declutter Your Website and Tighten Up Your VDP's," Ilana touched on three key points that dealers can and should be considering when it comes to their websites. She also gave examples of common mistakes dealers make on their sites, such as forcing too much information in one place for visitors to notice, not taking into account user friendliness.
Three Takeaways
- Clarify your goals
- Think UX
- Tighten up your VDPs
Check out the edited 'mini version' of the webinar below where we introduce these three talking points and offer up a few suggestions. You can view the full recording on YouTube.
Login to view embedded media View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJ6po2fAiU4
[highlight color="#f4b945" font="white"]Join Discussion in the Forums with Other Members[/highlight]
[highlight color="#309ad3" font="white"]Listen to Corresponding Podcast Episode 2: Does Your Website Attack Visitors?[/highlight]
[highlight color="#d51d29" font="white"]Watch Full Version on YouTube - Trimmed for Quicker Viewing[/highlight]
How to "Pump Up" Market Share Using Social Incentives
- Off Topic & Everything Else
- 0 Replies
In a down market, one Ford dealer needed a way to increase their overall market share and reduce the amount of pump-in sales lost to competitors. By leveraging the technique of matching sales data with consumer databases, the dealer was able to determine that they were losing more than 50% of sales to competitors in their market. This is what is referred to as "pump-in" sales.
Using the data that was available to them through strategic partnerships such as that with AutoHook, the alliance was able to identify specific areas of opportunity to grow their market share by targeting people with specific vehicles. They targeted the top three models they were losing to competitors - the Focus, Fusion, and Edge.
Using zip-code level targeting, in-market customers were incentivized to visit the dealerships for a $50 test drive incentive, as opposed to the normal $25 incentive. The incentive triggered at precise moments on the dealership's website where targeted shoppers were viewing the three targeted models.
The Results?
Despite a declining market, the dealership was able to significantly reduce pump-in sales lost to their top two competitors and successfully gain market share using AutoHook's private incentive offers and sales match attribution reporting. By how much? Download the free PDF here to see the complete numbers.
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>> AutoHook Pumps-Up Market Share for Ford Dealership <<
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Using targeted offers on these identified vehicles of opportunity, the total number of lost sales across the three models was reduced by 50% or more, and was maintained month-over-month for the following three months.
For more information about this case study, the dealership and the strategic partnerships, follow this link to immediately obtain a copy of the AutoHook Case Study.
Integrated Partnership
Great solutions are a result of knowing what you're best at and sticking to it. AutoHook's core competency is in securing their private offer and redemption rail system within dealerships and directly proving the source that led to a sale or a new-to-brand buyer. AutoHook knows their specialty is in delivering the industry's best sales attribution reporting. Social Dealer specializes in running successful Facebook campaigns, which is why AutoHook chose to partner with them to carry out this initiative.
For more information about the AutoHook partner integration with SOCIALDEALER, read, Is Vendor Integration the New Innovation?
Interview with AutoHook and SOCIALDEALER
Free Dealer Guide: Leveraging Online Reviews for a Competitive Edge
- Off Topic & Everything Else
- 0 Replies
Online reviews are the new word of mouth. A positive online review of your dealership causes a ripple effect that creates sales faster than a one-on-one conversation ever could.
The good news is that you can put reviews to work for you as
a competitive asset to grow sales, improve customer retention and empower your sales staff.
The key is to take ownership of reviews by creating a process for systematically managing them.
Read the full report below, to understand the importance of reviews in today’s car buying journey, as well as critical next steps you need to take to win with online reviews. After reading this report, you will learn:
- How to take ownership of your reviews by actively managing them
- How to highlight your reviews to drive customer retention and sales
- How to use reviews to engage and retain your sales staff
The voice of the customer has a powerful impact on business today. You have a good opportunity to use reviews, both positive and negative –to acquire customers and create lifetime value.
Read on to start turning online reviews into one of your strongest competitive assets.
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>> Go Here to Now to Get this Free Guide from DealerRater <<
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The power of reviews
A huge 73% of consumers, looking to purchase a car, place a high value on consumer reviews and expert reviews. Today, online consumer reviews are also more readily available – something the Millennial generation has grown up expecting. Online reviews also play a pivotal role in making your dealership more visible through search engine optimization (SEO), especially at the local level given the prominence of reviews online.
If you don’t currently have a reviews strategy, and you have less than three reviews – and they’re negative – you are likely deterring customers from your dealership. Your minimum goal is to have at least five for car shoppers to read and consider.
Go here now to get this free dealer guide and start implementing an online review strategy for your dealership to make reviews the most valuable asset of your marketing. This will give you the competitive edge to boost your sales to a higher level.
Meeting People Where Their Needs Are: Interview with George Grubbs, CEO, Grubbs Automotive Group
- Off Topic & Everything Else
- 0 Replies
George Grubbs' approach to car sales is simple and personal. He sums it up as "Meeting people where their needs are." Since he and his family have been selling cars since the 1940s, they know a few things about developing relationships that turn into sales now and for years to come.
Over the past 70 years, Grubbs Infiniti has learned to adapt to new generations when it comes to car sales and building relationships. In the mid-90s they developed and launched the first Nissan website in the country and since then they have worked to stay at the cutting edge of technology while watching the ROI on everything they do.
When it comes to research on where to invest their time, energy and money George sticks to the basics. He says he reads everything he can and keeps a close eye on how soon results can be seen as well as how those results are measured.
Business decisions based on reliable results
"When I try something new, I need to see results," he reported in a recent CBT Automotive Network interview.
"What I look for when I talk to a new vendor is what do their reports look like? [...] How often are they gathering the data and how often are they giving it to me?"
But Grubbs doesn't settle for just being given data and reports on a regular basis. He says he prefers a vendor who can offer a back end tool so he can log in and check trends and results on the fly. Reliable results give a dealer that competitive edge.
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>> Free Case Study - Increase Sales Velocity by 67% <<
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Technology and Customer Relationships
His hands on approach to technological advancement and developing relationships with customers, based on how they want to interact, has certainly paid off. Customer reviews from across various platforms including Yelp, Facebook, and Cars.com have customers praising everything; from their well-appointed waiting room to their pricing and service.
Clearly, being willing to adapt to the latest trends in technology and digital marketing for dealers, and to meet customers on their level, translates into a healthy bottom line and a bright future.
Follow the link below to watch the full interview with Geroge Grubbs on CBT News:
How Weather Impacts Your Dealer's Sales Traffic
- By jon.berna
- Off Topic & Everything Else
- 0 Replies
As an auto dealer, you are always looking for any information that may have a direct impact on the success of your store. In the first Driven Data Science blog, we looked at the impact of weather and day of the week has on the service department. Now we are going to take those same inputs and apply them to how it affects new dealership leads. The weather data is provided byWunder Ground and the lead records are extracted from the CRM of two Driven Data clients. We limited the time range of this research to the years of 2015 and 2016. We used more than 400,000 leads records from the Chicago, IL and Charlotte, NC areas to build our analysis. Since dealer stores of different scales have different amounts of new leads per day, we have normalized the lead data by following two steps:
After normalization, the value of lead data actually becomes a statistic which describes the level of new leads on a given day. 0 = an average level, >0 = a high level and <0 = a low level.
Now the normalization process is complete, we have some interesting findings that we elicited from this research:
The weekday has huge impact on the number of showroom leads, significant impact on total leads and a little impact on Internet leads
Figure 1 below shows how the weekday has a significant impact on the number of total leads. As you can see, Friday and Saturday have the top two highest volume of total leads compared with all other days of the week while Tuesday has the lowest. Logical thinking suggests this makes the perfect sense as Friday and Saturday tend to have the most flexibility when it comes to the customer’s potential free time.
Figure 1
https://wp-files.dealerrefresh.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/10141108/Leads_Tables456.png
Drilling down into the different types of leads, we will begin to see a different story. Figure 2 shows the impact that the weekday has on internet leads. I should say the lack of impact the weekday has. The analysis shows it does not matter which day of the week it is, you are still generating internet traffic and producing leads. This is mainly due to the access people have at all times to your site.
Figure 2
For showroom leads, figure 3 indicates the volume of leads is greater on Fridays and Saturdays. This takes us back to our prior theory of potential customers have more flexibility on those two days to visit the dealership.
Figure 3
We compared the weekday to all other factors for showroom leads and it has two times the affect as the second most important factor. See figure 4 below.
Figure 4
Let’s take a look at the same analysis for internet leads. Figure 5 shows that weekday doesn’t have nearly the impact on internet leads as showroom leads. In fact, the weather is the main driving factor for generating internet leads. This does make sense if you think about how bad weather can impact a person to be online more due to limited outdoor activity.
Figure 5
We have discussed the impact of weekdays on leads, now let’s look more in depth at how weather plays a part in the Chicago and Charlotte areas.
In the tables below, you will see how different types of weather events has a different effect on leads for our regional areas of choice. ↑ indicates that the weather event will significantly increase the number of leads. ↓ indicates that the weather event will significantly decrease the number of leads. ‘-’ indicates that the weather event will not have significant impact on the number of leads.
Table 1 – Weather Effect on Total Leads
For the Charlotte area, rain does not have a significant impact on the total leads, but if you dive into the different lead categories, you will see a different story. When it comes to internet leads, the volume will increase while the showroom will decrease. Again, indoor vs outdoor activity is impacted by this type of weather event. You will notice that the thunderstorm event results in an identical pattern. A snow event will negatively impact this area. Mainly because this is not a normal event for this area.
When it comes to the Chicago area, we find it interesting that the number for all types of leads increases when it has a rain or thunderstorm event. Figure 6 below shows the rain factor analysis for the Chicago area dealership.
Figure 6
If you compare this to figure 7, the rain factor analysis for the Charlotte area, you will see that the rain event has a much smaller impact on the Chicago area.
Figure 7
We remove the outliers after splitting the data by different weather factors and redo the statistic test.
Table 4 – Weather Effect on Total Leads
These results indicate that a rain or thunderstorm event will not have a significant impact on the Chicago area dealerships. This could be due to the higher tolerance of a weather event as the Chicago area typically deals with more types of weather events. The Charlotte area does not receive as many of the cold weather events like snow and typically has a warmer climate and more opportunity to potentially get outdoors. The Charlotte area can attribute up to 15% of their rainfall from tropical cyclone events so rain and thunderstorms will have a more significant impact on their showroom leads.
- Remove the outliers of raw data and exclude data of Sunday when dealerships are usually closed. List out the number of total leads, the number of Internet leads and the number of showroom leads of each day in 2015 and 2016.
- Calculate z-scores for those stores that have normally distributed lead data (almost all of them)
After normalization, the value of lead data actually becomes a statistic which describes the level of new leads on a given day. 0 = an average level, >0 = a high level and <0 = a low level.
Now the normalization process is complete, we have some interesting findings that we elicited from this research:
The weekday has huge impact on the number of showroom leads, significant impact on total leads and a little impact on Internet leads
Figure 1 below shows how the weekday has a significant impact on the number of total leads. As you can see, Friday and Saturday have the top two highest volume of total leads compared with all other days of the week while Tuesday has the lowest. Logical thinking suggests this makes the perfect sense as Friday and Saturday tend to have the most flexibility when it comes to the customer’s potential free time.
Figure 1
https://wp-files.dealerrefresh.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/10141108/Leads_Tables456.png
Drilling down into the different types of leads, we will begin to see a different story. Figure 2 shows the impact that the weekday has on internet leads. I should say the lack of impact the weekday has. The analysis shows it does not matter which day of the week it is, you are still generating internet traffic and producing leads. This is mainly due to the access people have at all times to your site.
Figure 2
For showroom leads, figure 3 indicates the volume of leads is greater on Fridays and Saturdays. This takes us back to our prior theory of potential customers have more flexibility on those two days to visit the dealership.
Figure 3
We compared the weekday to all other factors for showroom leads and it has two times the affect as the second most important factor. See figure 4 below.
Figure 4
Let’s take a look at the same analysis for internet leads. Figure 5 shows that weekday doesn’t have nearly the impact on internet leads as showroom leads. In fact, the weather is the main driving factor for generating internet leads. This does make sense if you think about how bad weather can impact a person to be online more due to limited outdoor activity.
Figure 5
We have discussed the impact of weekdays on leads, now let’s look more in depth at how weather plays a part in the Chicago and Charlotte areas.
In the tables below, you will see how different types of weather events has a different effect on leads for our regional areas of choice. ↑ indicates that the weather event will significantly increase the number of leads. ↓ indicates that the weather event will significantly decrease the number of leads. ‘-’ indicates that the weather event will not have significant impact on the number of leads.
Table 1 – Weather Effect on Total Leads
For the Charlotte area, rain does not have a significant impact on the total leads, but if you dive into the different lead categories, you will see a different story. When it comes to internet leads, the volume will increase while the showroom will decrease. Again, indoor vs outdoor activity is impacted by this type of weather event. You will notice that the thunderstorm event results in an identical pattern. A snow event will negatively impact this area. Mainly because this is not a normal event for this area.
When it comes to the Chicago area, we find it interesting that the number for all types of leads increases when it has a rain or thunderstorm event. Figure 6 below shows the rain factor analysis for the Chicago area dealership.
Figure 6
If you compare this to figure 7, the rain factor analysis for the Charlotte area, you will see that the rain event has a much smaller impact on the Chicago area.
Figure 7
We remove the outliers after splitting the data by different weather factors and redo the statistic test.
Table 4 – Weather Effect on Total Leads
These results indicate that a rain or thunderstorm event will not have a significant impact on the Chicago area dealerships. This could be due to the higher tolerance of a weather event as the Chicago area typically deals with more types of weather events. The Charlotte area does not receive as many of the cold weather events like snow and typically has a warmer climate and more opportunity to potentially get outdoors. The Charlotte area can attribute up to 15% of their rainfall from tropical cyclone events so rain and thunderstorms will have a more significant impact on their showroom leads.
Digital Dealer 22 Review with Kevin Frye #DD22
- By kevinfrye
Can Peyton Hoffman Keep Me from this 5-Hour Energy Drink & another Digital Dealer review?
Woo hoo! It’s spring break!
I mean – “Hey boss, is it OK if I go to Digital Dealer 22 in Tampa to learn about the latest and greatest in automotive digital?”
Use your noggin knucklehead!
The last approach might be more successful if you want to join fellow dealers in sunny Florida to work, train, and network 24/7 to become a better digital dealer when you return. And who doesn't want to go to Tampa, Florida for Digital Dealer 22 after a long, cold winter? Are you ready to begin this recap?
Sunny Tampa, Florida hosts Digital Dealer 22
(humming to the tune...) Blinded by the light!
Or more appropriately, blinded by the white, which would be the skin tone of many northern dealers like myself as I flew in Monday and tried to catch a few rays at the pool before Digital Dealer 22 began. With multiple hotels to choose from within walking distance of the convention center, dealers had some great choices for accommodations. And of course I walked over to pick up my badge for early registration which was plenty convenient - BUT…
Smooth check-in for Digital Dealer 22
I speak for drink, at least that's what I think...
While checking in, I was told, “since you are a speaker, you don’t get a give-away bag or drink tickets”. Holy tight-ass, is this a new low in cost control care of Digital Dealer that they won’t even give a “speaking” dealer like myself a few drink tickets? Am I not even worth a couple Pabst Blue Ribbons after I complete another great Digital Dealer session? Don’t they know how many hours I put into creating a first class presentation? Or perhaps they are figuring out how many drinks I have while putting together my presentation and they are concerned for Kevin’s liver. Oh well, more on that later...
Candice Crain, Brent Wees, Josh Mitchell and Arnold Tijerina at #DD22
The Jeff Wyler Automotive Family sent a team of seven to Digital Dealer 22. I bring this up as I recall when I was the only person from our large auto family that attended these conferences for many years, and I know that many of YOU have also been that lone person. Has your dealership(s) also expanded who is attending as our market becomes more competitive?
A Jack in the Box, or a Charley in the Box? That makes steak???
The Wyler team had a wonderful steak dinner at Charley’s Steak House on Monday night – and it appears that 98% of Digital Dealer entertaining was also taking place there. Joining our team was Kate Frost who is now working with the Jeff Wyler Automotive Family as our social media consultant. She has taken our Instagram efforts from zero to 120 mph in less than 6 months and is doing much more. Thank you Kate, and welcome to the Wyler family! And time to get ready for day one of #DD22...
The Jeff Wyler Automotive Family enjoys dinner in Tampa
(to the tune of Twisted Sister...) I wanna walk! WALK!
I love starting each day with a short walk to the convention center, crossing the bridge and enjoying that Florida sunshine. Folks were picking up their badges at the registration counters with minimal lines and waits, which was a huge improvement from last fall at Digital Dealer 21. As I came up the steps, I was greeted by Jim Ziegler, who was speaking that morning. One problem – we were both speaking at the same time, so I was unable to join Jim’s session. Jim has always been passionate about being the dealers’ advocate. I am still trying to figure out where he is getting all of his energy as I am years behind him and he brings an energy level I envy. Thanks for all you do Jim!
Welcome back to Digital Dealer Jim Ziegler!
Practice practice practice!
While the Wyler team went to the peer strategy round-tables, I spent some time setting up my room for my upcoming presentation. My session involved some advanced Google Analytics techniques that included several screenshots and video clips, but I was discouraged to find one small screen in the corner for one large room. The size of the room was great but I was concerned that folks would not be able to see my content, what do you think? This was the case in several sessions. Hey Digital Dealer – could we at least have 2 screens, or one large screen in the middle for these larger rooms?
Big room, one small screen in corner
Talk about Stranger Things
I had spent a LOT of time preparing some great clips from the Stranger Things series from NetFlix which aired last year to complement my training. This is a tactic I call “entertraining”, where you both entertain and train but I ran into major issues. I ran through every slide, and every video, and everything worked flawlessly. Great video, great slides, great sound. As soon as my presentation started, every video failed but one very short clip – what happened?
Digital Dealer records the sessions so that folks can purchase them later to view. After learning that at least 5-10 speakers had the same problem as myself with their powerpoint videos failing, I figured out the problem. Once they start recording your presentation digitally, it takes up all of the RAM in your laptop and your videos cannot play. ARGH! I was one pissed pirate when I figured this out and am still upset. I have the highest respect for the attendees that come to my session and that means lots of preparation and practice to deliver a flawless presentation. Digital Dealer – let’s please get this figured out or not record sessions in the future.
Great to see Kim DePalma who has always supported dealer presenters
You can chew, but DON’T blow!
Of course, my session had to live up to its name of “Stranger Things” as I am always giving out some, let’s say “different” give-aways, and in this case it was some Bazooka chewing gum which was featured in the Stranger Things series. I was getting some “strange” looks from folks in the room as they opened their gum and of course opened up the comic strip that was inside. Turns out that all of the comics were printed in Arabic. Wait, ummmm, wasn’t I just calling Digital Dealer out on cost control? Holy hypocritical tight ass, that gum I ordered online must have been sourced out of some third world nation. Sorry folks...
Jessica Ruth, Blake Arbogast, and Peyton Hoffman at the Dominion Booth
VDP, yeah you know me...
My session focused on some of the flaws in Google Analytics that can mislead you in your reporting results. I shared how to fix this with the setup of events and event-based goals, and then followed up with some actual examples that dealers could see for some hands-on training. Much of my session focused on VDP-based solutions and I shared how I feel these will be a bigger part of our future digital marketing solutions in the future. Why? That warrants a full article in itself – stay tuned to see in an upcoming DealerRefresh blog.
Three Wise Men - Nick Cybela, Dan Moore, and Glenn Pasch
Line’em up kids!
Exhibit hall opened after my morning session and there were a lot of vendor booths on the floor, with only 2-3 empty stalls in the corner. I liked Cox’s new setup at the entrance. Rather than having multiple large booths for each of their entities, they had one large rectangular booth where you could walk around to the different “stations” for VinSolutions, vAuto, etc. that were part of the Cox family. I imagine that setup is likely a more efficient spend for their money as well. Is that important to me? YES – as ALL of us need to become more efficient as our market becomes more competitive, including our partners.
All-in-one Cox Exhibit. One stop shopping in exhibit hall
I spent a lot of time in exhibit hall this conference, looking at the different solutions available. It was great to see Nick Cybela and his team with FlowFound where they are providing virtual reality solutions. Virtual reality – and augmented reality – are 2 advanced digital solutions that are in the market, but are still trying to find their place in the dealership mix. I am certain that many of you have ideas of how to use virtual reality, but it has really caught my attention for the following reasons.
Nick Cybela and the FlowFound team
Mushrooming or showrooming, which is worse?
Well, your HR department might have some ideas on that, but all of us would agree that “showrooming” is an issue we all face. When the sales rep leaves the customer alone to approach the desk, out comes the customer’s cell phone and the showrooming begins as they begin to “cheat” on you and look at other dealers. I believe virtual reality can help fix this.
What if you had a virtual reality kiosk in your showroom with a library of some great video content. When the sales rep is ready to approach the desk, they first take the customer to the virtual reality kiosk and have them view a short VR video that not only creates a “wow” factor for your dealership, but also builds value in the car you are trying to sell. The sales rep can now return from the desk and find that their customer has remained engaged with the product, and is hopefully receptive to the “bump” you are ready to approach them with. What do you know, virtual reality is not only a defensive tool to prevent showrooming but also an offensive tool to help build gross…
Lance Alm, GM with Jeff Wyler Auto Family, getting virtual reality demo with FlowFound
Small plates anyone?
I did hear some grumbling about the small plates being handed out for lunch. While not as small as the dinner plates in a Barbie RV, but not as big as the plates provided with an EZ Bake Oven, they were certainly not large enough for some of these dealers’ appetites. Well, it wasn't porridge for crying out loud. Lunch was fair, and for me, it was a quick affair as I was doing my favorite thing at Digital Dealer - picking other dealers' brains.
Was great to see Jenn Pederna. I don't know how she handles working with Brent Wees
You have 2 ears and one mouth - use them in that proportion
What is your #1 concern today in our market? That was my question for fellow dealers on the floor, and almost unanimously, the answer was “compressing margins”. When our costs to acquire cars to sell are rising, while the gross we can earn when selling them is declining, we have compressing margins, and that means less profitability. Dealers are struggling in today’s highly competitive market, and they are looking for more efficient digital solutions to help them to optimize profitability. I talked about this at length in my presentation.
Jennifer Sanford, Sean Stapleton, Jeff Loos with Lotlinx and Tom Lapointe
Ladies and gentlemen – our business is changing. That’s right. The “gravy train” for profits is ending, and if it is ending for dealers, it is also ending for our vendor partners. We must ALL work together to become more efficient in an ever-more transparent market that is driving down our margins. Understanding that this is a top priority for dealers, I felt that activity in exhibit hall was stronger than normal. If there was a solution which could give a dealer an edge, it was being looked at. Let’s look at a few.
Am I dreaming or streaming?
The folks at Dropin Auto were very busy providing demos on their new streaming product. Was it the free drinks at their bar? Or their unique new product that enables you to put a “Live Stream” video button on your VDPs? As I best understand, when the shopper clicks on the “Live Stream” button, it alerts one of the sales reps at your dealership to respond with a live stream video of the vehicle. I have to admit, it was a pretty impressive demo. Think of it like live chat times 10, as you could not only get instantaneous chat with the shopper, but show them the car while they are hot.
Louis Ziskin provided some additional details for us about their solution which you can read about here.
Lots of activity, and free drinks, at the DropInAuto booth
We must divide and conquer!
That is how we work with the Wyler team we send to these conferences. We meet before the conference and decide who will attend which sessions. Since we are a big Dealer Teamwork customer, we had some of our team going to see Sean Stapleton, others to see Greg Gifford with his Local SEO presentation, our video producer going to see Tom Gallaher, and being the analytical geek I am, I went to see Brian Pasch and Tom Moore who were presenting “Eliminate Digital Marketing Blunders, BOTS, and Waste!”.
Jason Wiley, AJ Maida, and Jeff Gonzales. Jason and Jeff are with DyGen. Apparently AJ is Mat Koenig in another form (nametag?)
Brian and I are on the same path towards efficiency in the industry. Our vision for the future is very similar. It was great to see Brian in the back of my session tweeting and I wanted to sit in his to see what he and Tom Moore had to share. One key concept that we both agree on is to STOP focusing on the quantity of digital traffic and start focusing on the quality. We have a mutual vision in teaching fellow dealers how to set-up their Google Analytics and other tools to best measure the quality of their incoming traffic, and then teaching them what to look for. Brian is pushing for the standardization of goals and events in GA for the industry so that we can hold vendors accountable for performance with the same metrics. Brian, you have my support!
Great to see Michael Groves back at Apple Autos (with John Yoder)
I was unable to attend the next speaking session as we had practice for the upcoming “Tech Tank” panel. Once again my team split up to see great speakers like Joe Webb, Andrew Meyers, Kathi Kruse, and more. And speaking of the “Tech Tank” panel, wow! We had some great solutions to choose from.
Is Twitter going down the $hitter?
Are we seeing the slow demise of Twitter at Digital Dealer? It seems like there was little Twitter action by dealer attendees outside of a few, but lots of posts from the vendors. Hats off to Joey Little who also brought this up as much of the content was canned and pre-programmed, with little real-time insight in the sessions as compared to previous years. I have seen a similar pattern at other shows this past year. Good news for you though - I have tagged names through this recap with their Twitter handles so you can follow each one and keep on top of our industry.
Chris Hill is always passionate about automotive, joined with Ross Stirewalt of Dealer.com
Want an appointment? You better have some Voodoo…
Vendor Voodoo caught a lot of dealers’ attention with its unique approach on how to help vendors connect with busy dealers. Basically, the vendor makes a donation to your charity of choice in return for an appointment to see you. Vendor Voodoo helps you manage a busy schedule, while allowing both the dealer and vendor to support a local charity. There was a fair amount of feedback on this concept of “pay to play”, but I have to give a kudos for the creativity of the idea..
With long time friends April Rain and Kate Frost - strong leaders in our industry
The winning solution was 1Micro Secure Asset Control and their new key management system. It allows dealers to closely and conveniently manage their car keys as well as their cars. Why do I think it won? Simple – it is helping dealers to be more EFFICIENT and to save money in their daily operations by saving time with not chasing down cars and missing keys.
Jamie Grum wins the Tech Tank competition with 1Micro Key Solution
Hey Batman, do you see the signal in the air?
Well for me, that was a cell phone text and a crisis back on the work-front, so I had to miss the keynote. I am certain that I am the only dealer this has ever happened to (insert heavy sarcasm here). The feedback I received was that keynote speaker Michael King did very well. In fact all of the keynotes were strongly attended – just look at the large crowd in the picture below.
Packed keynotes at Digital Dealer 22
And speaking of attendance, everything I saw and heard was that the turnout for DD22 was stronger than average for a spring conference. While some other shows are starting to stagnate, Digital Dealer seems to be getting a second wind and growing stronger.
Do the DT’s stand for Dealer Teamwork?
NO! Cocktail hour started and I had no free drink tickets. I pulled out my banjo, opened the case on the ground, and started playing the theme to Deliverance to hopefully get some tip money to buy some drinks. Before I finished the first 9 notes, Melissa Green was there to deLIVER (did you catch that..) some free drink tickets to me and save the day. Thank you Melissa for restoring my faith in humanity, and Digital Dealer. More great times followed connecting with fellow dealers and vendors, and then off to dinner at the Columbia.
Cecil Bolling, Kelli Pierani, Lance Alm, Ron Overstreet, Ross Stirewalt at Columbia restaurant
Let’s just say that when you mix type-A, outgoing car folks with a little libation, good times always follow. I cannot share the contents of much of the evening but let’s say I have some videos that can earn me some nice retirement money. And while I got in around 3 am – this big dog was there at 7:30 eating breakfast the following morning for day 2!
Lots of fun with awesome #AutoFam in Tampa
At heart, I am an exhibitionist...
Hold on a sec, maybe the night before after some liquid courage, but I did spend the first session in exhibition hall completing a demo with one of the major providers at the show. Sorry folks, name withheld on this important meeting.
Ran into Heather Allred, Mat Koenig, Tom Lapointe, Ted Dupuy, Kevin Campbell and many more fun folks
How sick am I?
Well, I guess sick enough to see Brent Wees and Mark Stringfellow at 10 to see “How Sick is Your Sales Floor?” Of course it was a great session if Brent was involved, though I cringe every time he calls me up front with another opportunity to humiliate me. Wait, he was very nice this time, Brent must be really sick. Brent and Mark shared many great tactics to deal with the psychology of the sales floor. Visit missingopportunity.com to see one of their great tricks to help you become more efficient.
Brent Wees and Mark Stringfellow "entertrain" the audience at #DD22
More demos followed at 11 am – and I did not attend the charity auction but I heard a lot of noise and excitement over there. Another quick lunch, and off I went to see my counterpart at AutoNation – Famous Rhodes.
Just send the bills to Jennifer…
As in Jennifer Bills and Famous Rhodes who shared some of their strategy with SEM, SEO, Display and Social Media. Take a guess – do you think they are trying to become more efficient? If the largest in the industry is heading that direction, is that a signal that you should do the same? Did you know that your used cars get 8x more traffic on the major aggregators that your new cars? And understanding that, are you using your heavy traffic VDPs to drive traffic to vehicles that need help (eg. Similar vehicles). Lots of great ideas in this session. Thanks Famous and Jennifer.
The Infamous Famous Rhodes and myself, with the boring name "Kevin"
More time in exhibit hall, texting to find fellow friends. Wait, did I mention that it seemed like there were lots of texting solutions this year? While each has some great ideas, I am uncertain where they fit in our mix as most of the major chat providers we use are already providing text solutions, and it is hard for me to see where these add-on text solutions work for us. Even our service scheduling provider (xTime) has a text solution. What do you think?
And the lion will lay next to the lamb...
That’s it baby, now I am bringing scripture into these Digital Dealer reviews. A big shout-out to Phil Sura for orchestrating the next keynote panel that put Twitter, Google, and Facebook on the same stage. Fortunately, speakers Peter Leto with Google, Trace Przybylowicz with Facebook and Chad Rumminger with Twitter were ran through some metal detectors followed by a strip search to ensure that no knife fights would follow on stage. A great keynote presentation followed which shared how dealers can leverage each of these HUGE social platforms to help them to sell more cars and service.
Josh Mitchell, Peter Leto with Google, and Jason Wiley in exhibit hall
And then it started catching up with me…
Two nights with less than 4 hours of sleep. I enjoyed another great evening with friends but this time I wrapped up by midnight. I am sorry that I missed the Joe and Shaun Karaoke event, but I chose to go back to my hotel room and dunk some Oreos in a warm glass of milk and get a good night’s sleep.
Great job by Phil Sura with his keynote panel (joined by Tim Kost)
Arise!
A full 6 hours of sleep brought me back to life (just like the college days) and I returned for breakfast and another quick meeting. However, I had to fly out the morning of Day 3 as I had a very important meeting with Homenet upon my return. I was incredibly disappointed to miss presentations with Kate Frost, Steve White with Clarivoy, Matt Raymond, and Elise Kephart. I am certain that you all did well - and all of the feedback I have received was positive for each of you.
What is this? Disabled Dealer?
Speaking of Matt Raymond, was he reaching for an all-time low by arriving in a wheelchair and looking for some type of registration discount? Or perhaps this was a brilliant move on his part to get free publicity for his presentation with countless selfies in exhibit hall? Or was Matt just looking to get fellow dealers to push him around? Well played Matt, well played...
Bobbie Herron wheeling Matt Raymond to his next session #AutoFam
Before I forget – what was the second concern of most dealers I spoke to? It was the recent purchase of Digital Dealer by Emerald Expositions.
Love’em or hate’em, you gotta RESPECT him
I am talking about Mike Roscoe. Over the years I have learned more about conferences than I care to know. What goes on behind the scenes with conference organizers and our vendors is an amazing amount of work to make these shows as smooth and wonderful as possible for dealers like you and myself. It is a high pressure business that involves a lot of money, preparation and aggravation.
Here is where you will find #DD22 decks in about a week
I think all of us can agree that Mike has created a first class product with Digital Dealer. He was one of our pioneers and innovators that brought fellow dealers together in the most challenging transition of our industry as automotive entered the digital arena. Along the way, he worked with a lot of great people to build these shows, including Cliff Banks, Kim DePalma, Ceren Isildak, Melissa Green, Arnold Tijerina, and I know I am missing so many more names. Mike and his team were very supportive of encouraging dealers like myself to speak on the podium, but there is more to that.
Too long since seeing my long time friend Katie Richter!
Many of you know if you have attended my sessions that I often present content that is controversial and can aggravate many of our vendors. These are many of the same vendors that pay a lot of money to participate in Digital Dealer. The reality is that my sessions are not as welcome at many other shows as the show organizers are hesitant to offend anyone. Mike Roscoe has NEVER attempted to censor me or moderate me – or my fellow dealers. He has always encouraged me to share the truth and supported my efforts - that is true transparency in the industry.
Mike and the entire team at DD have been great friends to my wife Julie and I as well. I value their friendship and Mike - you have my highest respect. And Emerald Expositions, as the new Digital Dealer owners, you have a high standard to maintain and dealers are looking at you closely to deliver the same high quality content combined with a first class experience.
Why Sean Stapleton should not challenge Tom Lapointe to a wrestling match. BTW - socks?
Can you handle the truth?
I talked about "true transparency" in my session, as part of my vision of digital automotive in the upcoming years. As one of the initial folks to openly present on attribution in the industry, and as the first dealer to build a model for others to share, I have seen a lot of folks pursue the study of how to best identify what digital providers are giving them as an "assist" as they sell cars. In our efforts to become more efficient, I shared what I felt was a better model:
Think about this - why should we have to trust that "shoppers are going to these sites and they don't submit a form or make a call, they just arrive at our dealership" when true transparency is available. If I see these shoppers going directly to my VDPs on my website, I can SEE if they are engaged whether they call or submit a form, and then I know the provider is doing a great (or not so great) job for us. Do I have the perfect solution? I don't imagine, but I am seeking it. Can we unite as dealers and vendors in one common team to become more efficient in a market with leaner margins? We need to, and I am pushing each of you that direction.
With Kelli Pierani and Cecil Bolling from our Wyler eCommerce team
And speaking of Digital Dealer 23 - it will be at the Paris Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas from September 18-20. Until then, I will be learning how to count cards with Jerry Thibeau so that we can dominate the Blackjack tables this fall. Cheers to each of you and I look forward to seeing you at Digital Dealer 23 in Vegas! And make sure to check out our Jeff Wyler video recap of Digital Dealer 22 below.
This review is also post over in the DealerRefresh forums for commenting - click here
Woo hoo! It’s spring break!
I mean – “Hey boss, is it OK if I go to Digital Dealer 22 in Tampa to learn about the latest and greatest in automotive digital?”
Use your noggin knucklehead!
The last approach might be more successful if you want to join fellow dealers in sunny Florida to work, train, and network 24/7 to become a better digital dealer when you return. And who doesn't want to go to Tampa, Florida for Digital Dealer 22 after a long, cold winter? Are you ready to begin this recap?
Sunny Tampa, Florida hosts Digital Dealer 22
(humming to the tune...) Blinded by the light!
Or more appropriately, blinded by the white, which would be the skin tone of many northern dealers like myself as I flew in Monday and tried to catch a few rays at the pool before Digital Dealer 22 began. With multiple hotels to choose from within walking distance of the convention center, dealers had some great choices for accommodations. And of course I walked over to pick up my badge for early registration which was plenty convenient - BUT…
Smooth check-in for Digital Dealer 22
I speak for drink, at least that's what I think...
While checking in, I was told, “since you are a speaker, you don’t get a give-away bag or drink tickets”. Holy tight-ass, is this a new low in cost control care of Digital Dealer that they won’t even give a “speaking” dealer like myself a few drink tickets? Am I not even worth a couple Pabst Blue Ribbons after I complete another great Digital Dealer session? Don’t they know how many hours I put into creating a first class presentation? Or perhaps they are figuring out how many drinks I have while putting together my presentation and they are concerned for Kevin’s liver. Oh well, more on that later...
Candice Crain, Brent Wees, Josh Mitchell and Arnold Tijerina at #DD22
The Jeff Wyler Automotive Family sent a team of seven to Digital Dealer 22. I bring this up as I recall when I was the only person from our large auto family that attended these conferences for many years, and I know that many of YOU have also been that lone person. Has your dealership(s) also expanded who is attending as our market becomes more competitive?
A Jack in the Box, or a Charley in the Box? That makes steak???
The Wyler team had a wonderful steak dinner at Charley’s Steak House on Monday night – and it appears that 98% of Digital Dealer entertaining was also taking place there. Joining our team was Kate Frost who is now working with the Jeff Wyler Automotive Family as our social media consultant. She has taken our Instagram efforts from zero to 120 mph in less than 6 months and is doing much more. Thank you Kate, and welcome to the Wyler family! And time to get ready for day one of #DD22...
The Jeff Wyler Automotive Family enjoys dinner in Tampa
(to the tune of Twisted Sister...) I wanna walk! WALK!
I love starting each day with a short walk to the convention center, crossing the bridge and enjoying that Florida sunshine. Folks were picking up their badges at the registration counters with minimal lines and waits, which was a huge improvement from last fall at Digital Dealer 21. As I came up the steps, I was greeted by Jim Ziegler, who was speaking that morning. One problem – we were both speaking at the same time, so I was unable to join Jim’s session. Jim has always been passionate about being the dealers’ advocate. I am still trying to figure out where he is getting all of his energy as I am years behind him and he brings an energy level I envy. Thanks for all you do Jim!
Welcome back to Digital Dealer Jim Ziegler!
Practice practice practice!
While the Wyler team went to the peer strategy round-tables, I spent some time setting up my room for my upcoming presentation. My session involved some advanced Google Analytics techniques that included several screenshots and video clips, but I was discouraged to find one small screen in the corner for one large room. The size of the room was great but I was concerned that folks would not be able to see my content, what do you think? This was the case in several sessions. Hey Digital Dealer – could we at least have 2 screens, or one large screen in the middle for these larger rooms?
Big room, one small screen in corner
Talk about Stranger Things
I had spent a LOT of time preparing some great clips from the Stranger Things series from NetFlix which aired last year to complement my training. This is a tactic I call “entertraining”, where you both entertain and train but I ran into major issues. I ran through every slide, and every video, and everything worked flawlessly. Great video, great slides, great sound. As soon as my presentation started, every video failed but one very short clip – what happened?
Digital Dealer records the sessions so that folks can purchase them later to view. After learning that at least 5-10 speakers had the same problem as myself with their powerpoint videos failing, I figured out the problem. Once they start recording your presentation digitally, it takes up all of the RAM in your laptop and your videos cannot play. ARGH! I was one pissed pirate when I figured this out and am still upset. I have the highest respect for the attendees that come to my session and that means lots of preparation and practice to deliver a flawless presentation. Digital Dealer – let’s please get this figured out or not record sessions in the future.
Great to see Kim DePalma who has always supported dealer presenters
You can chew, but DON’T blow!
Of course, my session had to live up to its name of “Stranger Things” as I am always giving out some, let’s say “different” give-aways, and in this case it was some Bazooka chewing gum which was featured in the Stranger Things series. I was getting some “strange” looks from folks in the room as they opened their gum and of course opened up the comic strip that was inside. Turns out that all of the comics were printed in Arabic. Wait, ummmm, wasn’t I just calling Digital Dealer out on cost control? Holy hypocritical tight ass, that gum I ordered online must have been sourced out of some third world nation. Sorry folks...
Jessica Ruth, Blake Arbogast, and Peyton Hoffman at the Dominion Booth
VDP, yeah you know me...
My session focused on some of the flaws in Google Analytics that can mislead you in your reporting results. I shared how to fix this with the setup of events and event-based goals, and then followed up with some actual examples that dealers could see for some hands-on training. Much of my session focused on VDP-based solutions and I shared how I feel these will be a bigger part of our future digital marketing solutions in the future. Why? That warrants a full article in itself – stay tuned to see in an upcoming DealerRefresh blog.
Three Wise Men - Nick Cybela, Dan Moore, and Glenn Pasch
Line’em up kids!
Exhibit hall opened after my morning session and there were a lot of vendor booths on the floor, with only 2-3 empty stalls in the corner. I liked Cox’s new setup at the entrance. Rather than having multiple large booths for each of their entities, they had one large rectangular booth where you could walk around to the different “stations” for VinSolutions, vAuto, etc. that were part of the Cox family. I imagine that setup is likely a more efficient spend for their money as well. Is that important to me? YES – as ALL of us need to become more efficient as our market becomes more competitive, including our partners.
All-in-one Cox Exhibit. One stop shopping in exhibit hall
I spent a lot of time in exhibit hall this conference, looking at the different solutions available. It was great to see Nick Cybela and his team with FlowFound where they are providing virtual reality solutions. Virtual reality – and augmented reality – are 2 advanced digital solutions that are in the market, but are still trying to find their place in the dealership mix. I am certain that many of you have ideas of how to use virtual reality, but it has really caught my attention for the following reasons.
Nick Cybela and the FlowFound team
Mushrooming or showrooming, which is worse?
Well, your HR department might have some ideas on that, but all of us would agree that “showrooming” is an issue we all face. When the sales rep leaves the customer alone to approach the desk, out comes the customer’s cell phone and the showrooming begins as they begin to “cheat” on you and look at other dealers. I believe virtual reality can help fix this.
What if you had a virtual reality kiosk in your showroom with a library of some great video content. When the sales rep is ready to approach the desk, they first take the customer to the virtual reality kiosk and have them view a short VR video that not only creates a “wow” factor for your dealership, but also builds value in the car you are trying to sell. The sales rep can now return from the desk and find that their customer has remained engaged with the product, and is hopefully receptive to the “bump” you are ready to approach them with. What do you know, virtual reality is not only a defensive tool to prevent showrooming but also an offensive tool to help build gross…
Lance Alm, GM with Jeff Wyler Auto Family, getting virtual reality demo with FlowFound
Small plates anyone?
I did hear some grumbling about the small plates being handed out for lunch. While not as small as the dinner plates in a Barbie RV, but not as big as the plates provided with an EZ Bake Oven, they were certainly not large enough for some of these dealers’ appetites. Well, it wasn't porridge for crying out loud. Lunch was fair, and for me, it was a quick affair as I was doing my favorite thing at Digital Dealer - picking other dealers' brains.
Was great to see Jenn Pederna. I don't know how she handles working with Brent Wees
You have 2 ears and one mouth - use them in that proportion
What is your #1 concern today in our market? That was my question for fellow dealers on the floor, and almost unanimously, the answer was “compressing margins”. When our costs to acquire cars to sell are rising, while the gross we can earn when selling them is declining, we have compressing margins, and that means less profitability. Dealers are struggling in today’s highly competitive market, and they are looking for more efficient digital solutions to help them to optimize profitability. I talked about this at length in my presentation.
Jennifer Sanford, Sean Stapleton, Jeff Loos with Lotlinx and Tom Lapointe
Ladies and gentlemen – our business is changing. That’s right. The “gravy train” for profits is ending, and if it is ending for dealers, it is also ending for our vendor partners. We must ALL work together to become more efficient in an ever-more transparent market that is driving down our margins. Understanding that this is a top priority for dealers, I felt that activity in exhibit hall was stronger than normal. If there was a solution which could give a dealer an edge, it was being looked at. Let’s look at a few.
Am I dreaming or streaming?
The folks at Dropin Auto were very busy providing demos on their new streaming product. Was it the free drinks at their bar? Or their unique new product that enables you to put a “Live Stream” video button on your VDPs? As I best understand, when the shopper clicks on the “Live Stream” button, it alerts one of the sales reps at your dealership to respond with a live stream video of the vehicle. I have to admit, it was a pretty impressive demo. Think of it like live chat times 10, as you could not only get instantaneous chat with the shopper, but show them the car while they are hot.
Louis Ziskin provided some additional details for us about their solution which you can read about here.
Lots of activity, and free drinks, at the DropInAuto booth
We must divide and conquer!
That is how we work with the Wyler team we send to these conferences. We meet before the conference and decide who will attend which sessions. Since we are a big Dealer Teamwork customer, we had some of our team going to see Sean Stapleton, others to see Greg Gifford with his Local SEO presentation, our video producer going to see Tom Gallaher, and being the analytical geek I am, I went to see Brian Pasch and Tom Moore who were presenting “Eliminate Digital Marketing Blunders, BOTS, and Waste!”.
Jason Wiley, AJ Maida, and Jeff Gonzales. Jason and Jeff are with DyGen. Apparently AJ is Mat Koenig in another form (nametag?)
Brian and I are on the same path towards efficiency in the industry. Our vision for the future is very similar. It was great to see Brian in the back of my session tweeting and I wanted to sit in his to see what he and Tom Moore had to share. One key concept that we both agree on is to STOP focusing on the quantity of digital traffic and start focusing on the quality. We have a mutual vision in teaching fellow dealers how to set-up their Google Analytics and other tools to best measure the quality of their incoming traffic, and then teaching them what to look for. Brian is pushing for the standardization of goals and events in GA for the industry so that we can hold vendors accountable for performance with the same metrics. Brian, you have my support!
Great to see Michael Groves back at Apple Autos (with John Yoder)
I was unable to attend the next speaking session as we had practice for the upcoming “Tech Tank” panel. Once again my team split up to see great speakers like Joe Webb, Andrew Meyers, Kathi Kruse, and more. And speaking of the “Tech Tank” panel, wow! We had some great solutions to choose from.
Is Twitter going down the $hitter?
Are we seeing the slow demise of Twitter at Digital Dealer? It seems like there was little Twitter action by dealer attendees outside of a few, but lots of posts from the vendors. Hats off to Joey Little who also brought this up as much of the content was canned and pre-programmed, with little real-time insight in the sessions as compared to previous years. I have seen a similar pattern at other shows this past year. Good news for you though - I have tagged names through this recap with their Twitter handles so you can follow each one and keep on top of our industry.
Chris Hill is always passionate about automotive, joined with Ross Stirewalt of Dealer.com
Want an appointment? You better have some Voodoo…
Vendor Voodoo caught a lot of dealers’ attention with its unique approach on how to help vendors connect with busy dealers. Basically, the vendor makes a donation to your charity of choice in return for an appointment to see you. Vendor Voodoo helps you manage a busy schedule, while allowing both the dealer and vendor to support a local charity. There was a fair amount of feedback on this concept of “pay to play”, but I have to give a kudos for the creativity of the idea..
With long time friends April Rain and Kate Frost - strong leaders in our industry
The winning solution was 1Micro Secure Asset Control and their new key management system. It allows dealers to closely and conveniently manage their car keys as well as their cars. Why do I think it won? Simple – it is helping dealers to be more EFFICIENT and to save money in their daily operations by saving time with not chasing down cars and missing keys.
Jamie Grum wins the Tech Tank competition with 1Micro Key Solution
Hey Batman, do you see the signal in the air?
Well for me, that was a cell phone text and a crisis back on the work-front, so I had to miss the keynote. I am certain that I am the only dealer this has ever happened to (insert heavy sarcasm here). The feedback I received was that keynote speaker Michael King did very well. In fact all of the keynotes were strongly attended – just look at the large crowd in the picture below.
Packed keynotes at Digital Dealer 22
And speaking of attendance, everything I saw and heard was that the turnout for DD22 was stronger than average for a spring conference. While some other shows are starting to stagnate, Digital Dealer seems to be getting a second wind and growing stronger.
Do the DT’s stand for Dealer Teamwork?
NO! Cocktail hour started and I had no free drink tickets. I pulled out my banjo, opened the case on the ground, and started playing the theme to Deliverance to hopefully get some tip money to buy some drinks. Before I finished the first 9 notes, Melissa Green was there to deLIVER (did you catch that..) some free drink tickets to me and save the day. Thank you Melissa for restoring my faith in humanity, and Digital Dealer. More great times followed connecting with fellow dealers and vendors, and then off to dinner at the Columbia.
Cecil Bolling, Kelli Pierani, Lance Alm, Ron Overstreet, Ross Stirewalt at Columbia restaurant
Let’s just say that when you mix type-A, outgoing car folks with a little libation, good times always follow. I cannot share the contents of much of the evening but let’s say I have some videos that can earn me some nice retirement money. And while I got in around 3 am – this big dog was there at 7:30 eating breakfast the following morning for day 2!
Lots of fun with awesome #AutoFam in Tampa
At heart, I am an exhibitionist...
Hold on a sec, maybe the night before after some liquid courage, but I did spend the first session in exhibition hall completing a demo with one of the major providers at the show. Sorry folks, name withheld on this important meeting.
Ran into Heather Allred, Mat Koenig, Tom Lapointe, Ted Dupuy, Kevin Campbell and many more fun folks
How sick am I?
Well, I guess sick enough to see Brent Wees and Mark Stringfellow at 10 to see “How Sick is Your Sales Floor?” Of course it was a great session if Brent was involved, though I cringe every time he calls me up front with another opportunity to humiliate me. Wait, he was very nice this time, Brent must be really sick. Brent and Mark shared many great tactics to deal with the psychology of the sales floor. Visit missingopportunity.com to see one of their great tricks to help you become more efficient.
Brent Wees and Mark Stringfellow "entertrain" the audience at #DD22
More demos followed at 11 am – and I did not attend the charity auction but I heard a lot of noise and excitement over there. Another quick lunch, and off I went to see my counterpart at AutoNation – Famous Rhodes.
Just send the bills to Jennifer…
As in Jennifer Bills and Famous Rhodes who shared some of their strategy with SEM, SEO, Display and Social Media. Take a guess – do you think they are trying to become more efficient? If the largest in the industry is heading that direction, is that a signal that you should do the same? Did you know that your used cars get 8x more traffic on the major aggregators that your new cars? And understanding that, are you using your heavy traffic VDPs to drive traffic to vehicles that need help (eg. Similar vehicles). Lots of great ideas in this session. Thanks Famous and Jennifer.
The Infamous Famous Rhodes and myself, with the boring name "Kevin"
More time in exhibit hall, texting to find fellow friends. Wait, did I mention that it seemed like there were lots of texting solutions this year? While each has some great ideas, I am uncertain where they fit in our mix as most of the major chat providers we use are already providing text solutions, and it is hard for me to see where these add-on text solutions work for us. Even our service scheduling provider (xTime) has a text solution. What do you think?
And the lion will lay next to the lamb...
That’s it baby, now I am bringing scripture into these Digital Dealer reviews. A big shout-out to Phil Sura for orchestrating the next keynote panel that put Twitter, Google, and Facebook on the same stage. Fortunately, speakers Peter Leto with Google, Trace Przybylowicz with Facebook and Chad Rumminger with Twitter were ran through some metal detectors followed by a strip search to ensure that no knife fights would follow on stage. A great keynote presentation followed which shared how dealers can leverage each of these HUGE social platforms to help them to sell more cars and service.
Josh Mitchell, Peter Leto with Google, and Jason Wiley in exhibit hall
And then it started catching up with me…
Two nights with less than 4 hours of sleep. I enjoyed another great evening with friends but this time I wrapped up by midnight. I am sorry that I missed the Joe and Shaun Karaoke event, but I chose to go back to my hotel room and dunk some Oreos in a warm glass of milk and get a good night’s sleep.
Great job by Phil Sura with his keynote panel (joined by Tim Kost)
Arise!
A full 6 hours of sleep brought me back to life (just like the college days) and I returned for breakfast and another quick meeting. However, I had to fly out the morning of Day 3 as I had a very important meeting with Homenet upon my return. I was incredibly disappointed to miss presentations with Kate Frost, Steve White with Clarivoy, Matt Raymond, and Elise Kephart. I am certain that you all did well - and all of the feedback I have received was positive for each of you.
What is this? Disabled Dealer?
Speaking of Matt Raymond, was he reaching for an all-time low by arriving in a wheelchair and looking for some type of registration discount? Or perhaps this was a brilliant move on his part to get free publicity for his presentation with countless selfies in exhibit hall? Or was Matt just looking to get fellow dealers to push him around? Well played Matt, well played...
Bobbie Herron wheeling Matt Raymond to his next session #AutoFam
Before I forget – what was the second concern of most dealers I spoke to? It was the recent purchase of Digital Dealer by Emerald Expositions.
Love’em or hate’em, you gotta RESPECT him
I am talking about Mike Roscoe. Over the years I have learned more about conferences than I care to know. What goes on behind the scenes with conference organizers and our vendors is an amazing amount of work to make these shows as smooth and wonderful as possible for dealers like you and myself. It is a high pressure business that involves a lot of money, preparation and aggravation.
Here is where you will find #DD22 decks in about a week
I think all of us can agree that Mike has created a first class product with Digital Dealer. He was one of our pioneers and innovators that brought fellow dealers together in the most challenging transition of our industry as automotive entered the digital arena. Along the way, he worked with a lot of great people to build these shows, including Cliff Banks, Kim DePalma, Ceren Isildak, Melissa Green, Arnold Tijerina, and I know I am missing so many more names. Mike and his team were very supportive of encouraging dealers like myself to speak on the podium, but there is more to that.
Too long since seeing my long time friend Katie Richter!
Many of you know if you have attended my sessions that I often present content that is controversial and can aggravate many of our vendors. These are many of the same vendors that pay a lot of money to participate in Digital Dealer. The reality is that my sessions are not as welcome at many other shows as the show organizers are hesitant to offend anyone. Mike Roscoe has NEVER attempted to censor me or moderate me – or my fellow dealers. He has always encouraged me to share the truth and supported my efforts - that is true transparency in the industry.
Mike and the entire team at DD have been great friends to my wife Julie and I as well. I value their friendship and Mike - you have my highest respect. And Emerald Expositions, as the new Digital Dealer owners, you have a high standard to maintain and dealers are looking at you closely to deliver the same high quality content combined with a first class experience.
Why Sean Stapleton should not challenge Tom Lapointe to a wrestling match. BTW - socks?
Can you handle the truth?
I talked about "true transparency" in my session, as part of my vision of digital automotive in the upcoming years. As one of the initial folks to openly present on attribution in the industry, and as the first dealer to build a model for others to share, I have seen a lot of folks pursue the study of how to best identify what digital providers are giving them as an "assist" as they sell cars. In our efforts to become more efficient, I shared what I felt was a better model:
- When less than half of a dealer's inventory is even seen on the major aggregators, and that half is the cars that don't need help getting VDP's, wouldn't it be better, and cheaper to just syndicate the cars to them that need help with views?
- If the battleground for the modern shopper is at the VDP, wouldn't it make best sense to send them directly to our website VDP where we have our best tools and processes to win that battle? (think credit pre-approval, video of the car, trade in value tools, etc - and no competing ads)
- If we work in a performance based industry, isn't it fair for our vendor partners to only get paid for proven performance as well? As in we only pay for VDP views?
- Why should we have to argue with our vendors on whether their solution is performing? If they delivered shoppers directly to our VDP, we can directly see the quality of the traffic (this is what I was teaching how to setup correctly in Google Analytics).
- Why are we pointing our fingers at our vendors when WE as dealers bear responsibility as well? If the provider delivers quality traffic to my website, it is my responsibility on whether I have optimally merchandised the vehicle and provided the best tools on the VDP to win the battle at that point.
Think about this - why should we have to trust that "shoppers are going to these sites and they don't submit a form or make a call, they just arrive at our dealership" when true transparency is available. If I see these shoppers going directly to my VDPs on my website, I can SEE if they are engaged whether they call or submit a form, and then I know the provider is doing a great (or not so great) job for us. Do I have the perfect solution? I don't imagine, but I am seeking it. Can we unite as dealers and vendors in one common team to become more efficient in a market with leaner margins? We need to, and I am pushing each of you that direction.
With Kelli Pierani and Cecil Bolling from our Wyler eCommerce team
And speaking of Digital Dealer 23 - it will be at the Paris Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas from September 18-20. Until then, I will be learning how to count cards with Jerry Thibeau so that we can dominate the Blackjack tables this fall. Cheers to each of you and I look forward to seeing you at Digital Dealer 23 in Vegas! And make sure to check out our Jeff Wyler video recap of Digital Dealer 22 below.
This review is also post over in the DealerRefresh forums for commenting - click here
How Weather Impacts Your Dealer's Service Repair Orders
- By jon.berna
- Off Topic & Everything Else
- 0 Replies
Every fixed operations department across north America thinks that weather has an impact on the number of completed repair orders (ROs) each day. Every fixed operations department across North America thinks that certain days of the week are slower (i.e., fewer completed ROs) than other days. We've uncovered some unexpected results.
More than 100,000 service records from 2015 and 2016 were used to construct 12,000 data points for analysis in this study. Various locations from the U.S. were used to account for differences in regional reactions of the same weather pattern.
For example:
People in Chicago, Illinois may react differently to 3 inches of snow than people in Atlanta, Georgia react to 3 inches of snow.
Since one repair order (RO) at a small shop accounts for a larger percentage of the total than one RO in a very large service department, the data were normalized to account for this variation in service drive size. After standardization, the RO counts per day were expressed as a number between 0 and 100.
Here is the breakdown: 50 = Average, >50 = High Level
The daily RO count was analyzed using the day of the week as our independent variable. This article will refer to this as weekday factor.
Figure 1 is the boxplot for analyzing weekday factor. It shows that weekday factor has a significant effect on the number of ROs. Monday has the highest number of ROs compared with all other days of the week while Saturday has the lowest.
Figure 1
WHY?
For some, it may be more desirable to take time away from work on Monday rather than one’s own personal time on Saturday.
Figure 2
What does this mean?
Predictability is important in any statistical analysis. In fact, one might say determining predictability is the reason for analyzing any data set. If a variable is more predictable it typically means it has a larger and more consistent effect on another variable. In this case, we compared ROs to the following:
Weekday factor has DOUBLE the influence as the second most influential factor (Sea Level Pressure) in predicting RO count.
This tree (Fig. 3) uses a significance test procedure to select variables. These significance tests are computed at the beginning of each algorithm. We calculated all possible values of the test statistic under rearrangements of the labels on the observed data points.
Figure 3
What does this mean?
Each variable was compared to every other variable in every possible arrangement. After this, it was determined that Saturday is, by far, the most predictable and influential factor including all weather events and other days of the week.
Speaking of weather events, they were analyzed separately from weekday factor to isolate weather events from the powerful influence of weekday factor. Examining t-test results, it seems like rain and fog do not impact the number of ROs, but snow and thunderstorms do have a noticeable impact on RO count. This is a general observation using all data, but does this same pattern persist when we compare different regions in the U.S.?
Figure 4
Analysis of dealerships in North Carolina revealed that rain has a statistically significant impact on RO count. When it rains, dealerships should expect 0.35-0.45% decrease in number of completed ROs. It is worth mentioning that snow does not have a significant impact on RO count for dealerships in NC.
Figure 5
Figure 5 shows the scatter plot of number of ROs spread over temperature and humidity and grouped by whether it’s raining or not. We can observe that if there is no rain, there seems to be more percentage of data points with high level number of ROs.
Figure 6
Analysis of dealerships in Chicago showed that snow, not rain, negatively impacted the number of ROs. In fact, when there is a snow event (snow accumulation), we expect to see a 4.5-8.8% decrease in RO count!
Moreover, Figure 6 shows that snow doesn’t have significant impact on number of ROs for them.
Figure 7
This analysis was performed at 3 other locations and the results can be seen in Figure 8. Upon closer examination, IL and OK have more frequent days of snowfall than the other 3 states. Therefore, snow impacts daily activities more frequently in these states than in the other 3 states. Likewise, GA, AL, and NC have more frequent days of rain compared with the other states.
Since these rain events occur more frequently in these southwestern states, the effects of the rain occur more commonly, and therefore rain’s impact on RO count in these states is more far-reaching and impactful.
Figure 8
In conclusion, there are two noteworthy findings:
So how much does weather impact your dealership?
It depends on what day of the week it happens. If the forecast calls for bad weather weather on a normally busy weekday you can expect a relatively normal day. Also, different parts of the country respond differently to adverse weather.
More than 100,000 service records from 2015 and 2016 were used to construct 12,000 data points for analysis in this study. Various locations from the U.S. were used to account for differences in regional reactions of the same weather pattern.
For example:
People in Chicago, Illinois may react differently to 3 inches of snow than people in Atlanta, Georgia react to 3 inches of snow.
Since one repair order (RO) at a small shop accounts for a larger percentage of the total than one RO in a very large service department, the data were normalized to account for this variation in service drive size. After standardization, the RO counts per day were expressed as a number between 0 and 100.
Here is the breakdown: 50 = Average, >50 = High Level
The daily RO count was analyzed using the day of the week as our independent variable. This article will refer to this as weekday factor.
Figure 1 is the boxplot for analyzing weekday factor. It shows that weekday factor has a significant effect on the number of ROs. Monday has the highest number of ROs compared with all other days of the week while Saturday has the lowest.
Figure 1
WHY?
- More research is needed to fully understand this significant difference, but we have a few theories:
- Fixed operations departments are usually open for a shorter period of time on Saturdays (i.e. 8 hours instead of 10).
- Monday RO count is higher perhaps due to procrastination of service customers during the weekend.
- People often desire to spend days off (Saturday and Sunday) with family and friends. Folks often need their car for personal events, errands, or travel.
For some, it may be more desirable to take time away from work on Monday rather than one’s own personal time on Saturday.
Figure 2
What does this mean?
Predictability is important in any statistical analysis. In fact, one might say determining predictability is the reason for analyzing any data set. If a variable is more predictable it typically means it has a larger and more consistent effect on another variable. In this case, we compared ROs to the following:
- Weekday
- Sea Level Pressure
- Humidity
- Dew Point
- Temperature (Fahrenheit)
- Wind Speed (MPH)
- Precipitation (inches)
- Visibility (Miles)
- Normal (No measurable events)
- Rain
- Thunderstorm
- Snow
Weekday factor has DOUBLE the influence as the second most influential factor (Sea Level Pressure) in predicting RO count.
This tree (Fig. 3) uses a significance test procedure to select variables. These significance tests are computed at the beginning of each algorithm. We calculated all possible values of the test statistic under rearrangements of the labels on the observed data points.
Figure 3
What does this mean?
Each variable was compared to every other variable in every possible arrangement. After this, it was determined that Saturday is, by far, the most predictable and influential factor including all weather events and other days of the week.
Speaking of weather events, they were analyzed separately from weekday factor to isolate weather events from the powerful influence of weekday factor. Examining t-test results, it seems like rain and fog do not impact the number of ROs, but snow and thunderstorms do have a noticeable impact on RO count. This is a general observation using all data, but does this same pattern persist when we compare different regions in the U.S.?
Figure 4
Analysis of dealerships in North Carolina revealed that rain has a statistically significant impact on RO count. When it rains, dealerships should expect 0.35-0.45% decrease in number of completed ROs. It is worth mentioning that snow does not have a significant impact on RO count for dealerships in NC.
Figure 5
Figure 5 shows the scatter plot of number of ROs spread over temperature and humidity and grouped by whether it’s raining or not. We can observe that if there is no rain, there seems to be more percentage of data points with high level number of ROs.
Figure 6
Analysis of dealerships in Chicago showed that snow, not rain, negatively impacted the number of ROs. In fact, when there is a snow event (snow accumulation), we expect to see a 4.5-8.8% decrease in RO count!
Moreover, Figure 6 shows that snow doesn’t have significant impact on number of ROs for them.
Figure 7
This analysis was performed at 3 other locations and the results can be seen in Figure 8. Upon closer examination, IL and OK have more frequent days of snowfall than the other 3 states. Therefore, snow impacts daily activities more frequently in these states than in the other 3 states. Likewise, GA, AL, and NC have more frequent days of rain compared with the other states.
Since these rain events occur more frequently in these southwestern states, the effects of the rain occur more commonly, and therefore rain’s impact on RO count in these states is more far-reaching and impactful.
Figure 8
In conclusion, there are two noteworthy findings:
- Weekday has a profound impact on the number of closed repair orders.
- Weather events have a different impact on service shops in different locations.
So how much does weather impact your dealership?
It depends on what day of the week it happens. If the forecast calls for bad weather weather on a normally busy weekday you can expect a relatively normal day. Also, different parts of the country respond differently to adverse weather.