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GM's Shop, Click Drive Program

While it's not rolled out to all 50 states, a few have been doing this GM program of online car buying - no feet on the lot.

Check out this video and article here.

As a dealer, what do you think? Do you think you would sell a lot of cars from implementing this program?

As a consumer, would you buy (please, try to imagine) a vehicle without stepping foot, not only inside the dealership, but inside your new vehicle?

Personally, I struggle thinking about skipping the test drive.

What do you think would be the positives and negatives to this?
As a video test drive producer, my perspective is that interactive video technology is doing much of the educational work originally done by sales associates, brochures and vehicle specs on the web...essentially helping the consumer to approach his or her decision point on a vehicle purchase. Like JessicaRuth though, I feel that although a video test drive can move a sale forward, there is nothing like getting behind the wheel and taking the car for a spin to close the deal. If I was a dealer, I would offer to bring the car to the consumer at their best place and time. This removes the fear of entering the dealership that has been instilled in most car shoppers for generations. It also creates forward momentum when the car is seen in the consumer's driveway or at their place of business. "Hey neighbor! Nice wheels!" Paperwork can be done then and there or online. This all supposes that the consumer has done his or her online homework and is ready to pull the trigger.
 
In a world without crime where everyone has 2.5 kids and a white picket fence, bringing cars to people seems like a good idea. In reality, no, that will not happen. No...just no.
There are numerous methods of pre-qualifying a prospective customer starting with an online profile and something as basic as a quick look at a Google street view of the potential address. While some inner city neighborhoods may be iffy, I see the potential for a much higher closing rate and much more positive buying and selling experience.
 
In a world without crime where everyone has 2.5 kids and a white picket fence, bringing cars to people seems like a good idea. In reality, no, that will not happen. No...just no.

I'll take a poke at this off-site test drive idea...

If I was back at my store, I'd find the top employers from my area and make a special program just for these employees. Let's say the Employer was IBM, I'd make a clickable advertisement and put it in the footer, something like:

IBM Employee Services:

Discounts!
-IBM Employee prices, present your card, get your member's only price.

Special Services, We come to IBM:
-Easy Test Drives
-Easy Trade-ins
-Express Service Shuttle every hour

Click here for complete details or call our IBM employee hotline for more details at 1-888-123-4567.


If I could get it to work for IBM (and my store), then, I'd add another major employer... then another... then another...
 
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Not to take this thread too far off track, I love the idea Joe and I'm going to run with it sans the SCD.

However, I do not believe we'll ever get to a point where we're working deals at people's homes. There's just too much risk even outside the safety of the salesperson, there's the logistics of it. What do you do with cash deals or even cash down payments, are we going to trust salespeople traveling with thousands of cash on them? What about financing? Are you going to ask a prospect to agree to submit for financing before they see the car in person? What about back end products, are we going to train salespeople to sell GAP, wheel/tire, etc or bring a finance manager with? What about the contracts themselves, train salespeople how to "bill out" people?

Long story short, I'm the type that is open to change and welcome's new ideas, such as SCD or VIP programs, but I don't see car sales happening outside the dealership.
 
However, I do not believe we'll ever get to a point where we're working deals at people's homes. There's just too much risk even outside the safety of the salesperson, there's the logistics of it. What do you do with cash deals or even cash down payments, are we going to trust salespeople traveling with thousands of cash on them? What about financing? Are you going to ask a prospect to agree to submit for financing before they see the car in person? What about back end products, are we going to train salespeople to sell GAP, wheel/tire, etc or bring a finance manager with? What about the contracts themselves, train salespeople how to "bill out" people?

Agreed. I think what the customer really wants is a deal negotiated and prepared online with no surprises. I think the biggest obstacle (besides the software) is figuring out how to make money on this process. I suppose the pricing models would have to change a bit (less reliance on financial/insurance products).
 
Joe's IBM concept reminds me of how TrueCar grew by signing up affinity groups, a tried and true method of building customer loyalty. But in response to Bill, I still see tremendous potential in helping dealers to sell cars to today's shoppers who are extremely busy and don't want spend time at a dealership. I have three personal examples: I sold a used Town Car to a fellow from South Carolina via ebay and never met the new owner. Everything was done via email and mail and a car-carrier picked up the car. My company bought a new 2015 Tahoe to replace our older camera car from a dealer in New Hampshire who negotiated over the phone, brought the car to us and had us sign all of the papers in our conference room. I also bought a mint 2004 Corvette when the former owner brought it to my place of business for a test drive. I would not have had time to go and see the car if the owner had not come to me.

By helping the dealer to pre-sell the car using today's Internet technology and then making it easy and time-efficient for the consumer to buy the car from the dealer, everybody wins. Today you can buy just about anything with the help of the Internet: Diamonds, stocks, appliances, etc. If a dealership can boost sales by 5-10%, why wouldn't it? Most already provide concierge service. Now, when that lease is up, the dealer can just pick up that old Lexus and drop off a new one!
 
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In the first personal example, a proximity/vehicle selection issue was overcome not necessarily a time or convenience issue. We sell multiple cars each month to varying places, most recently a new Z06 to California. My favorite was a used Camaro to Germany this past summer.

In the second example, it sounds like the dealer went above and beyond doing an outstanding job to earn your business. If you paid by check the logistics were easy. The question is why NH? How did you find that specific dealership? Was it because they have a history of excellent customer service or was it from shopping for a specific Tahoe or price?

Maybe I'm being short sited here, what was the benefit to the dealership? They sold a Tahoe, yes; but if you bought from afar because you shopped around and got the best price from him I'm then going to assume meant little profit for them. No problem with that, we make "loser" deals all the time, but its usually to guests that live close enough to continue to do business with us in the future. For an initiative to work, like one you suggested above, there has to be a benefit for both sides. What was the benefit for them, other than moving a unit?

The third is a private party without a storefront.

As a salesman I've driven an hour to pick up a guest and bring them to our dealership to sell a car. In that case, the deal was really done way ahead of time because we did a good job with our internet presence as a dealership that help those with bad credit. I picked them up because they had no transportation.

In fact, we have done a few new Mazda deals for guests in the past where we delivered the car to their home because they lived over an hour away and was inconvenient for them to come out. We have since made it a policy not to do so any more because not only was there little benefit to us (little profit, no future service) but on the two most recent surveys we received poor marks for not doing things like walking the guest back to service. We coached them on the surveys but they filled them out honestly.

Here's a few more questions to consider: Would you invite a stranger to your home to show you a car? Would you invite them in to work numbers? If you were a female salesperson would you feel comfortable going to a strangers home regardless of the neighborhood? If I advertise the service, how do I pick and choose whose home to go to? How do I tell a customer that we won't go to their home because it looks dangerous? Would you want your deal or credit discussed in earshot of coworkers if you work at a place without access to a private area like a conference room?

There just doesn't seem to be any benefit to try and start up some initiative that advertises our willingness to bring the car buying experience to the customer. The benefit of Joe's idea is that I have the opportunity to expose our dealership to hundreds of people as word spreads that Johnny got to test drive a new Tahoe on his lunch.

There really doesn't seem to be a demand for this either as this graphic points out from Autotrader's recent report (http://www.weworkforyou.com/files/insights/x-download/2015CarBuyerOfTheFutureBrochureFINALpdf.pdf):

myths.png

I'm sorry, I hate to sound negative and closed minded but as someone that's been on the floor and been a sales manager, I just don't see it.
 
Thanks Bill. My first example was just to point out that selling a car can be done 100% over the Internet. The Tahoe research was done online and the deal was struck over the phone. We wanted a red LS. They had one, gave us a price we felt was fair and that was that. They are actually only 45 minutes away so it made sense. The Chevy dealer four blocks from our office didn't have the vehicle we wanted. I can't say if they did well on the deal or not but we all seemed to enjoy the process. It took about an hour at our conference table on a Tuesday afternoon when the dealership was quiet. As to privacy, we've also filled out numerous insurance forms in our office with plenty of privacy as needed. You asked about strangers in my home: The oil burner service guy, washer repair man, plumber and cable guy are all strangers but, like a dealership's sales associate, are professionals with a job to do and are welcome when needed and scheduled. Not offering the service in certain dangerous areas makes sense just as not traveling for an hour each way to deliver a test drive at a shopper's home probably makes sense. Thanks for the AutoTrader info. We'll just have to wait and see what the future holds for SCD and similar services. I believe that using the Internet's pre-selling capabilities, including virtual test drives, to make the process faster, easier and more convenient and then bringing the cars to the customer, will soon become an integral part of successful dealerships' sales process.