>>>Jerry Thibeau said:
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These are customers that would be dealing directly with your dealership instead of using TrueCar as the middleman.
Baffles me that nobody gets this!<<<
Anyone who posts your inventory, your logo, your name, your address or your phone number is representing you to potential customers.
This certainly isn't something that TrueCar is unique in doing. Sure they take a fee too, but again there are dealers that sell at TrueCar's price, pay the TrueCar fee and still make money. There are also dealers that know that gross isn't always in the front-end and sometimes you cut a deal to gain a customer.
My personal questions that need to be looked at with TrueCar:
- Do TC customers stay for service?
- Do TC customers spend some of their savings in the "back office"?
- Do TC customers travel further for a good deal, thus decreasing the chances they will come in for maintenance?
- Do TC customers have a higher closing rate with a lower level of effort on the part of the dealership?
- Are you able to gross on the trade-in if they're getting too good of a deal on the purchased car?
- Do TC customers tend to tell their friends to contact the dealer directly or do they recommend their friends also use TC?
- Do dealers ever
lose money on a TC deal, or is the gross just smaller?
- Would you have been the dealer to sell to these frugal customers if TC didn't exist?
I'm pretty sure that Joe says that customers enjoy the dealership process and the haggling, but that won't be a universal opinion and TrueCar is there for those that want nothing more than a good deal. They don't need red carpet treatment, they would rather buy the car online entirely if they could.
My advice is if you're going to go ahead with TrueCar, train one or two sales people in the proper way to handle these customers and deals. They aren't like every other lead and they shouldn't be handled that way.
^ 100% personal opinion - I'm neither for nor against TrueCar, but they exist and are doing business so I don't waste too much breath complaining about it.