Are our manufacturers worse than we are?

[Alex Snyder]

This morning I sat through a training/refresher course hosted by the Central Atlantic Toyota's Internet ad agency, PIVNet. Usually I loathe these types of meetings, but Toyota does things so pro-actively I enjoy theirs.

As an employee of a dealer group who carries multiple franchises, I get to work with many different automotive "cultures." Of the manufacturers I work with, nobody does Internet marketing as well as Toyota. They are leaps and bounds ahead of the pack. They do not dictate which third party vendors a dealer must use (Scion being the exception), and they do not cram a ton of compliancy standards down our throats. Do not get me wrong, Toyota has compliancy standards, but those standards make sense. Toyota contributes DMA money toward dealers' Internet expenses and provide numerous things to help dealers be better online.

Why are other manufacturers so far behind in this regard? Some manufacturers actually handicap our ability to do business by forcing so many things upon us. It makes me believe some manufacturers view retail sales as a very simple business, and dealers are just lazy or incompetent. Why do some manufacturers force us to use their CRM tool, their site design company, and change compliancy standards for the Internet? I can understand some circumstances of the past when dealers fought the Internet, but this is not fully the case today. Why do these manufacturers continue to practice old-school ruler-slapping? Why not just take the approach they had before the Internet: if you don't sell the cars, and keep up your customer service, we take your franchise away? Give us some compliancy standards, and step back. Or better yet, take the Toyota approach and help!

 

[neil]

Yes Jeffrey, you are so correct. Toyota does it better than anyone! When I was in the car business and managed one of if not the largest automotive internet sales departments in the Southeast, I had many a meeting with Southeast Toyota (SET). Look at some of the Toyota dealers website here in the southeast. They have that picture that you were talking about the other day for each of their new cars at port in FL.

They don't leave it up to the dealer to decide if they want to put pictures of their new car inventory up...Southeast Toyota does it for them.

 

[Jeff Kershner]

Neil, props to Alex Snyder over at Checkered Flag for this posting. No credit here to be taken.

 

[Jeff Larsen (blog)]

So true...

There must be a way for manufacturers to track the internet traffic to the dealerships regardless of what CRM tool is being used.

Out the few main CRM companies, one would think the manufacturers would set up their own utility to accept monthly results from the dealerships CRM tool for tracking, then reward or exclude promo dollars accordingly.

 

[umer.autojini]

Nissan also does a good job of this... the SET regional is ahead in Toyota as far as internet and web services goes. I love there snappy nextgen.toyotaweb.org eBrochures web service, new inventory and inventory search... If every OEM implemented inventory search like SET one would not have to lock inventory, as discussed by Jeff in previous post.

However if every OEM went that way it would be bad news for eVox, Chrome, JATO and parts of IzmoProduct new car product line.

 

[Jennifer Schrader (blog)]

I am in agreement with all of you. A few salesman and I just had a discussion regarding " living the old school way " at other dealerships. There is no telling when they will crack out of the old habits and start getting more involved with the Internet and Website advertising etc for their own dealership.
I get great support from Honda and their Interactive Networking tool. Getting great support for how important it is for Internet / web advertising from my GM's is a great benefit for my Internet Departments & helps a lot!

** You can break the habit of the old school way, only when they're ready to break it **

 

[Amanda Marsal]

I am recently new to the domestic manufacturer side of things, and have found that I don't really like being told what products and services that I can use. Due to a co-op that my dealership group is financially chained to, we have been tied to a company that in my opinion is antiquated in its technology. On top of that, as the Internet Manager, I am constantly bombarded with calls from reps of this particular company trying to sell me some other seemingly useless product or service that I probably don't really need. They do however always tell me, "Did I mention that this service is 100% co-opable?”I do agree with most of what has been said, the manufacturers tend to treat the dealerships like a small child that can't cross the street without holding an adult's hand. I think that the majority of the people that do make decisions for the dealerships regarding internet products and processes are intelligent enough to be able to navigate through the vendors, and should be allowed to choose the ones that work best for their situation. What works for a high volume city dealership may not work for a small town family dealership, yet the manufacturer wants to treat all of them the same. It is definitely something that manufacturers need to reconsider.

 

[Mitch]

Umer stated that he thinks Nissan does a great job as well... I don't agree at all with this statement, and perhaps that has something to do with the manufacturer's mindset: to some dealers, "a great job" from the manufacturer is staying the hell out of the way... to others, a great job means telling them what CRM tool to use, because they don't know anything about CRMs and have no interest in using them other than to satisfy other parties.

To discuss the business models and sales disciplines of "dealers" in one broad stroke is a grossly prejudiced notion. If you're an old school guy and your GM is shoving new technologies and standards down your throat, you can pack your things and walk down the street to a dealer who still sells like it's 1997. How can you refer to that industry in the collective sense?

Given that situation, think about the millions of dollars any manufacturer spends on branding, advertising, market research, and statistics. They've got their identity and strategies running smoothly(well, relatively smoothly)... maybe it's not the smartest thing to cram compliance down a dealer's throat, but when you've shelled out all that cash to run your business a certain way, it's certainly better for your peace of mind to align the dealers with your own approach than to let them run rampant and hope for the best.

Let's also keep in mind that anyone commenting on this artlce is 1) Internet savvy, and 2) probably pretty damn good at their job. If you could drag a few old timers to this post and let them comment, I'd bet the argument would swing the other way, because they'd rather have the manufacturer figure this "Internet" thing out for them. We're more than a bit biased here... most dealers in the country don't have personnel in the same strata as ourselves.

 

[Joe Pistell]

Ahhh... Mitch,
Whointhehell writes your blog? Wow, if it's you, you're in wrong biz! Let's can that and re-sell it!

Kudos,
Joe

 

[Alex Snyder (blog)]

Mitch,

You're probably correct, but I think the Automotive Dealers of today have at least accepted the Internet is not going anywhere. Many more are on their game than ever before, and that increases daily. I believe some of the manufacturers are slowing us down from playing in this competitive world today. Sure, a few years ago their programs were an absolute necessity. They were certainly ahead of the "dealer pack" in coming to the "Internet realization", and some are still. However, the early 2000's policies have not changed while the industry has.

Yes, the top percentages of the automotive Internet industry may be participating on DealerRefresh, but we're still missing quite a few: Koons, Galpin, Longo, etc. Of course, Checkered Flag is here so we're all good

Anyway, I would love to see some of our manufacturers crack the whip a little softer in this area. I would be unbelievably ecstatic if they all developed the same approach Toyota took.

Thanks for the responses so far. Feel free to take this thread deeper - we have not dived into specific manufacturers who do a bad job (other than Nissan).

-Alex