Some good stuff going on here since I brought up Tekion last week. We've done some more training with them and I just want my hands on it. I'm excited about everything it has and I can tell that they have some smart folks on "the nerd side" putting it all together. I'm a pre-owned director/problem solver/tech nerd as well so having the service and sales all working together under it will be amazing. I'll keep watching this thread and will update ya'll on the journey as we get into April (go live May).
I just wanted to put another thought out about the dealer still being an integral part in the sales process.....I've been UCD since pre-VID. I've been seeing for some time the blow back still to the fully buy a car from home deal with websites. Toyota Smartpath and other similar things are a good tool but that's all they are. (Plus we get no Google Analytics from what happens when they go into the tool but that's for another day). It's absolutely nuts how as much as we try to change "and make it easy for the customer" they don't adapt as quickly or want to for the most part so then we just drop it or stop using it (I could go on but maybe later). I'm in Maryland so it's a more old school aggressive area between NoVA and up 95 to NJ/NY but I see the same stuff we had pre-VID. Aggressive and volume driven. Just getting a car pictured up well with a price that's accurate to the market reaps sometimes almost instant rewards. Just good 'ole marketing 101 stuff. Having the tools on the website of course helps but the emotional attachment and just plain building value hasn't left and will never leave and is more important now than ever.
