It's that "transparent" part I think a fair number of dealers struggle with.
@Jon Singo I think you are spot on here. I hear far too many dealers who want customers to adjust to the way the dealership does things instead of the dealers adapting to the customers. Carvana sold north of 90k vehicles in Q1 this year. Accounting practices aside, the question one might ask is why are 90k plus customers purchasing directly online and getting their vehicle delivered versus going to a car dealership? The next question for me, if I were a dealer, is, what do I need to do to grab some of that share? How can I improve my dealership's customer experience, improve operational efficiencies, offer better value while maintaining or growing my profit margins? Since 2018, I've been involved in purchasing 4 vehicles, two from a dealership, and two completely online CarMax and Carvana. The dealership experiences were MISERABLE with one trying to stick my father-in-law with vehicle trim he didn't need but was $6000 more(trying the ol' bait n switch tactic), plus trying to add a bunch other extras he didn't need. The other two experiences were phenomenal. I know some will bring up getting the titles. Well, I have my two from CarMax and Carvana. Still waiting on the one I purchased from the dealership's loan source.
Precisely. Stop trying to put customers in YOUR box and start meeting your customers where they are. Time is the most valuable asset we have, and any good business owner will agree. So why are so many wasting the time of their customers? Traditional brick and mortar retail figured this out decades ago when Amazon was growing, and there are a large groups of dealers fighting it kicking and screaming.
From a transparency perspective, I know first-hand how dealers try to play with pricing and sneak add-ons in that they hope the customer won't see. As I said, dealt with it myself and with my father-in-law. Far too many second-hand stories as well. Not sure why some dealers feel the need to make all the money they can in one deal while potentially turning off a customer for life instead of looking long-term and creating a customer for life. If I were a dealer, those dealerships that pulled that crap would piss me off. It may be a very small percentage of dealers who play that game, but it impacts the whole industry.
Don't temp me to get on a high horseLove this thread.
Can someone explain to me why Dealer Review scores DO NOT dominate car shopper behavior (like it does in restaurants)? Could it be that most all dealers are 4.1 to 4.7 stars?
I think this holds DR back more than anything else.
Incredibly low. Even customers who have their own experience with a dealer (not even just reviews from other people) and they STILL buy from that dealer. We've all had that customer who said, "I'll never buy from X dealer again" or "We were just at X dealership and they were awful to us" and then on our next follow-up with them where did they buy from? You guessed it.
