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Digital Retailing for Dealers - What are your results?

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#91
John V. said:
Here is my thinking on possible reasons why:
  • We suck
  • We treat it like any other lead vs. an "Order"
  • We still believe in front end gross on new cars so we won't take loser deals
  • Customers just use it to keep their local dealer honest
  • We tell every customer they have to come in to confirm pricing
Click to expand...
  • car buying is emotional and people still want to work with people
 
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#94
Since posting this 2 years ago I have gone through 3 DR Vendors and my opinion is still the same. DR sells maybe....maybe...15 deals a month - even with the WuFlu. I am willing to buy lunch for anyone who can actually show that DR added additional sales to their store in any meaningful way other than removing all your CTAs and forcing people to use your DR tool - even then I bet you would still sell more with just a simple eprice button and a payment calc.

Get ePrice is still king followed by Trade-in leads. Even right when our "eprice" is MSRP +$1456 addendum we STILL sell 5x the eprice leads over people who "pencil" payments in DR.....and I LOVE my current DR tool.

And the best part? the ePrice button is FREE!
 
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#95
John V. said:
DR sells maybe....maybe...15 deals a month - even with the WuFlu. I am willing to buy lunch for anyone who can actually show that DR added additional sales to their store in any meaningful way other than removing all your CTAs and forcing people to use your DR tool - even then I bet you would still sell more with just a simple eprice button and a payment calc.
Click to expand...
:iagree:

Digital Retailing as a Buy Now button on your website is solely a lead generation device. And because most of them have such a strong lead gate most customers don't enter that scary tunnel. On top of that, most DR tools don't give the customer the WIIFM until they've gone through the whole tunnel so YES, you're ONLY going to get the lowest funnel shoppers who were probably going to buy from you anyway.

This is why you're seeing so many DR tools branch out to the showroom floor. They have realized this and are now scrambling to make themselves sticky in other places. If they find success in getting the sales floor to use it then it is no longer Digital Retail, it is a Digital Paperwork Tool competing directly with your CRM for attention. Pay your CRM $2,000 a month and buy that Digital Paperwork Tool for another $2,000 a month. Makes perfect sense to me :rolleyes:

Let's talk about what a dealership truly is and what a car dealer really needs.

Every customer has two main questions:
  1. how much is it going to cost me?
  2. how soon can I get it?

This applies to sales, service, parts, the rental department, and the bodyshop. It is the epitome of the retail customer relationship. Aren't those the same questions you have when TV shopping, furniture shopping, boat shopping, etc.?

The biggest problem with question #1 is the inconsistent messaging flying at the customer everywhere. The OEM advertises a $399 lease special. The region advertises a $369 special on a "New England Package." The dealership echos this or goes a totally different route. When the customer begins to engage they may go to the OEM website where the special is impossible to find, but the vehicle configurator shows $900 a month. Then they go to a third party source to see the invoice and get a trade figure. Those are prices, not payments (82% of shoppers buy payments). They go to a dealership website and find a payment calculator tool: $700 a month. They go into a digital retailing device: $500 a month. They submit a lead and the quote they get is a price again. Then they walk into the dealership and the salesperson starts them at MSRP and rough Black.

No wonder they're confused and having a hard time trusting car dealers :banghead:

In the meantime, we're good dealerships doing philanthropic work and believing we are so transparent because we are not afraid to show them the invoice. We don't understand why customers still hate us.

Digital Retailing's ability to show 82% of customers what they want (a real payment) could be a solution. It could be the ENGAGEMENT device we need to get the customer working with us and ultimately trusting us. When you can show the customer the same number in your ads, on your website, in your lead response, and in the first pass within your showroom you're truly transparent and trustworthy.

There are two golden rules to selling cars:
  1. You can't sell a car without an engaged customer
  2. People buy from people who they like and trust
 
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#96
Alex Snyder said:
Every customer has two main questions:
  1. how much is it going to cost me?
  2. how soon can I get it?
Click to expand...

Answers to these questions:

1) The price is on the website and if you want to know more click "Get ePrice" - OR - you can use the DR tool to calculate a payment which is going to be off MSRP. "What about that $299 lease" GLAD YOU ASKED!!! Call me and we can talk more, better yet, let's setup a time for you to drive the car to make sure it's the one for you. Have you filled out a credit app yet to see what you qualify for?

^^^^^^^^That results in a 19.2% Close rate on Get eprice leads - screenshots of CRM 90 day average available - get at me :fight:
^^^^^^^^ DR leads over same time period are at 17,2% BUT less than 1/3 of the lead volume.


2) As soon as you want it! Heck, We'll drive it to your house using $5.37 worth of gas and use our $16 zoom subscription to video in an F/I guy to sell you product who will then us fedex at $19 to overnight everything that needs a wet signature......$2,000mo. for digital paperwork....:crazy:


I think the problem here is that a lot of dealers think just because 98% of customer hate our process that we have to change it. WHY?! You ever read the comments on a Carvana ad? They are the epitome of DR and customers still light them up. AND they lose money on every deal. You want engaged customers? Pick up the phone and have a SALESMAN call, text, email, and send a personalized video to them everyday for 7 days straight after they hit that glorious Get ePrice button that cost you $0 and let the magic happ'n capt'n.
 
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#98
Resurrecting from the DEAD :rip: ........SHOW & TELL Time......here are my last 90 day results for Digital Retailing leads (first method of contact). The overall close rates are a very close reflection to the overall internet close rates for all sources for these stores. Anyone seeing something different and would like to share as well?


StoreUnique DR LeadsEngagedLead to Engaged %VisitEngaged To Visit %DeliveredVisit to Delivered %Overall Close Rate
Store 125517067%5432%3565%14%
Store 21016867%1725%1059%10%
Store 31819452%1819%1267%7%
Store 420112864%2923%2483%12%
Total73846062%11826%8169%11%
 
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#100
It depends I guess on how we would define it but we had 36 total people complete a credit app and upload their driver's license, Ins/reg which to me I would count as completing the whole process. Everyone else pretty much messed around with payments until they saw a number they liked with about 60% throwing in a trade.
 
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