Thinking of dropping Dealer.com

[joe.pistell]

The mobile wave that's happening right now is a giant tsunami.

Managers must realize that car shoppers at their reps desks on smart phones are NOT FaceBooking. Shoppers now have the most powerful shopping weapon ever built. It gives them INSTANT KNOWLEDGE. Managers now must react and bust out the numbers so they can DRIVE the dialogue to keep that smart phone in their pockets. Old school tactics of slowing the sale down is now a losing process.


My comments are focused on management attitude: "Is the Internet a threat, or, is it an opportunity? How you look at it is a statement of where you are in the food chain (i.e. eat or be eaten)

 

[ddavis]

Managers must realize that car shoppers at their reps desks on smart phones are NOT FaceBooking.

They are verifying if the next car, on their list, is still available.

I read a statistic that the average customer, shops 1.8 stores. Now, I'm hearing that it is 1.3. We don't have shoppers, anymore. You better have some closers working for you.

After an average of 17 to 19 hours of research, they have made the decision. If it is a new car customer, they walk in knowing your invoice or they have shopped at least three stores and have a net.net price or a couple of hundred over. If it is a used car, they have selected a vehicle on Cars.com or AutoTrader and sorted by price.

If you walk past a salesperson making a follow up call, you will hear: "Oh you did".

The worst fear, ten years ago, was that this would turn dealerships into "internet stores". That time is past due.

 

[joe.pistell]

Ol' Uncle Joe is now Senior Director of Product Innovation at Dealer.com. After reading Clay's frustrations, I have an idea that may help me help me while helping you.

We all know I have a giant basket of cool ideas, but you may have ideas that i've never considered. I'd like to extend an open invite to Clay and any Dealer.com clients to private message me. I'd like to collect a list of your TOP10 issues that you'd like fixed or improved. I'd also be interested in hearing what new ideas that you'd think would help you sell more cars and or make your work life faster/smarter/better. I'll pool them, rank them and let's see what happens.

Additionally, I am looking for a few bright minds to bounce ideas off of and conduct beta trails in the hopes of getting some quality feedback.

In the Uncle Joe tradition, you'll get some straight talk and in return I'd like your honest opinions. Together, we could make some magic happen.

ARRG! So sorry for anyone that sent me a PM and got the "Box is full" message!!

My Private Message box is now open again!

 

[ddavis]

Actually, their heads are in another place but this is a public forum.