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I need to update this survey-at-delivery. I need insight into smartphone use.
I've got writer's block. Any ideas?
Uncle Joe's Make Over Diary
- Thread starter joe.pistell
- Start date
I need to update this survey-at-delivery. I need insight into smartphone use.
I've got writer's block. Any ideas?
- Apr 7, 2009
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Wow. 1,000 likes!
I love DR because we all fight hard to keep it real. We all do our best to answer "Does It Sell Cars?" and I rather enjoy how we all squash vendor pitches
Warmest Regards!
-Uncle Joe
I love DR because we all fight hard to keep it real. We all do our best to answer "Does It Sell Cars?" and I rather enjoy how we all squash vendor pitches
Warmest Regards!
-Uncle Joe
- Apr 7, 2009
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Sunday rambles...
Disruptors need 'resistance to change' to create a revenue opportunity.
If the "disruptee" is as nimble as the disruptor, then the disruptor has lost it's edge and dies. Are there examples of nimble dispruptee's knee-capping disruptors?
p.s. It's a 1st draft, be nice to me
edit: fixed image, thnx craig
Disruptors need 'resistance to change' to create a revenue opportunity.
If the "disruptee" is as nimble as the disruptor, then the disruptor has lost it's edge and dies. Are there examples of nimble dispruptee's knee-capping disruptors?
p.s. It's a 1st draft, be nice to me
edit: fixed image, thnx craig
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- Apr 7, 2009
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Ed Brooks posted this link: 2015 AUTOMOTIVE BUYER INFLUENCE STUDY
WOW #1: Since 2011, total time spent car shopping has shrunk
My take aways:
WOW #1: Since 2011, total time spent car shopping has shrunk
My take aways:
- My gut says that SAAR and "Total Time Car Shopping" are correlated.
- Time spent shopping off-line fell off the table!
(holy sh*t!)
- Apr 7, 2009
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Hmmm...
I'm having a hard time understanding how "search" can be a buying source. Search is NOT a buying source, search is a step in the path to a source. That being said...
WOW #2: how are shoppers changing (2011 vs 15)?
My Take aways:
Shoppers bounce all over while in product discovery mode. My instincts tell me that the car dealer's website is where the majority of the 11th hour shopping is done.
Don't ignore the path(s) to your dealer site. Search AND 3rd party sites, are stepping stones to your store. If you're not seen... you're selling less.
Shop your competitors. Make sure your site doesn't suck.
--Work your with vendors, ask for examples of other dealers (outside your market) that are killing it.
--Own your responsibilities. Are you web-shopper friendly, or, are you lead gen friendly? Photo quality? Clear Prices (A-B=C)? Any popups covering cars??? Calculators Easy to use (finance, tradein)? etc...
Stop thinking that internet = lead gen.
Do internet car shoppers think that a lead is a good thing? (if you said yes, look around for 2nd opinions)
HTH
Joe
I'm having a hard time understanding how "search" can be a buying source. Search is NOT a buying source, search is a step in the path to a source. That being said...
WOW #2: how are shoppers changing (2011 vs 15)?
My Take aways:
Shoppers bounce all over while in product discovery mode. My instincts tell me that the car dealer's website is where the majority of the 11th hour shopping is done.
Don't ignore the path(s) to your dealer site. Search AND 3rd party sites, are stepping stones to your store. If you're not seen... you're selling less.
Shop your competitors. Make sure your site doesn't suck.
--Work your with vendors, ask for examples of other dealers (outside your market) that are killing it.
--Own your responsibilities. Are you web-shopper friendly, or, are you lead gen friendly? Photo quality? Clear Prices (A-B=C)? Any popups covering cars??? Calculators Easy to use (finance, tradein)? etc...
Stop thinking that internet = lead gen.
Do internet car shoppers think that a lead is a good thing? (if you said yes, look around for 2nd opinions)
HTH
Joe
- Apr 7, 2009
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Dear Diary,
My Time Warner DVR just broke and it gave me a look into our automotive future. Here's my workflow.
I saw deep integration in action, Time warner tied it all together into a highly efficient experience. I saw people and automation working together. It was fast, friendly and no stupid stuff. These are the last words I'd use to describe TimeWarner customer service I left a glowing review.
How does this all connect to our industry? Smartphone Apps are coming to our space. Your app will talk to your car and your car will talk to your app. Your car and your phone will be working as one... Your customers are going to love it!
Question to be answered: "Who is going to be the face behind the app? Dealer or OEM?" I don't have the answer, but, it's a critically important 'relationship tool', I'd bet OEM's want control of this.
p.s. it's called M2M or Machine to Machine communications. Here's a slide I made 3yrs ago to explore how M2M could work
*tech support tab is completely personalized for all the equip in my home incl'ing make/model serial nmbr & owners manuals with PDFs
My Time Warner DVR just broke and it gave me a look into our automotive future. Here's my workflow.
- DVR not recording (grrr!!!)
- I log into my TimeWarner.com account*.
- I run a diagnostics test, it passes the test
- I launch chat, rep answers in seconds
- I describe problem in one sentence
- Rep does diagnostics, he re-flashs DVR, then walks me thru a reboot (we're only about 3 mins into this!)
- All efforts fail.
- He recommends a field tech and proposes dates and times, I pick a time.
- 30 mins later, "advanced support" calls me. They've been working remotely on my DVR and they ask me to re-try to use it.
I saw deep integration in action, Time warner tied it all together into a highly efficient experience. I saw people and automation working together. It was fast, friendly and no stupid stuff. These are the last words I'd use to describe TimeWarner customer service
I left a glowing review.How does this all connect to our industry? Smartphone Apps are coming to our space. Your app will talk to your car and your car will talk to your app. Your car and your phone will be working as one... Your customers are going to love it!
Question to be answered: "Who is going to be the face behind the app? Dealer or OEM?" I don't have the answer, but, it's a critically important 'relationship tool', I'd bet OEM's want control of this.
p.s. it's called M2M or Machine to Machine communications. Here's a slide I made 3yrs ago to explore how M2M could work
*tech support tab is completely personalized for all the equip in my home incl'ing make/model serial nmbr & owners manuals with PDFs
- Apr 7, 2009
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Dear Diary,
When we evaluate ideas here on DealerRefresh, sometimes we're all in agreement, other times, we're all over the map. This observation has been dogging me for years. Here's my $0.02 on this billion dollar problem.
Admit it, we all are flying blind...
We have no Internet shopping cart to score our ideas. In ecommerce, the shopping cart is a score card where all ideas will be judged. In automotive retail, we have no cart. Our cart is the shopper walking in (...and leads are not a shopping cart. With no shopping cart to test ideas against, we're left to human opinion to guess what is best. Worse, we can't agree on what the best outcome is (e.g. a lead, a VDP, T.O.S., bounce, etc...).
This causes all kinds of wild ass guesses about what works and what doesn't.
We all agree we want to sell more cars, but, we can't see invisible shoppers, so howinthehell can we score an idea if we don't know what a win looks like?
So, what tool do we use to know what a car shopper wants (i.e. "the gut call")?
Empathy. Empathy is the ability to experience the feelings of another person. Working in a store does not automatically give you car shopper empathy, you need to see the world thru their shoes.
So, ask yourself, how strong are your empathy skills? Can you take off your car guy hat and put on the car shopper's hat? Not everyone is wired the same way which means not everyone has the same empathy abilities.
/rambling
Joe
p.s. Don't forget the person you're listening to (or reading) is using empathy to evaluate ideas.
p.p.s. This is a record for car guys in 2020 to look at and wonder how hard it was to work 'back in the day' (our industry will have solved this ROI puzzle by then)
When we evaluate ideas here on DealerRefresh, sometimes we're all in agreement, other times, we're all over the map. This observation has been dogging me for years. Here's my $0.02 on this billion dollar problem.
Admit it, we all are flying blind...
We have no Internet shopping cart to score our ideas. In ecommerce, the shopping cart is a score card where all ideas will be judged. In automotive retail, we have no cart. Our cart is the shopper walking in (...and leads are not a shopping cart
. With no shopping cart to test ideas against, we're left to human opinion to guess what is best. Worse, we can't agree on what the best outcome is (e.g. a lead, a VDP, T.O.S., bounce, etc...).This causes all kinds of wild ass guesses about what works and what doesn't.
We all agree we want to sell more cars, but, we can't see invisible shoppers, so howinthehell can we score an idea if we don't know what a win looks like?
So, what tool do we use to know what a car shopper wants (i.e. "the gut call")?
Empathy. Empathy is the ability to experience the feelings of another person. Working in a store does not automatically give you car shopper empathy, you need to see the world thru their shoes.
So, ask yourself, how strong are your empathy skills? Can you take off your car guy hat and put on the car shopper's hat? Not everyone is wired the same way which means not everyone has the same empathy abilities.
/rambling
Joe
p.s. Don't forget the person you're listening to (or reading) is using empathy to evaluate ideas.
p.p.s. This is a record for car guys in 2020 to look at and wonder how hard it was to work 'back in the day' (our industry will have solved this ROI puzzle by then)
- Apr 7, 2009
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WARNING: The following spooky post is simply deductive reasoning.
Just over the horizon, every dealer's worst nightmare is gaining momentum. The dawn of self-driving cars has arrived (Tesla fired the 1st round into the market at no extra charge). What concerns me is the arrival of self-driving cars aligns perfectly with the smartphone's impact to car ownership:
From my P.O.V., when I connect the 2 waves (supply and demand), over the next 10 years, semi-self-driving cars will evolve into fully-self-driving pods that people use via smart phone.
Traffic lights are for Humans???
A look into what self-driving traffic can look like in 2026.
Along the way, self-driving cars are going to excite us, scare us and piss us off...
But, as long as automakers assume the liability of self-driving (i.e. Volvo) I think consumers will gradually give up more and more control over their car.
To conclude, from what I see today, the next 10 yrs are going to be a great for us, but, it'll be the zenith of the 100yr old auto dealer industry caused by the dawn of The Self-Driving car.
"Deductive reasoning is a logical process in which a conclusion is based on the observation of multiple premises that are generally assumed to be true. "
Just over the horizon, every dealer's worst nightmare is gaining momentum. The dawn of self-driving cars has arrived (Tesla fired the 1st round into the market at no extra charge). What concerns me is the arrival of self-driving cars aligns perfectly with the smartphone's impact to car ownership:
"Thirty percent of car owners would give up their car before giving up their smartphone, which demonstrates that smartphones have become more useful than cars to one-third of the population sampled."
http://designmind.frogdesign.com/2015/09/how-to-respond-to-declining-car-ownership/
http://designmind.frogdesign.com/2015/09/how-to-respond-to-declining-car-ownership/
From my P.O.V., when I connect the 2 waves (supply and demand), over the next 10 years, semi-self-driving cars will evolve into fully-self-driving pods that people use via smart phone.
Traffic lights are for Humans???
A look into what self-driving traffic can look like in 2026.
Along the way, self-driving cars are going to excite us, scare us and piss us off...
But, as long as automakers assume the liability of self-driving (i.e. Volvo) I think consumers will gradually give up more and more control over their car.
To conclude, from what I see today, the next 10 yrs are going to be a great for us, but, it'll be the zenith of the 100yr old auto dealer industry caused by the dawn of The Self-Driving car.
- Apr 7, 2009
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Show-rooming in car dealerships is rampant, yet, I don't hear anyone talking about if its impacting sales. Anyone have some thoughts here?
Example: WHY PUT PRICES ON WINDOW STICKERS!!
Anyone hear of creative tactics used to combat, or, compliment show-rooming?
- Apr 7, 2009
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A message to my fellow Internet pioneers from Steve Jobs:
If you're a true pioneer, you are lonely. If you're lucky, you'll find other pioneers share your thoughts and discoveries.
This Thanksgiving weekend, I'd like to give thanks to our Jeff Kershner for building an island where a community of pioneers can meet and share lonely thoughts
TY JK!
Uncle Joe
"When you start looking at a problem and it seems really simple, you don’t really understand the complexity of the problem. Then you get into the problem, and you see that it’s really complicated, and you come up with all these convoluted solutions. That’s sort of the middle, and that’s where most people stop…
But the really great person will keep on going and find the key, the underlying principle of the problem — and come up with an elegant, really beautiful solution that works."
But the really great person will keep on going and find the key, the underlying principle of the problem — and come up with an elegant, really beautiful solution that works."
If you're a true pioneer, you are lonely. If you're lucky, you'll find other pioneers share your thoughts and discoveries.
This Thanksgiving weekend, I'd like to give thanks to our Jeff Kershner for building an island where a community of pioneers can meet and share lonely thoughts
TY JK!
Uncle Joe
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