The Significance of Regular Statement Reviews

Reviewing your merchant services statements for your automotive business plays a vital role in cost management, competitive edge maintenance, security and compliance assurance, and enhancing the overall customer experience. Periodic assessments empower you to make knowledgeable decisions that can significantly benefit your business.

Important Factors in Each Statement:

1. Expense Management: Understanding the various fees linked to your merchant services is crucial for efficient expense management. These charges encompass transaction fees, monthly expenditures, and other expenses. By carefully examining your merchant services, you can identify areas where potential excess payments may occur and take corrective actions.

2. Fee Adjustments: Keep a lookout for new fees or modifications in existing fee structures, as these can arise with numerous service providers. Regular evaluations ensure that you remain informed, averting unexpected financial surprises.

3. Competitive Pricing: Securing the most favorable rates can result in substantial savings for your business. Rates may fluctuate among providers, so periodic assessments enable you to gauge whether you are still receiving competitive pricing. A simple calculation—involving dividing total processing fees by the total processed volume—unveils the percentage representing your overall cost of accepting credit card payments.

Introducing the All-New Peri by Solera

Explore Peri by Solera, an innovative merchant services credit card payments platform for credit card payments crafted to offer competitive rates and cutting-edge security specifically tailored for automotive enterprises. While merchant services statements may appear initially intricate due to the variety of charges and fees linked to credit card processing, breaking them down into simpler steps can enhance their comprehensibility.

Mastering the Art of Statement Analysis

Here are a few ways to interpret a merchant services statement:

1. Account Details: Begin by identifying the statement date and ensuring that your business name, merchant identification, and contact details are accurate.

2. Transaction Overview: Take notice of the total sum processed, the quantity of transactions, and any instances of chargebacks or refunds.

3. Fee Summary: Pay close attention to the fee section, encompassing:

4. Payment Deposits: Understand the amount of money deposited into your business bank account after accounting for processing charges and other deductions.

5. Chargebacks and Returns: Scrutinize any instances of chargebacks (disputed transactions) or refunds and how they were managed.

Optimize Your Potential Savings Today

Regularly assessing your statements is crucial in detecting disparities and optimizing your payment processing expenses. By comparing past statements, you can identify substantial changes in fees, transaction volumes, or chargebacks.

Peri by Solera is here to assist automotive businesses in saving money. Reach out to a Solera representative today to ensure you’re not missing out on potential savings. Contact us during business hours at 888-974-2952 or schedule a meeting.

Did you find this article helpful? Find more great content at dealersocket.com/blog and solera.com/blog.

Dealerships often face significant challenges when it comes to credit card payment processing. In the automotive industry, transactions can vary greatly in size, from minor sales to major purchases, leading to issues with processing fees. Some providers charge higher percentages for larger transactions, affecting the dealership’s profitability or necessitating higher costs for customers in a fiercely competitive market.

Understanding Dealers’ Payment Processing Challenges

Efficiency and reliability in payment processing are pivotal for dealerships. Delays or technical glitches can disrupt operations and impact customer satisfaction. If payment terminals and point-of-sale (POS) systems aren’t tailored to the specific needs of dealerships, it can result in costly disruptions and potential lost business opportunities.

Ten Common Pain Points in Dealership Payment Processing

Let’s explore ten common pain points that independent and franchise dealerships encounter with their payment processing services:

These challenges underscore the importance of selecting a provider that offers competitive rates, reliable technology, industry-specific features, robust security, and responsive customer support to address the distinct requirements of independent and franchise dealerships.

Meet Peri by Solera: Revolutionizing Payment Processing

Introducing Peri by Solera – a payment processing service designed to help dealerships reduce costs on every transaction. It enables businesses to swiftly adopt or enhance their payment options with lower fees, bolstering their competitiveness in today’s market.

With Peri, dealership owners gain access to reliable customer support, ensuring that any technical issues related to accepting payments online are promptly resolved. This guarantees no delays in getting paid by customers, providing peace of mind to dealership owners.

Discover how Peri merchant services can revolutionize your dealership’s payment processing experience, boost your competitiveness in the industry, and address these pain points head-on.

Learn more about Peri by Solera today.

Did you like this article? Find more great content at dealersocket.com/blog and solera.com/blog 

Solera solutions help dealerships out sell, out service, and out perform the competition

Every year, the annual National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA) show attracts thousands of auto dealership employees. They look to network, learn emerging industry trends, and find out about the latest technology that can help them streamline operations and improve improve CX (customer experience).

And we will be there too! We are exhibiting at the Kay Bailey Hutchinson Convention Center from Jan. 26-29th. There we will demonstrate our industry-leading solutions that help dealerships drive sales, reach more customers, and improve profit margins.

Solutions Built for Dealers

Whether it’s marketing and sales, financing and titling, or service and repair, our solutions help:

Why Meet with Us at NADA 2023

First and foremost, our dealership solutions streamline operations and workflows. But they also provide actionable insights, improve CX, and keep customers engaged with their dealerships. To find out more about how these solutions can accelerate your dealership’s success, visit our NADA page.

We’ve added the following new releases and enhancements to our industry-leading dealer solutions. Discover what’s new:

CRM

IDMS – DMS

DealerFire – Websites

Auto/Mate – DMS

 

For more information or questions about how to take advantage of our newest product releases or enhancements, contact us or reach out to your Account Manager today.

Selling vehicles isn’t like it used to be. In the past, you could depend on a steady flow of potential car buyers after placing a few ads on the radio or in print. Today, customers take a more active role in the buying process. Instead of visiting the dealership, they’re doing online research. That’s why it’s imperative to have a marketing strategy—especially a digital marketing one—to guide potential consumers to your car dealership.

In this guide, we’ll explain what digital marketing is, discuss why it’s important, and provide several digital marketing strategies to help you reach more customers and boost your sales.

What is digital marketing?

Digital marketing is a multifaceted approach to promote services, goods, and brands using the internet and electronic media. It relies on various channels, such as mobile apps, websites, social media platforms, and instant messaging, to improve customer engagement.

Essentially, if a marketing campaign involves online or electronic communication, it’s digital marketing.

Why is digital marketing important for car dealerships?

There are many benefits to implementing a digital marketing strategy for your car dealership. Here are some of the advantages:

Increase online visibility

The first organic (unpaid) search result in Google Search has an average click-through rate (CTR) of about 28%. This means that if your website link is in this top spot, you are likely attracting more potential customers.

If your car dealership relies only on conventional marketing strategies, it’s time to make changes. While radio, TV, and billboards play an important role in marketing and sales, their impact has lessened in today’s environment. Consumers now spend most of their time online, so engaging with them there will boost your sales.

Personalize the experience

Digital marketing allows you to market the right products to the right customers. And tailor your actions to provide better value to your audience. For instance, when a potential car buyer visits your site, allowing them to personalize their experience will help you better meet their needs. This may be through a chatbot feature, newsletter subscription sign-up, or by publishing relevant and browsable content so viewers can find answers to their questions and solutions to their problems on their own.

Engage with customers directly

Social media is a great platform to ensure engagement with your potential buyers or target audience. Social media platforms can help you engage potential buyers and create a community where they can ask questions, voice their concerns, and be part of a conversation.

By responding to specific questions, your car dealership can be seen as a knowledgeable and trustworthy market leader. This can lead to potential customers being more likely to buy a car from you, as a bond of trust has been established—a bond that may be lacking between your competitors and potential buyers.

The fact that you can immediately and directly engage with your target audience allows for valuable feedback opportunities from prospective buyers. This allows you to continuously improve your digital marketing strategies as your target audience evolves.

5 Digital Marketing Strategies Your Car Dealership Should Consider

Here are some of the best digital marketing strategies to help you attract and retain today’s connected car buyers:

1. Email marketing

Email marketing continues to be one of the most effective digital marketing strategies. In fact, it has the highest return on investment of all kinds of marketing, averaging about $42 in return for every $1 spent.

And personalized emails convert better. Research conducted by G/O Digital revealed that about 35% of car buyers prefer emails based on their interests. Further, 28% said they would click on a car dealership email if it includes a model, color, or style they’re interested in.

With today’s sophisticated data sets, you can segment prospective customer audiences based on a wide range of selects, including their current car’s make, model, and Black Book value, those most likely “in the market” for a new car, and other demographics, such as hobbies, income, and more.

2. Social media marketing

A study conducted by the CMO council revealed that 23% of buyers talk about purchasing a new car on social media and about 38% say they’ll consult social sites prior to purchasing. So, if you’re not posting and advertising on social media platforms, like Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook, you’re likely missing out on opportunities.

An effective social media marketing strategy includes sharing useful, relevant, and interesting content on various social channels several times a week. It also includes engaging in conversations on your pages, posting inventory and happy customer photos, responding to reviews, and making your dealership contact details easily accessible.

3. Search engine optimization

Search engine optimization (SEO) refers to the process used to improve the viability and visibility of your website through online searches. Implementing good SEO strategies will, in time, increase the likelihood of your website being served to people searching for car dealerships. According to Google, 95% of car buyers use digital research as a source of information. In fact, twice as many begin their search online than by visiting a dealership. So if your website isn’t performing well and isn’t one of the top displayed sites on search engines, you’re losing 95% of potential opportunities.

Perhaps the two most important tactics of a strong SEO strategy are high-quality, keyword-focused content publication and link building. While it may take time for search engines to recommend your website over others, you will no doubt improve the quality and quantity of your site traffic, thereby increasing the likelihood of your website getting discovered by people looking for a new car.

To create relevant content using the right keywords, you must understand your target audience. For example, if you want to attract potential buyers searching for California car dealerships, consider including terms like “automotive car dealers in California, “auto car dealership in California”, or “car dealerships near me” within blog posts or on your website pages. But to really improve the quality and relevancy of your content planning, use a keyword research tool to best identify and discover new industry-related keywords. Many free and easy tools exist, including Spyfu and WordStream, and help you identify the right keywords.

4. Mobile optimization

Mobile devices changed how buyers research cars they want, as well as how they discover new or different vehicles. A study commissioned by Facebook revealed that 71% of consumers use their phones during the vehicle purchasing process, and about 58% said that in the future they only intend to use their smartphones for all their vehicle research.

A mobile-first and responsive dealer website is more crucial than ever. Google and other search engines rank websites on the overall page experience. This includes, among many other factors, the usability of a website on a cellphone and the page load time. Ensuring your website is optimized for mobile devices increases your SEO rankings and chances of gaining new customers.

Here are a few tips to implement yourself or pass to your web developer:

5. Video marketing

Video marketing refers to the strategic use of videos to promote and inform about services or product inventory and to boost engagement on digital and social channels.

About 66% of marketers say they’ll either increase or maintain their spending on video this year. By its very nature, video marketing better captures viewers’ attention. It’s also more engaging than other mediums, such as imagery and text. In fact, according to a study by Google, 64% of people who used YouTube while purchasing a car were influenced by it. That’s more than magazines and newspapers.

Here are a few tips on creating effective video marketing at your car dealership:

Accelerate your car dealership’s operations now

Understanding your buyers is the first and most important step in developing successful digital marketing strategies. Through a combination of social media, email, website, and video marketing tactics, you will improve your car dealership’s online visibility and reach a more engaged, interested audience.

If you want to improve your digital marketing strategy, consider using AutoPoint marketing. This robust suite of solutions connects all the dots of the customers’ vehicle lifecycle. It offers every tool you need to promote sales, launch effective digital marketing campaigns, supply proper documentation, provide maintenance support, and improve customer retention. Let us work with you to create a digital marketing strategy so you can rise above the competition.

A successful marketing plan is critical for the growth of your dealership. Coming up with a successful marketing campaign for the dealership website can be tricky. The automotive industry is highly competitive, and its trends constantly shift.

To that end, here are some of the best actionable tips to make your car dealership marketing campaign more advantageous.

1. Optimize Your Efforts at SEO

In today’s market, many car buyers begin their journey online. Increasing your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) can increase the traffic you get to your dealership website, and this can gain you new customers. You need to ensure that your dealership makes the first page of results on both Google and Bing. Choosing your keywords carefully, ones that have a rather high volume of searches with low competition is one method of doing this.

Another method of increasing your SEO rankings is to list yourself in a variety of qualified directories. This can increase your chances of being located when customers search for local dealerships.

You might also begin a blog for the website or add a few new pages that will provide your customers with useful information. Including content helpful to car shoppers will drive even more traffic to your site while also increasing online leads. Some topics you might cover include:

Focused content that adds value to your customers or intended customers can help drive traffic to your dealership page.

2. Blog for a Successful Marketing Campaign

Publishing content that’s educational on your blog is a great form of digital marketing that can help you ensure that you remain relevant to your customers while also boosting engagement on your website. You might utilize a blog in a variety of ways, but one of the best ways is to build trust with prospective car buyers.

A blog post can assist you with streamlining the process of buying a car as readers seek out the various car dealerships in their area. Knowing this, you can use your blog to build a relationship with them.

When they learn how you care for your community as well as that you’re an industry expert, your audience can gain confidence in knowing that they’ll get excellent customer service from you, both before and after the sale.

3. Emails to Your Target Audience

Email marketing continues to be a great marketing strategy for car dealerships that want to remain in touch with their clients. Consider this — how long have you had the same address for email? Your target audience tends to keep their email addresses for quite a few years too. Customize your strategy for email marketing based on services you offer, the seasons, or other helpful information necessary to car buyers. This can even include service reminders and blog posts, like:

Emails like the ones above will remind customers to have their service work done, or come see the new models — either one of which will bring them into the dealership, giving you an opportunity to make a sale.

4. YouTube

Have you ever found yourself searching for a video about something you were thinking about buying? Your customers do this too. Before they visit your lot, clients might be searching for videos about a vehicle they’re interested in or even your dealership itself. YouTube is quite an influential tool for shoppers. The number of views for those videos that show features, test drives, and walkthroughs is quite high. Because viewers tend to use mobile devices for this as opposed to computers, your videos also need to be mobile-friendly.

5. Social Media

This can be a massive influencer when it comes to millennials and purchase decisions. Having an active feed means that you can notify your followers when you get new stock, which can be an incentive for them to visit, and it can help your business seem active and busy. It’s also a fantastic way to form relationships with both current and potential customers.

Facebook, often the top choice for many companies looking to utilize social media, is a spectacular place to begin. It offers the most adult users, and they tend to be the target audience for car dealers. Be sure you’re posting a variety of content, including testimonials, articles, videos, and more.

Twitter utilizes short posts that consist of only 380 characters or less. This is the ideal platform to advertise any current offers or update customers when you get new inventory. Make sure you include engaging photos to draw a bit more attention to what you’re posting.

6. Referral Program

You may be tempted to focus entirely on the vehicle side of your dealership, but you have to keep in mind that the customer service side of things can also help you when it comes to driving sales.

You might consider a referral program in order to encourage your customers to share their experience with your dealership among their family and friends. This can help you grow your lead database and your business overall.

One great way to do this is by using a loyalty program. This will reward customers for telling their family and friends about your business. It’s also a fantastic opportunity to get even more qualified leads in to talk with your salespeople about purchasing a new vehicle, all while helping those same salespeople earn more money.

Put Your New Successful Marketing Campaign to Work

An effective marketing strategy for car dealerships will increase sales with the generation of leads. It will engage with your existing customers in a way that’s meaningful and solidify the brand in the minds of the target audience.

Coming up with an actionable marketing strategy for your automotive dealership will take quite a bit of research and time.

Optimizing your efforts at SEO, creating a successful email marketing campaign, posting informational videos on YouTube, blogging about your business, being active and engaging on social media, and using a referral program can all help you grow your business.

Use these tips to add more sources for new leads and customers, encourage repeat business, and most of all, grow your dealership.

It appears reports of the F&I manager’s demise have been greatly exaggerated.That was the big revelation to come out my discussion with one of the analysts of a consumer poll conducted this past February by The Harris Poll on behalf of Urban Science. The study gathered responses from 2,001 U.S. consumers age 18 and over.The individual I spoke to was Randy Berlin, who serves as global director of dealer consulting. My line of questioning began with whether the study’s findings refuted all those consumer studies published earlier this decade, and what the new finding meant for the future of digital retailing.”We were surprised, too. We had no idea what they were going to come back with,” Berlin said, adding that his firm expected The Harris Poll to come back with findings that point to consumers, especially younger generations, wanting a more click-to-buy experience.

“But what the research told us is that younger generations have no brand identity or loyalty, so they don’t know what to buy,” he said, highlighting the most critical takeaway from the study. See, whereas boomers like Berlin have experience purchasing vehicles and have an affinity toward certain vehicle brands, the young people are just not brand loyal — “… except for maybe Apple,” Berlin quipped.

According to the study, Generation Z and young millennials — the two demographics every consumer study said would skip the dealership experience altogether — visit, on average, 3.5 dealerships before pulling the trigger.

Remember when those shopper studies also told us consumers were visiting less than two dealerships, and those visits would continue to decline in the Amazon Age? Well, older millennials, Gen X, and boomers are visiting, on average, 2.2, 2.3, and 2.2 dealerships, respectively.

What surprised Berlin and researchers at The Harris Poll is the unwillingness of younger consumers to buy a vehicle without seeing it. Overall, seven out of 10 respondents said they would never buy a vehicle without a dealership. Eighty-five percent of respondents also agreed a vehicle is too big an investment to risk not seeing it before they buy.

These insights led Berlin to the most stunning conclusion to come out out of his analysis — that younger car buyers desire the knowledge of a well-trained F&I professional. “These younger folks don’t know what they can afford. So there’s uncertainty there, where they need help understanding their finance options and what they mean for them,” Berlin said.

So, does all that mean digital retailing is dead? Not according to Berlin.

The dealer consultant said car buyers, particularly younger consumers, want to do as much as they can online. “Remember, for many of these younger consumers, it’s their first purchase,” he said. “So they rely on the expertise of the dealer to help them get through the process.”

Berlin knows they’re online because, according to the study, the average car buyer is submitting, on average, three lead forms. The reason is consumers want to make sure they’re getting a good deal, so they’re cross-checking pricing. And dealers, for the most part, have embraced this desire for pricing transparency. That’s why 81% of survey respondents said they trust the information they receive from an OEM dealership.

“So they know invoice. They know everything about it,” Berlin said. “But a majority of consumers aren’t coming in to write a check. So price is one thing, but then, as you relate that to the payment, is it a two-year lease, three-year lease, a 48-month loan, a 60-month loan, or 72. That’s where the F&I manager really starts to play a role.”

This is where things got interesting. Berlin equated digital retailing to autonomous vehicles, noting that “a majority of people aren’t raising their hand and saying, “I’m all in on that.”

“But if you think about it, from autonomous vehicles, we’ve seen a lot of safety features come out of that, such as adaptive cruise control, lane-departure warnings, and automatic stopping,” he continued. “Digital retailing is synonymous with that: I can do most of the transaction online line, and it’s more than just submitting a credit application. It’s a doc you can sign electronically and those sorts of things. Then I go to the dealership to complete the transaction because I want to see the vehicle.”

And to Berlin, consumers are only going to want more of this experience. The challenge for software providers like my employer is to show dealers how these digital retailing platforms work with their current process. It has to be seamless.

“Like what we’ve learned from the whole autonomous vehicle, when it comes to digital retailing, however the customer wants to engage and transact with you, it has to be the same process,” Berlin said. “They don’t want to have to start over.”


The proliferation of small type in online ads and social media could make dealers more vulnerable to digital accessibilities lawsuits, filing of which should increase thanks to a recent Supreme Court decision.

The U.S. Supreme Court just did something that should make your stomach turn the next time you are in the mood for Domino’s Pizza. Actually, it’s what the high court didn’t do that will have you reaching for an antacid.

See, Dominos was sued three years ago by Guillermo Robles under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The pizza chain’s customer charged that Domino’s failed to design its website and web app to accommodate screen-reading software that could read and vocalize contents. This, he alleged, prevented him from taking advantage of the chain’s online discounts after he was unable to order pizza online on two occasions.

Dominos argued that the ADA applies to its store but not its website.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed. Although the ADA does not directly address websites, mobile apps, or other web-based technologies, the appellate court ruled that the chain’s website and app provided a way for customers to access its physical storefronts for delivery and pickup. This “nexus” put Robles’ complaint under the purview of the ADA.

Domino’s then asked the Supreme Court to rule that the ADA does not cover the internet.

The high court declined the pizza chain’s appeal on Oct. 7. The decision clears the way for the more than 2,250 digital accessibilities lawsuits expected to be filed this year.

For California dealers, the Supreme Court’s decision is especially damaging. That’s because California law, according to Auto Dealer Compliance’s Randy Henrick, sets a minimum dollar amount for damages of $4,000 plus attorney’s fees for each violation of the ADA. Most other states don’t have a minimum and only allow for equitable relief to be sought. However, businesses located in all but 12 states have paid between $10,000 and more than $90,000 to resolve website-related lawsuits and threats of lawsuits.

Now consider the special internet pricing you might be advertising on your site, the digital retailing tools you may offer, all those vehicle details pages you’ve created, and the fine print explaining rebate and incentive eligibility. If you employ any of that on your site, you could be a target, Henrick says.

What makes compliance tough is the definition of “disability” in the ADA is broad. Keep in mind it’s a legal term, not a medical term. That’s significant, because the ADA defines a person with a disability as a person who has a physical or mental impairment “that substantially limits one or more major life activity functions,” Henrick notes, adding that this includes people who have a record of such impairment, even if they do not currently have a disability. The ADA also makes it unlawful to discriminate against a person based on that person’s association with a person with a disability.

“With the Supreme Court letting the Domino’s decision stand, I would expect more of these suits to be filed by the plaintiff’s bar,” Henrick says. “Whether and to what extent auto dealers will be targeted is uncertain, but I think they have the same exposure as other retailers and the proliferation of small type in online ads and social media may make them more vulnerable.”

The big concern here is there is no standard for compliance. Yup, it’s a moving target.

The Obama administration’s Department of Justice was in the process of developing precise standards for making websites ADA compliant. Four Advanced Notices of Proposed Rulemaking were issued in 2010. Henrick says it is likely those standards would have been less costly and complex than the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, which is the standard followed by the European Union and other countries since 1999.

The Trump administration, however, withdrew those notices as part of its deregulation stance. That’s why this Domino’s case is something to watch, and why DealerSocket chose AudioEye as its web accessibility partner.

Under that pact, DealerFire websites now support AudioEye’s Ally Toolbar, which allows users with disabilities to have text read to them or played automatically. The solution, which conforms with WCAG 2.0 standards, also offers automatic captioning and voice-enabled site navigation.

So, you’ve been warned. The good news for DealerFire customers is we got your digital front door covered.

An interesting observation causes a general manager for a Toyota store to wonder if the industry has reached a tipping point in today’s Digital Age.

A general manager (GM) for a Toyota store in Arkansas made a stunning observation: A “super-loyal” customer who has purchased five cars from the same salesperson, who he loves and “won’t buy from anyone else,” came in as an internet lead. Yup, instead of calling his beloved Jackie to say he’s coming in to look at a new Toyota Tacoma, Mr. Super-Loyal visited the dealership’s website, found the vehicle he wanted, and submitted a lead form. The horror, right? Well, it wasn’t the first time the GM observed such a thing. “He was an internet sale, so the website got credit for that sale,” the GM told me. “It wasn’t a conquest sale. We didn’t go out and get us a new customer, but, technically, on paper, it’s an internet sale.” Remember when market studies told us car buyers were shopping less than two dealerships before pulling the trigger. Well, according to a poll of 2,001 consumers conducted by The Harris Poll on behalf of Urban Science, consumers are visiting, on average, 2.5 dealerships. Wait, it gets better. Generation Z and young millennials — you know, the ones who were supposed to skip the showroom experience altogether — are visiting, on average, 3.5 dealerships. Gen X visits 2.3 dealerships, while older millennials and Boomers visit, on average, two. Randy Berlin, global director of dealer consulting for Urban Science, says the reason visits are higher among the younger demographics is “they have no brand identity or loyalty.” “The young people, they’re just not brand loyal at all, except for maybe Apple,” he adds. And get this: Berlin says the average customer is submitting an average of three leads. The reason, he says, is customers are cross-checking prices. See, price (84%) is the most significant influencer of a buying decision — even above a “low-pressure sales approach (72%).” The GM’s story and all this new data makes me wonder why data mining isn’t getting more hype, especially when we’re dealing with a less loyal customer who is focused on price and is cross-checking two to 3.5 dealerships. All of this reminds me of something I heard from one of our Strategic Growth Managers for our RevenueRadar tool. His name is Winston Harrell, a 33-year industry veteran and a serious data-mining pro. To demonstrate the power of the tool to new clients, he asks them to load the solution with the conditions that point to a high-target prospect or are important to the dealership. Then he has them run a report to see how many people the dealership sold a car to in the last month fit those parameters. “It’s pure amazement,” he says. “Unfortunately, no one reached out to those customers, so they showed up as a fresh up or an internet lead.” And you know your third-party lead providers are more than happy to take credit for those sales. Harrell says the reason most dealers lose faith in data mining is they don’t have a defined process that’s written down, implemented, and managed by a dedicated person. Think BDC manager. DealerSocket commissioned its own study. Conducted by Strategy Analytics, nearly 50% of the 500 dealers polled listed “Identifying the best places to invest marketing spend” as their No. 1 pain point. Again, I’m not sure why data mining isn’t getting more hype when it’s clear the answer is buried in the data.

Want to try DealerSocket?

Fill out the form below to schedule a demo now.

The U.S. Supreme Court just did something that should make your stomach turn the next time you are in the mood for Domino’s Pizza. Actually, it’s what the high court didn’t do that will have you reaching for an antacid.See, Dominos was sued three years ago by Guillermo Robles under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The pizza chain’s customer charged that Domino’s failed to design its website and web app to accommodate screen-reading software that could read and vocalize contents. This, he alleged, prevented him from taking advantage of the chain’s online discounts after he was unable to order pizza online on two occasions.Dominos argued that the ADA applies to its store but not its website.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed. Although the ADA does not directly address websites, mobile apps, or other web-based technologies, the appellate court ruled that the chain’s website and app provided a way for customers to access its physical storefronts for delivery and pickup. This “nexus” put Robles’ complaint under the purview of the ADA.

Domino’s then asked the Supreme Court to rule that the ADA does not cover the internet.

The high court declined the pizza chain’s appeal on Oct. 7. The decision clears the way for the more than 2,250 digital accessibilities lawsuits expected to be filed this year.

For California dealers, the Supreme Court’s decision is especially damaging. That’s because California law, according to Auto Dealer Compliance’s Randy Henrick, sets a minimum dollar amount for damages of $4,000 plus attorney’s fees for each violation of the ADA. Most other states don’t have a minimum and only allow for equitable relief to be sought. However, businesses located in all but 12 states have paid between $10,000 and more than $90,000 to resolve website-related lawsuits and threats of lawsuits.

Now consider the special internet pricing you might be advertising on your site, the digital retailing tools you may offer, all those vehicle details pages you’ve created, and the fine print explaining rebate and incentive eligibility. If you employ any of that on your site, you could be a target, Henrick says.

What makes compliance tough is the definition of “disability” in the ADA is broad. Keep in mind it’s a legal term, not a medical term. That’s significant, because the ADA defines a person with a disability as a person who has a physical or mental impairment “that substantially limits one or more major life activity functions,” Henrick notes, adding that this includes people who have a record of such impairment, even if they do not currently have a disability. The ADA also makes it unlawful to discriminate against a person based on that person’s association with a person with a disability.

“With the Supreme Court letting the Domino’s decision stand, I would expect more of these suits to be filed by the plaintiff’s bar,” Henrick says. “Whether and to what extent auto dealers will be targeted is uncertain, but I think they have the same exposure as other retailers and the proliferation of small type in online ads and social media may make them more vulnerable.”

The big concern here is there is no standard for compliance. Yup, it’s a moving target.

The Obama administration’s Department of Justice was in the process of developing precise standards for making websites ADA compliant. Four Advanced Notices of Proposed Rulemaking were issued in 2010. Henrick says it is likely those standards would have been less costly and complex than the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, which is the standard followed by the European Union and other countries since 1999.

The Trump administration, however, withdrew those notices as part of its deregulation stance. That’s why this Domino’s case is something to watch, and why DealerSocket chose AudioEye as its web accessibility partner.

Under that pact, DealerFire websites now support AudioEye’s Ally Toolbar, which allows users with disabilities to have text read to them or played automatically. The solution, which conforms with WCAG 2.0 standards, also offers automatic captioning and voice-enabled site navigation.

So, you’ve been warned. The good news for DealerFire customers is we got your digital front door covered.


“Younger buyers still want the dealership,” read the headline for Automotive News’ Aug. 12 report on a new study from Urban Science. The firm surveyed approximately 2,000 shoppers in February, 75% of whom said they would not buy a vehicle without a dealer involved.Inspiring the headline were findings indicating that the youngest generations shop the highest number of brick-and-mortar dealerships, with Gen Z and young millennials visiting, on average, 3.8 and 2.6 stores before pulling the trigger. These are the generations all those industry studies said didn’t like the dealership experience, hated the F&I office, and might even stop buying cars.

Well, those studies appear to be wrong. In fact, according to a column penned by J.D. Power researcher Maya Ivanova for Auto Remarketing magazine, “Fears that Gen Y… would turn their backs on the all-American car-buying tradition are unfounded.”

The research also noted that Gen Y shoppers “mostly like to close the deal at the dealership.”

I know of a few “traditionalists” who are grinning ear to ear over these findings, believing they refute all that talk about dealers needing to step into the Digital Age. I believe the opposite. My takeaway is the stats serve as an endorsement of the industry’s efforts to get dealers to embrace the internet, and I believe they point to the digital experience growing in importance in the years ahead — that’s if we can erase the mistakes of tech marketers in recent years.

So what brings me to those conclusions? For starters, the line about Gen Y being OK with closing deals at the dealership opens with the following: “While every millennial starts the buying journey digitally…”

The Automotive News article also notes that 81% of the auto shoppers polled indicated that they “trust the information they receive from a franchised dealership.” Think about that for a second: 81% of your customers say they trust the information you send them. Wait, it gets better.

Seventy-two percent of survey respondents said the salesperson is becoming a trusted advisor. Wow, right? Well, 75% of survey respondents also said they would not want to buy a vehicle without a dealer involved.

So what happened to all that talk about consumers wanting to avoid the dealership experience? Well, thanks to your digital marketing and advertising efforts, car buyers know if stores are “retailing the same vehicle for $10,000 to $10,500, then that is the price of that vehicle.” That’s what Reedman-Toll Auto Group’s Moshe Schoopachevich said in a new report we developed in partnership with Automotive News.

“They look at Kelly Blue Book and Edmunds, too,” he noted, adding, “What the internet really did was end haggling.”

Back in 2015, Google broke down the car-buying process in the Internet Age into five moments:

  • Which-car-is-best moments
  • Is-it-right-for-me moments
  • Can-I-afford-it moments
  • Where-should-I-buy-it moments
  • Am-I-getting-a-deal moments

Now consider all the digital techniques your store employs daily and monthly to help consumers through those moments. Yeah, those studies might point to consumers not minding the dealership experience, but it’s because of everything you do online to reel them in.

As for whether those findings make an argument against digital retailing, I don’t think they do. I believe consumers are just now learning what’s possible from a car-shopping perspective. And I believe their expectation will only grow in the years to come, but not at the expense of the dealership experience.

See, I think the term “digital retailing” has gotten a bad name in our industry, mainly because of the missteps of tech marketers. They believed the best way to market their solutions was to bash the people they’re designed to help, and they used the buying habits of today’s younger generations to do so.

Hey, calling dealers antiquated because they’re process-driven is no way to get them to buy into your vision of the future. Dealers are process-driven because they know a proven process delivers results, because the state and federal laws governing their activities demand it, and because not every customer has an 800 credit score.

The good news is I think marketers are finally coming around. It’s why we see terms like “connected retail” and “omnichannel retailing” being used to describe “digital retailing.”

As I’ve always been told, buying a car is the second biggest purchase a consumer will make, and it should be treated as such. However, digitizing low-value steps in your sales process, such as filling out a credit app, should be something you embrace. It makes the process more efficient, saves labor, and allows your team to focus on high-value activities like selling cars, F&I products, and the expertise of your service department. That’s the true promise of digital retailing.


  • Millennials Value Exclusivity: Salespeople should use words like “unique”, “one of a kind”, or even “special” when selling to Millennials, because members of this demographic believe they’re unique and their rides should be as well.
  • Millennials Hate Waiting: Give them the VIP treatment by having the salesperson waiting and ready to show them cars based on the needs they shared when they chatted, texted, or messaged the dealership. Millennials hate being taken to the salesperson’s “lair”.
  • Millennials Want to Text: Must text millennials. You have to text with them.
  • Millennials View LinkedIn: Make sure your salespeople have a LinkedIn account with a photo, content that humanizes them, and connections, because Millennials will look them up to see if they can trust the salesperson.
That was the list my colleague jotted down while listening to millennial whisperer Jason Dorsey at our recent DealerSocket User Summit in Anaheim, Calif. Dorsey serves as president and lead researcher at the Center of Generational Kinetics in Austin, Texas, and he shared insights on various generations, including mine, during his keynote address on Aug. 21.According to my colleague, his message was well received. In fact, she noted in her email that one general manager in attendance emailed Dorsey’s speech notes to his team and told them to review it and be ready to discuss when he returns. My colleague was kind enough to also send me those notes before being shuttled to the House of Blues to watch celebrity band Royal Machines during our DealerSocket After Dark party. How nice of her, right? She concluded her email with the following: “This might make for a good blog.”Yeah, she’s always thinking about me.My colleague’s thought about the blog was a good one, but I wondered how millennials would feel about the list. I mean, it kind of makes them sound entitled — that’s until I reread the list.

Yeah, “unique” was the reason I bought my current vehicle four years ago. I just hadn’t seen very many of them on the road or in the parking lot at work, and the thought of having a vehicle no one in my family had made this Gen Xer forget about the issues pointed out to me in the reviews I read.

As for the VIP treatment, why not? Heck, I know of a few dentist offices that could heed that advice. But, yeah, if they came ready to buy, shouldn’t you be ready to sell. Besides, isn’t your dealership’s sales process designed to keep customers moving so they don’t have time to second guess their decision to buy. So I guess being ready for them and not making them wait isn’t asking too much, right?

I totally agreed with the texting recommendation. In fact, I had a millennial colleague at my previous gig who came to me for advice on buying a car. A couple of days after we talked, she returned to show me how the deal went down. I write “show”, because she handed me her iPhone to show me the texting exchange she had with her salesman. In his last message, he told her she owed him for getting management to agree to her price. He then asked her out for coffee, which you probably shouldn’t do.

I also agree with the LinkedIn advice. The social media site was my go-to source for learning about people I needed to interview for a magazine article. And I just hated it when an interviewee’s LinkedIn profile had no photo and his or her “Experience” section only listed company names and titles.

In fact, I’ve used LinkedIn to look up my son’s baseball coach and fielding instructor, his tennis coach, teacher, an email solicitor, and someone who liked (or hated) a social media post I made or an article I wrote. And, yes, I even looked up the guy who sold me my last car.

So I guess that list contains solid advice, and maybe this Gen Xer was just being — as Dorsey describes my kind — his typical “skeptical,” “cynical” self. By the way, Dorsey also says Gen Xers make great managers and leaders because we dive into the details. Who am I to question an expert, right?

What I find interesting, and I’m sorry for the shameless plug, is many of our most recent updates to our DealerSocket CRM address Dorsey’s recommendations. Last month, for instance, our product teams rolled out a new mobile-optimized widget for our DealerFire websites. It’s designed to connect car buyers who request a text conversation to users of our CRM through our SocketTalk texting tool.

Earlier this year, we rolled out the capability to send walk-around videos (up to 500 MB, or roughly two minutes) and vehicle images through SocketTalk. The texting tool can also receive images and videos, a capability your used-car manager can use to get a head start on appraising a customer’s trade. Oh, and we also added an emoji keyboard to SocketTalk.

The CRM release that really speaks to Dorsey’s recommendations, particularly tip No. 2, is SocketCredit. After having a positive exchange via SocketTalk, imagine being able to text a link to our SocketCredit credit application or a request to perform a soft pull on the customer’s credit. Heck, you can even mention to them that the soft pull won’t harm their credit. Hey, Gen Y knows how hard credit pulls ding their scores, thanks to their baby boomer parents.

Talk about a connected retail experience, right?

Dorsey also offered great insights in “Decoding Gen Z the car buyer,” a report DealerSocket developed in conjunction with Automotive News. Born after 1996, Gen Z is entering the workforce by the tens of millions while wielding roughly $3 trillion in purchasing power. The article breaks down the vehicles Gen Z wants and how they want to buy them.


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