Right now, keeping your customers protected and engaged is more important than ever. If you’re just letting your digital retail solution run on auto-pilot, now is the time to really optimize the process so your dealership can stimulate and sustain consumer demand.
Read about 7 things you can do today to take your digital retail to the next level in our free guide!
Now is not the time for a wait-and-see approach, especially if your dealership can offer a digital buying experience to your customers.
In this guide, we'll cover:
By Gregory Arroyo
I recall a conversation I had with an industry attorney during the early days of digital retailing. Technology vendors believed the Digital Age had arrived, while dealers were saying, “Not so fast.” My question to my attorney friend was, “What’s the holdup?”
He said the problem is dealers aren’t treating digital retailing as an experience — that customers should be rewarded for taking that path to purchase. He suggested that dealerships with separate facilities for fleet sales should consider directing digital buyers there vs. the showroom.
He then relayed his recent experience purchasing his second vehicle from the same dealership. He called the store, explained that he was a willing buyer who simply wanted to update to a newer model, and negotiated the deal over the phone. Expecting the red-carpet treatment for essentially being a rollover, he felt disappointed when he discovered he’d have to wait like the other customers in front of him.
That conversation came to mind when I came across Urban Science’s “Around the Bend: How COVID-19 Impacts the Next Normal for Dealers,” a report based on an online poll of 1,506 adult consumers. It serves as an update to the firm’s August 2019 report, which served as a reality check for digital retailing.
The 2019 study, which included responses from 2,001 consumers, concluded that car buyers weren’t ready to ditch the dealership experience because they still want to kick the tires and take a test-drive. Respondents also said they still needed someone at the dealership to guide them through the process.
I wrote about why I think that represents an opportunity for digital retailing in an April 2020 blog entry, “Digital Retailing’s True Test.” However, I’d like to share an even greater opportunity revealed in this year’s updated study.
See, while the report did show that a majority of consumers still believe buying a car is too big of an investment not to see (81%) or test-drive (79%), it did show that 67% would be more open to buying online if it was a brand or dealership with which they were already familiar.
Again, my convo with my attorney friend came to mind, but so did a discussion I had with a DealerSocket Strategic Growth Manager. He said the main reason some dealers fail to realize the full potential of data mining is because they don’t have a dedicated process. Well, based on that stat from Urban Science, maybe digital retailing represents a missing link.
Take those data-mining campaigns targeting customers approaching the end of their lease or who qualify for smart payment offers. The emails could contain links to a landing page that explains your offer and a link to a streamlined buying process powered by your digital retail tool.
Back in April, another DealerSocket Strategic Growth Manager told me about a Pennsylvania-based dealer group that was rewarded for having a service-drive sales process when the pandemic forced local officials to limit dealers there to appointment-only sales that concluded with service-drive deliveries.
Before the pandemic, the process delivered 100 units a month behind two dedicated salespeople, a sales manager, and an F&I manager, who actually has a dedicated desk (with enough privacy) in the service area. The reason for that is the group wanted that buying experience to feel different and free of pressure.
The group equips the sales team with its inventory management tool’s mobile app (Inventory+) to feed appraisers with scanned VINs and photos of every car that comes into service. The appraisers then prepare a package that includes a vehicle history report, documentation on the vehicle’s going price in the local market, its fair Kelley Blue Book value, a check voucher for an amount over that value, and the salesperson’s business card.
Signage in the service drive lets customers know they can get a free vehicle evaluation by texting a specific number or talking to their service advisor. All customers get an appraisal, but the hand-raisers represent high-value targets the sales team engages.
However, even customers who don’t bite get the appraisal package. They also get enrolled into a CRM-powered campaign that includes email and a phone call — the latter scheduled for the day after the customer’s service visit to ensure satisfaction and to revisit the offer sheet.
I can see three potential opportunities in that process for digital retailing to have an impact. Maybe it’s a kiosk in the service area loaded with a digital retail tool like DealerSocket’s PrecisePrice; perhaps it’s tablets. Whatever the case, digital retail should be a part of those follow-up efforts, whether it’s a link in an email or guiding customers through the process over the phone and emailing a link to their PrecisePrice deal.
And just maybe that buyer’s journey you create in the service drive serves as the entrance for sales opportunities your data-mining efforts generate.
While 93% of respondents to the Urban Science study expressed some concern with an entirely online purchase process, more than two-thirds said they were comfortable shopping online, signing paperwork digitally, and negotiating price and terms via email, chat, or phone.
Recently, the individual leading the digital drive for one of the largest privately-owned dealer groups in the United States addressed DealerSocket employees over a Zoom call. He talked about COVID-19’s impact, inventory shortages, the group’s efforts to build that clicks-to-bricks experience, and how consumers still need to be educated on what digital retailing is. What caught my attention was his response to whether he believed consumers still want the showroom experience.
“Absolutely … Only a small group of individuals want the Carvana model, and we’re going to be there,” he said. “But most customers want to step foot in a brick-and-mortar shop. If they want to get their payment, we’ll do that and meet them in the showroom.
“So, we believe a critical point in that process is that showroom experience,” he added. “You shouldn’t lose a customer who completed things online because you told them it would take 45 minutes, but it takes us three hours.”
A valuable part of the modern buyer's journey, your digital retail tool is vital to keeping your customers engaged.
If you’re just letting your digital retail solution run on auto-pilot, now is the time to really optimize the process so your dealership can stimulate and sustain consumer demand.
In this free guide, 8 Ways Digital Retailing Can Stimulate & Sustain Consumer Demand, we'll cover:
See the digital retailing tool that configures perfect payments in real-time, increases back-end gross by up to 17%, and delivers a closing ratio up to 9% higher than other internet lead providers.
DALLAS, June 22, 2020 — DealerSocket, Inc., a leading SaaS provider to the automotive industry, today crossed another milestone in its drive to improve the clicks-to-bricks experience for dealers with the release of its next-generation Desking solution. Sporting more intuitive, easy-to-navigate workflows designed to prevent errors and reduce time to first pencil, the all-new Desking tool comes equipped with a robust calculations engine, flexible payment options, custom presentation capabilities, and seamlessly integrates with DealerSocket’s PrecisePrice digital retail solution.
The sleek new interface, which has been architected within DealerSocket’s award-winning CRM, gives the new Desking tool a uniform user experience with other DealerSocket solutions. The solution opens up a host of new opportunities to modernize a dealer’s road-to-the-sale process, and enhance save-a-deal and data-mining activities, CRM-generated campaigns, and remote deal-making.
“There are several critical storylines captured in this exciting launch of Desking. For DealerSocket, our next-gen Desking solution represents another critical step as we unify our suite of integrated solutions,” said Darren Harris, executive vice president and general manager of retail solutions at DealerSocket. “Then there’s what the tool can do for dealers from a clicks-to-bricks perspective. Yes, our new Desking solution allows dealers to reimagine their buying journey, but it also puts them in total control of just how far they want to go.”
The main advantage of DealerSocket’s new Desking tool is that it operates within the CRM as an in-app program, allowing dealers to seamlessly move between Desking and throughout the CRM to update a sales opportunity’s vehicle of interest, follow up with appointments, or send communications. That deep integration within DealerSocket’s CRM also means no pop-up windows for Desking and an efficient and easy process that begins with a single click on a sales opportunity to start desking a deal.
Once engaged, the Desking tool displays a calculations worksheet, customer details, and payment options on one screen. The latter views are collapsible when structuring deals using the calculations worksheet, which eliminates the need for mental math with smart fields within Desking that can calculate dollar value increases or decreases in MSRP, selling price, cash down, and rebates.
Users can then compare and present a variety of lease and finance options with different cash-down amounts, term lengths, and APRs, as well as view and adjust other deal influencers like doc fee, buy rate, and gross. Dealers can also take advantage of the following innovations:
“Especially in the digital environment, dealers need a platform that allows data to flow across a single ecosystem, and allows users to easily navigate software tools and features seamlessly,” said Alok Tyagi, DealerSocket’s chief product and technology officer. “Today’s release of our next-generation Desking tool represents another significant step toward delivering a simplified experience to our dealers, who now have a tool that allows them to create new opportunities.”
We continue to think about all of you, our customers and partners, during this difficult time. This pandemic has caused deep challenges across our industry and for all of us, and I hope you know that DealerSocket continues to be here for our dealers. Our goal has been to strike the right balance between being prepared for our dealers and the market when our industry recovers and offering discounts to help our dealers as much as possible during this difficult time.
We will get through this, and we will get through this together. We are committed to fighting through this with you. We are beginning to see the first signs of positive trends as we climb out of the depths of the COVID-19 pandemic, and this has us all hopeful for the future.
In April, we heavily discounted our software for our dealers. In addition to our discounts in April, we have decided to offer the following DealerSocket billing reductions for May for all of our dealers:
We have already sent out our May invoices, so next week you will receive a credit memo for the above discounts. With that said, similar to our discount package last month, there are some basic qualifying terms listed below.
In addition to these discounts in April and May, DealerSocket continues to offer our customers several promotions and free months of certain software products to help you navigate this crisis. Our offers include promotions for:
Since we are adding promotions and various resources for dealers often, please view DealerSocket’s latest information by clicking here, and, as always, please feel free to reach out to your Customer Success Manager with any questions or if we can help in any way:
If you are not yet an Auto/Mate DMS customer, I hope you know that we can reduce your DMS bill significantly during these challenging times as well as into the future by switching to Auto/Mate DMS. We have several bundled packages that include our Auto/Mate DMS product combined with other DealerSocket products to support you.
Thank you for partnering with DealerSocket. I hope you know how much we value and appreciate your loyalty, partnership, and your business.
I wish you, your families, and your team members health in these unprecedented times.
Sejal Pietrzak
CEO and President
DealerSocket
[email protected]
Details regarding our COVID-19 relief package: