What’s Next in Automotive Retail

Digital retailing in the automotive industry is nothing short of transformational. The advent of digital retailing has changed the automotive industry as we know it, ushering it into the 21st century.

As you are likely aware, Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL) came into effect on July 1, 2014. At the time, dealerships were encouraged to review their customer bases and list customers to which they had neither express nor tacit consent.

Customer reviews are the modern equivalent of good old word of mouth. We’ve all heard a family member or friend rave about the new restaurant in town or the new barbecue. In truth, it is in our nature to value such comments.

You likely spend a lot of time, effort and money driving people to your dealership’s website in the effort to convert them from browsers to customers.

All businesses want to emulate rock star companies like Facebook, Pixar, Google, and Amazon with their cool culture, free lunches, and bean bag chairs. We see the impressive profit statements and hear stories about the fun work environments and wish our organizations could be like theirs.

Your Dealership, like many others, likely has a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) and / or ILM (Internet Lead Management) system. These powerful tools have the potential to increase your sales. Improve your efficiency and so much more.

So you’re getting a good amount of internet leads filtering into your Lead Management or CRM system each month. Great! What now? Most dealerships are doing a pretty good job of ensuring that all leads get responded to.

Are millennials the key to the future success of dealerships? You will have to decide for yourself. Regardless of your outlook though, it’s pretty clear that millennials can add value to any organization.

We’re all familiar with the rule that it’s less expensive to keep an existing customer than it is to acquire a new one – up to 5 times less expensive according to some sources! With this in mind, how can your dealership improve how it retains customers?