Archive for March, 2021

Importance of Online Reviews For Automotive Dealership Sales

March 12th, 2021

Online reviews on automotive dealer’s website are valued features and play a key role in influencing the customer’s automotive buying decision. Online reviews are sought after by customers using Internet at every stage of car buying process, as they offer existing customer experiences on vehicle models, services, policies etc of particular automotive dealers. It is important to include online reviews and testimonials in dealer websites as they help in retaining the existing customers and builds initial trust among potential customers. It helps to increase sales as prospective customers prefer to deal with dealers they can trust.

Positive Impacts:
Online reviews positively impact the dealership sales by increasing the confidence among both existing and potential customers.

Credibility
Potential customers perceive online reviews as authentic, genuine opinions from other customers and feel that they are receiving accurate information. They provide an effective way for dealers to communicate with customers. A good number of positive reviews on dealer website mentioning satisfactory experiences of customers are likely to instill confidence among potential customers. The potential customer can feel more comfortable and satisfied when reading a comprehensive evaluation of the dealer from a large number of customers. Even, the way dealers handle negative reviews by customers by quickly and efficiently resolving problems increases the trustworthiness of the dealers. It is likely that such unhappy customers will revert back to the same dealer.

Included In Consideration Set
The customers usually have a pre-defined set of vehicles that they prefer to buy. The automotive dealers in order to increase their sales needs to persuade the customers to alter their consideration set. The customer generated content like vehicle ratings and reviews, consumer ratings and reviews, dealer ratings and reviews can be effectively used by automotive dealers to alter the consideration set of these automotive internet users. The information given through dealer ratings and reviews can effectively target the new-vehicle buying customer segment. The reviews enhance dealer consideration among customers as both positive and negative reviews increases awareness level of the particular dealer. Also, positive reviews improve the attitude of customers towards dealers. Thus, expanding the consideration set helps to increase automotive dealership sales.

Reassurance
The online reviews and testimonials at automotive dealer website provide reassurance to the new customers that the dealer stands for professionalism, quality, credibility, and security. Reviews by previous customers reassure the potential customers that it is safe to deal with this dealer and there is commitment to customer’s privacy. Providing reviews on dealership website also increases conversion rates as it increases trust and confidence among first time visitors. Thus, existing and new customers will confide upon the dealership that helps to increase sales.

Negative Impacts If Not Monitored:
The negative online reviews can have impact on the attitude of customers towards automotive dealers.

Left Out From Consideration Set
Online reviews influence the purchasing decisions of automotive internet users. Also, they are checked while researching for a particular car on the Internet. Thus, ignoring or not monitoring the online reviews means failing to effectively target the large segment of automotive internet users and getting left out from user’s consideration. Poor online reviews and testimonials can fail to persuade, build confidence and trust among first time visitors and lose out on important prospective customers.

Needs More Time To Convince The Buyer
Online reviews and testimonials indicate the satisfaction of other customers due to better services and quality offered by dealer. Potential customers reading improperly monitored reviews are likely to view the dealer as less reliable and not trustable. Thus, the dealers may have to put in more efforts and time to convince the customers.

As online reviews are like online conversations between customers, automotive dealers need to actively get involved in them that can result in sales growth. The automotive dealers can leverage online reviews and testimonials by existing customers to generate new customers by efficiently targeting them at each step of car buying process.

Search Optics, Inc. was founded in 1998 in San Diego, California, as a pione

Automotive Advertising Agencies Must Promote Training To Help Them Sell More Cars And Services

March 12th, 2021

To train – or not to train – is not the question according to automotive advertising agencies who understand the importance of investing in the people part of the sales and service process by providing training before, during and after the sale. Training has often been considered as an afterthought by auto dealers who have enjoyed the luxury of having more customers than cars with a never ending supply of salespeople and service writers who earned a higher than average income for their efforts. Today’s consolidating auto industry has changed the math for auto dealers who now have to deal with shrinking sales volumes, reduced profit margins and the resulting loss of a ready willing and able sales and service staff whose incomes have been reduced along with dealer profits.

Automotive advertising agencies have always been tied to their auto dealer clients bottom line – whether they knew it or not – and today’s automotive advertising agencies are realizing that their areas of responsibility do not stop at the front door of the auto dealership. Automotive advertising plans geared for the Internet using digital marketing platforms coupled with internal sales and service processes powered by integrated technologies provide efficiencies that allow auto dealerships to operate with reduced budgets and support staff in sales and service.

Unfortunately, many auto dealers and automotive advertising agencies have been operating with the false sense of security that the people aren’t as important as the technology and/or the processes that they have applied to replace them. That is as untrue today as it was yesterday. People still like to do business with people that they like and human nature has survived on the world wide web. The real solution for auto dealers forced to operate with fewer sales people and service writers is to train them in the use of the new technology, however, not at the expense of training them in understanding human nature and proven old school best practices to sell a car.

New technologies and automotive advertising applications include training solutions that offer efficiencies similar to other sales and service processes that have been applied to reduce expenses for auto dealers. However, even the best training system can’t teach someone to be a nice person and/or to place their customer’s interests ahead of their own. These applications must be coupled with people skills that are best hired vs. taught and they start before the sale or even the hiring of the sales person or service writer ever begins.

Internet based applications like Hire The Winners help human resource departments sort through applicants in the hiring process. Their focus is on personality traits and people skills surfaced in a series of videos posted on a site that is linked to help wanted ads. This screening process allows the auto dealer to determine how the applicant will react to various real world scenarios in the sales and service process. Applying this filter before investing in training and lost sales opportunities caused by a bad hire provide an R.O.I. that can be easily verified with improved employee retention, C.S.I. / S.S.I. scores for the dealership and incremental increases in sales and service productivity by a well screened employee.

Similar advantages in training during the sales and service process can be applied by applications like DealerMouth that allow sales and service staff to promote themselves through their own websites hosted – and monitored – by the auto dealer to promote best practices. This ongoing training by senior management compliments the desire by the automotive advertising agencies to extend the reach and frequency of their online automotive advertising messaging beyond the auto dealerships websites and or third party automotive advertising platforms. Training by example is a proven practice that can be applied on the internet super highway in the virtual showroom much like it used to be applied in brick and mortar facilities.

Newly developing applications focused on enhancing the sales process with integrated training components are also in development. Applications designed for kiosk, desk top and even mobile platforms promise to support sales and service staff before, during and after the buying and shopping experience for customers. Providing sales people and service writers with best practices and word tracks to enhance the customer experience during their sales and/or service presentation will empower the staff by offering them relevant information to help the customer make a buying decision. In addition to increasing their individual productivity on a real time basis, there is a residual benefit of training the sales and service writer who will be better able to apply and retain the information built into their more consistent presentations to their customers.

Automotive advertising agencies are tasked with evaluating new technologies and automotive advertising applications to provide more for less for their auto dealer clients. The presumption that these technologies can – or should – replace people in the process is misguided if it doesn’t increase the productivity of the people that remain. Training will increase the R.O.I. that auto dealers receive from their staff. More importantly for automotive advertising agencies is that training will directly impact the auto dealers bottom line which is certainly part of the job description for automotive advertising agencies in today’s challenging auto industry.

Philip Zelinger is a former auto dealer principal with an earned reputation as a nationally recognized automotive advertising expert specializing in the technology sector. Philip shares best practices on the automotive