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Why Your Dealership Should Embrace the Credit Union

By Staff Writer on February 27, 2018

There’s something about a credit union. Known for their local presence and ability to provide a better, more-personalized banking experience, credit unions are well-positioned to provide a higher level of …

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Why Your Dealership Should Embrace the Credit Union

By Staff Writer on February 27, 2018

There’s something about a credit union. Known for their local presence and ability to provide a better, more-personalized banking experience, credit unions are well-positioned to provide a higher level of …

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How to Win Customers in the Concierge Economy

By Staff Writer on November 20, 2017

Consumers want what they want, when they want it. They want personal service and the want it now. This is the concierge economy. And while the concept of personalization is all the buzz nowadays, it’s nothing more than the 2017 version of Burger King’s 1970’s slogan “Have it your way” — a slogan that lasted over 40 years.

A big driver in all of this is the prevalence of smart phones to order what they want and have it delivered wherever they are. Smart phones are always an arm’s length away encouraging immediacy and on-demand delivery of information, products and services, pushing companies to create a seamless experience from the phone to real-life. Whether it’s burgers or coffee or airline seats, customers are increasingly becoming used to the seamless experience from mobile to real life.

As a dealership, it’s critical to jump onboard this concierge economy to build a relationship with your buyers and show them that you’re here to help them “have it their way”— digitally.

So, how do you do it?

Digital Convenience is King

According to a Cox Automotive survey of over 4,500 U.S. consumers, 14 percent of service consumers booked their appointment online. Organizations like Westside Lexus in Houston strongly encourage their customers to book online, even enticing them to do so with rewards. By actively pushing customers in this direction. They have seen online appointment booking skyrocket from 10 percent to over 30 percent in just a couple years.

The benefits are two-fold: The customer is able to conveniently schedule their appointment quickly and easily, and the dealership operates more efficiently guaranteeing additional bookings.

The Days of Spray-and-Pray are Over

Customers are inundated with all sorts of marketing messages across multiple channels and devices. They’re aware of being marketed to and take appropriate measures to remove these digital distractions from their life. They only way to cut through that clutter and generate ROI is through personalization. By utilizing and understanding data, a dealership can deliver the right messages at the right time to the right customer.

The fact is, personalization generates revenue. “Studies show that 48% of shoppers will spend more when the digital shopping experience is personalized.”

Make It Available and Make It Easy

Being online is all about convenience. If it’s just as much of a hassle to schedule a service appointment online as it is by calling, then you’re doing yourself a disservice. The concierge economy is all about making daily life easier.

It’s crucial to let your customers know what tools you are making available to them because it’s likely almost half probably don’t even know that online scheduling exists.

Also, people are distracted easily so if you make it difficult to schedule an appointment, get more information or learn more about products or services, the customer is likely to abandon you and your site without any guarantee to return.

Let your customers know what is available and remove as many obstacles as possible.

Buyers have so much information and tools at their fingertips that comes with a level of personalization, convenience and availability like never before. This puts enormous pressure on today’s dealership to perform at the level of the Amazons and Starbuckses of the world. When shoppers know what they want, and they come to you for service, make sure you’re ready to meet their needs by providing a seamless experience from the smart phone to the service bay.

Want to personalize like the pros? OneClick Loyalty is a retention platform designed by dealers for dealers. By utilizing personalized messaging and delivering the right message at the right time, dealerships have the opportunity to truly engage with a customer and drive behavior. Let your customers have it their way and turn every vehicle buyer into a customer for life.

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4 Ways to Reach Millennials, and Their Parents

By Staff Writer on November 13, 2017

In 2014, Millennials became the largest generation in the United States surpassing baby boomers.

At 25% of the population, Millennials are poised to be 40% of the vehicle purchasers in 2020.

But marketing to them has proven to be challenging, right? The traditional tactics don’t work anymore, and the new strategies seem to leave the older generation of vehicle purchasers in the dust. How do you compromise?

The good news is that you don’t.

Baby Boomers are active on social media and are just as connected as Millennials.

  • 3% of baby boomers belong to at least one social media site (Facebook is the most popular)
  • Baby boomers spend more hours online per week than those between the ages of 16-34
  • Baby boomers are the more likely generation to look for more information after seeing something of interest on social media

Millennials may have grown up on digital but the generations before them have adopted the technology and are extremely active.

Here are 4 ways to reach Millennials, and their parents:

 

  1. Focus on Referrals via Social Media

Millennials like to share and many strive to get likes and positive feedback for what they put up on social media. In fact, 70% of millennials are more excited about a decision they’ve made when their friends validate it on social media. If you can encourage them to share their experience, this word-of-mouth is sure to garner interest in your dealership.

If a baby boomer sees a social media post from their network, which may include their children and their children’s friends, regarding the purchase of a vehicle, they are likely to search for more information.

 

  1. Focus on Word-of-Mouth Referrals

More than just a Facebook post, leveraging the power of intent to get your customers to refer your business is a great way to increase both retention and conquest. According to David Neuman, CEO of Gaea North America, “If a Millennial hears a recommendation from a friend or colleague, they are more likely to buy and try a product than if they just happen upon it in a print ad.”

Overall, 74% of consumers identify word-of-mouth as a key influencer in their purchasing decision

 

  1. Engage, Don’t Market

Millennials have many tricks to avoid marketing. Pop-up blockers, ad blockers and DVRs are just a few ways customers can avoid your commercials and marketing tactics. Millennials prefer to be engaged meaning businesses need to provide relevant content that meets their needs, when they need it. If digital engagement to you means batch-and-blasting emails, they will delete your message, send it to the spam folder without ever reading past the headline or unsubscribe.

 

  1. Tell a Story

Millennial customers like stories, especially if they are in the form of a short video. They are easy to digest and shareable. Stories also humanize businesses and offer a glimpse into what makes your dealership better than a competitor’s. The more a customer, Millennial or Baby Booker, feels a connection with a business, the more likely they are to remain loyal.

At first, the Baby Boomers may have been slow to adopt new technological modes of communication, however, digital has become standard, more comfortable, and much more widely used.

 

With OneClick Loyalty, a dealership has a path of digital engagement designed to strategically send the right message at the right time. These relevant, personalized interactions encourage referrals and reviews, drive retention and continuously engage with customers helping to increase dealership revenue in all aspects including, sales, F&I and service.

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Do Customer Reviews Matter for Your Dealership?

By Staff Writer on October 16, 2017

Our culture demands feedback and expects experiences to be tailored to our needs based on our collective thoughts. If it doesn’t, or it goes beyond our expectations, customers are apt to tell others.

Google and Facebook make reviewing a business easy and, with the prevalence of social media, every individual is now entitled to share their voice with the masses.

Scary? For sure. In a customer service survey, 95 percentage of respondents who had a bad experience shared it with someone as opposed to 87 percentage who shared their good experience.

While the percentage difference doesn’t seem to be much, over half of those with bad experiences told at least 5 people whereas only one-third of those with good experiences told at least 5 others.

Bottom line: People who had a bad experience are more likely to share and, when they do, they share with more people.

Ask for reviews, not ratings:

5 stars on Google is great but people want stories to back up the rating. 10 high ratings over the course of a month is downright suspicious unless there is something to back it up.

Chris Sutton, vice president of U.S. automotive retail practice at J.D. Power states, “…what customers really want to look at are the verbatim comments in a review— where customers like them are talking about the experiences they had.”

It’s also important to ask for reviews. Those most likely to write reviews are the ones who had a tremendous experience or a terrible one. Getting those whose experiences were good, but nothing special are critical too because they legitimize the reviews.

Respond to reviews

Claim your business on Google so you can write comments back to those who review your dealership. The act of communication is vital. It allows the dealership to thank those who left positive feedback and show appreciation, while also addressing the negative feedback and showing genuine concern about the customer experience.

In our social media-driven world, customers who felt wronged are more likely to voice their opinion online as opposed to face-to-face. Sometimes people want to show their outrage to as many people as they can while others use it as an outlet as opposed to having an awkward confrontation by speaking directly to management.

Either way, this reality can sting a dealership and occasionally cause a backlash as some managers and owners may not take kindly to a public lashing.

Avoid the negative remarks and ask for the opportunity to make it right. If you can identify the customer, contact them and inquire about their experience. If not, give your phone number in the comments section and insist they contact you so you can remedy the problem.

“What we’ve found is that if a dealer has more than five bad reviews, the consumer is automatically going to try another dealer,” Andrea Riley, Chief Marketing and Public Relations Officer for Ally, mentions adding, “Dealers need to make sure that if there is a bad review, they’re correcting the situation.”

When responding to online reviews, address each one individually. Having a robotic response like, Thank you for your feedback, may give the perception that you don’t really care. Try something more specific like, Thanks for the review. We love getting positive feedback like yours and we’re glad we had you in and out of the service bay in under an hour.

 

With OneClick Loyalty, a dealership can utilize the platform to encourage feedback and guide the customer toward review sites. This feature allows dealerships to ask for reviews after service and sales; the closer the customer is to the point of sale or service, the likelier they are to act on it.

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Where to Find Your Best Leads

By Staff Writer on October 9, 2017

It’s not news that it costs 8-10x more to acquire a new customer than to retain a current customer yet dealerships continue to pour 22 percent of their budget into marketing; most of which is geared toward conquest.

Conquest leads, especially those generated from the Internet, are often dead-ends. Dealerships today are inundated with massive amounts of ‘customer’ leads of both suspect origin and quality.

One place you can be sure to mine for quality high ROI leads, however, is your existing customer base.

Here are 3 areas where dealerships can focus to generate leads, raise retention rates and increase revenue from existing customers.

Your Best Leads Are Existing Customers

Lease-End:

The great thing about leases is you know exactly when the customer will need a new vehicle. It’s truly one of your best leads.

Unfortunately, only about half of dealerships actually communicate with their customer during the lease period and struggle to keep the customer when it’s time to turn in the car. The customer often receives their lease package at the beginning and that’s the last piece of engagement between the lessee and dealership.

When met with wear-and-tear fees, overage charges and a lack of understanding of the lease-end process, the customer is confused, frustrated and upset which leaves a bad taste in their mouth.

Lease from there again? No way!

J.D. Power and Associates suggests, dealers and lenders should give customers lease-end information including wear-and-tear charges, how to buy the vehicle and pre-inspections at the start of the lease as well as near the end.

“Consumers that walk out of the dealership fully informed, [with] the terms and conditions, are much more satisfied,” says Jim Houston, senior director of J.D. Power’s auto finance practice.

Reminders and communication throughout the lease term allow a dealership to fully engage and increase the likelihood of retention.

Intent:

What if you knew what your customers intended to do upon lease-end or as they continue paying off their vehicle. By maintaining communication with the customer, you can learn if they are in the market for a new vehicle while their current vehicle is in equity or if your current lease customer intends to purchase or lease their next vehicle.

Equity puts both the dealership and the customer in a prime spot. Customers in equity will find it’s advantageous to sell or trade in their vehicle and dealerships can leverage this position to sell a customer a new car while acquiring a used car, most likely with low mileage, that they can resell.

It’s a win-win for both parties.

If you know the customer is starting to look for a new vehicle, you can have your sales team follow up with them and educate the customer on incentives, promotions and deals to steer their decision to your dealership.

One of the best ways to retain a customer is to make them decide on purchasing or leasing a car from you before they even begin to look elsewhere.

Knowing their intentions puts you ahead of the competition.

Referrals:

What better lead generator than to have the customer bring it right to you?

When a dealership provides a high-level of service and an emotional connection with the customer, they are more likely to recommend your dealership to their friends and family.

Most people are on the lookout for a service center they can rely on and a dealership that is easy to work with when purchasing a car; a referral means your customers are vouching for you and telling those in their social network that you can be trusted.

 

OneClick Loyalty makes retention easy and cost-effective. With targeted communication and by delivering the right messages at the right time, dealerships can take advantage of the platform’s data to acquire reliable leads and focus on retention and referrals to drive revenue.

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Is Your Direct Mail Going Directly to the Garbage?

By Staff Writer on August 15, 2017

You hire a team to design a letter enclosed in an envelope with the recipient’s name. It gets mailed out. The recipient receives it and opts to open it up. Discovering the special sales promotion, they bring their vehicle to your dealership and trade in for a nice, new car.

Or, most likely, throw it in the garbage without even bothering to open it.

It’s not to say direct mail marketing doesn’t work, it’s just that to make it work in today’s digital world costs a bundle.

And when compared to the advantages of digital, well, the average rate of return for…

  • …email is $38 for every $1 spent
  • …direct mail is $7 for every $1 spent

The best practices for emails are also changing.  So, methods used just a couple years ago may now be a red flag for the recipient. They simply delete the email without opening or send it to the spam folder.

One of the key changes to digital marketing has been the expectation of consumers. They want information you send to be relevant, personal and viewable on their mobile device.

It is imperative that your emails work across devices because you never know how, when or where your customer will be viewing it.

Just six years ago, nearly three-quarters of emails were opened on a desktop computer. In 2016, that rate diminished with 45% of emails being opened on desktops versus 55% on a mobile device.

Dealerships must adapt to how customers are consuming their information and content in a digitally driven world.

According to Experian, personal emails receive 29% higher open rates and 41% higher click-through rates.

Personal engagement leads to stronger ROI and higher retention rates.

Just by having the recipient’s first name in the subject line will increase open rates by nearly 20%.

How do you ditch the direct mail and move to a more rewarding platform? A platform that is responsive, offers 1:1 personalization and can build loyalty?

OneClick Loyalty is a software-as-a-service solution designed for easy implementation and to make sure you’re engaging with the customer strategically and not just marketing at them. With a personal message and relevant content geared toward their behavior, your dealership can provide a greater customer experience leading to higher retention rates and increased revenue.

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Your Customers Don’t Need You Anymore

By Staff Writer on August 8, 2017

The keys are handed over. The customer drives off the lot. The sales team celebrates another sale.

For most dealerships and customers, that’s the end of the relationship because, unless there is warranty work or a recall, the customer doesn’t need you anymore. At least not for 6 years, which is how long the average person keeps their car.

Within those 72 months, other dealerships will market to them and online car shopping will become a more practiced mode of car sales.

Will you see them for service? Probably not. Car buyers are happy to take their vehicle for service at one of the 250,000+ independent or chain service shops available across the U.S.

In fact, retention rates are 49% after just 1-2 service visits and drop off by 40% after the warranty expires.

In the past, radio and TV spots as well as direct mail, would help drive customers back to the dealership when it was time for a new car purchase. But in the new digital economy, 88% of dealers say they can no longer rely on traditional marketing to deliver customers.

How can a dealership sustain business in a world where conquests are harder to come by and service shops are on every corner?

Loyalty via aftersales service.

If the relationship between customer and dealership ends at the point-of-sale, the dealer is leaving behind $1,000s in aftersales service and the opportunity of enjoying true customer loyalty.

Customers want interaction and, in today’s digital world, it’s never been easier to engage with them in a personal way to make them feel valued. A little engagement goes a long way. With just 5 interactions a customer is:

  • 3x as likely to refer a friend
  • 6x likely to purchase a new car
  • 2x likely to return for service

Part of the solution is to give customers relevant information and messaging at the right time. What good is blasting a coupon for an oil change if most people won’t use it?

Strategic messaging encourages a customer to take advantage of dealership incentives and educate them on the benefits of bringing their car in for service at your dealership – including readily available maintenance records for a higher trade-in value. But you can also inform them about amenities exclusive to your dealership such as a clean and comfortable waiting room, shuttle service, free WiFi, kid-friendly waiting areas and more.

With a platform like OneClick Loyalty, the process is automated so you won’t have to consistently manage your customer communications.  Relevant messaging entices the customer to return by building a relationship versus generic direct mail and batch-and-blast emailing.

Your customers don’t need you anymore, that’s true. But by adopting OneClick Loyalty, your customers have a higher probability of coming back to you for service and future new car sales.

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