One of the fears dealerships have regarding digital innovations in the automotive industry is that the internet will replace phones. However, it is a well-known fact that phone leads close significantly faster than internet and social leads combined. And guess what -- fixed operations generates many of them. As a result, dealerships are placing a…

By nature, humans are social creatures. Need more proof? One of the worst punishments our legal system has come up with is solitary confinement. Not only is this dreaded by inmates, but it can also affect their mental health. Whether an introvert or an extrovert, we all crave personal interaction.

Like many of you, I am currently working from…

When it comes to email marketing, frequency of communications plays an important role in getting customers to open your emails AND in getting them into your showroom.

However, flooding their inboxes with daily communications poses risks. Too many emails and your customers will lose trust in your business and unsubscribe from future marketing.…

Leveraging Facebook Marketplace to help you sell more cars isn’t difficult if your dealership does it the right way. In part 1 of this series, I talked about the importance of choosing the right partner to maximize success. In …

In the first part of this series, I shared why Facebook Marketplace can help dealers sell more cars, the ways in which they can get started, and the questions they should be asking their vendors when getting this set…

In the race to make a sale, dealerships often rely on templates in CRMs. These templates – including autoresponders – can hurt a dealership’s chances of communicating effectively -- or at all.

The response rate for leads is very low in the automotive industry. How much time do your salespeople or BDC agents spend calling a new lead, or sending an email, fail…

Facebook Marketplace, while new on the scene, has quickly turned into a valuable sales channel for dealerships. Many dealers are finding great success in engagement as well as sales with consumers. Not just another third-party listing site, Facebook Marketplace has capabilities many other platforms don’t have. Chief among them is the ability for interested car buyers…

It hasn’t been that long ago that customers were only able to handle customer service issues in person or by phone. Now, of course, there are many options for customers including social media, chat or through reviews. What would you do if a customer were standing in front of you paying you a compliment? Hopefully, you would thank them for the compliment and their business.…

There are a plethora of training programs and trainers in the automotive industry many of which have different styles, advice, and opinions. Often, those opinions vary widely. While training is indeed something I advocate in dealerships both as an ongoing initiative and for new-to-the-industry employees (no matter which department), no business can function as a…

Since Facebook has exploded, businesses have all rushed to capture their audience’s attention and leverage the platform’s marketing potential. In the beginning, gaining business exposure on Facebook’s platform was relatively inexpensive. As Facebook continued to modify its algorithm to appease its users and better monetize the platform when it went public, Facebook…

Communication is vital to business, that’s a given. In retail, businesses must be responsive, provide a great customer experience and stand by their products or services. But what happens when businesses fail at that? They get complaints.

A customer ordered some copper from a business that promised it to be of the highest…

Henry Ford was once asked why he visited his executives rather than having them come to his office when problems arose or he needed questions answered. “I go to save them time,” said Ford. “I’ve found that I can leave the other fellow’s office a lot quicker than I can get him to leave mine.” Ford knew the necessity of gaining information.[1] He also knew…

A trending technology is the use of bots in customer service. While bots can certainly help companies manage communications faster, sometimes they fail to provide the correct information and consumers just stop communicating with them…

Chatbots are Here, They’re Necessary, and They’re Surprisingly Inexpensive …oh, and for car dealers, chatbots are moving metal!

Time for some quick level-setting with the car dealer readers out there:

1. Facebook is not going away;
2. Most of your customers are already there;
3. Your kitten pictures and inventory vomits aren’t being read; and
4. Facebook Ads work, but you need to start communicating with these prospects!

Because…

It’s inevitable. Businesses grow and, as they do, many look for ways to automate processes. Dealerships do it with auto-responders. Many companies have automated phone trees which circle you around pressing 1s, 2s and 3s, driving you mad as you can never reach a live person for help. Customer service inquiries are responded to by e-mails you cannot reply to. Is it just me or…

It’s one thing to try to view the auto industry through the eyes of a consumer when you work for a dealership.  It’s quite another to attempt to view it as a vendor.…

What's the best way to generate more leads from your website? Contrary to popular opinion, the answer isn't to "get more website traffic." Although a comprehensive digital marketing strategy is key to driving appropriate traffic levels to your website, unless those visitors convert into leads, that's money down the drain.

Before you spend more on search engine…

We meet again, Friday! It’s been a busy week, and you’re probably closing those end-of-the-month sales… but that’s no reason to fall behind on the latest happenings in the industry! As usual, we have the latest automotive news and blogs from around the web to share with you before the weekend kicks in.

In this edition of the…

We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: not all chat providers are the same. Vendor priorities vary, software technology can be user-friendly or not, not all providers hire chat teams within the US, and the quality of managed chat conversations are not equal.

In fact, a bad managed chat service can be detrimental to…

We’re only two months into the year, and already the marketing world is abuzz with new terms that have been slowly sneaking their way into daily articles and brainstorming meetings.

I was actually reading a Contently article called “…