Love him or hate him, Tesla’s Elon Musk is brilliant. As both a businessman and a marketer, he has created a loyal following of brand advocates – some of whom don’t even own the products he sells. There are consumers literally willing to wait years just to purchase a Tesla vehicle. He recently launched a car into orbit, which is now on its way to Mars -- the man continues to…

Study after study finds that word-of-mouth is the single greatest influencer when it comes to marketing. Providing a consistently excellent customer experience, then having those customers go out and tell their family and friends about it is the marketer’s holy grail. According to many, it’s perhaps the easiest and least expensive way to acquire new customers while also…

Recently Facebook announced that it will stop using data from third-party data aggregators to supplement its own data that it uses for ad targeting. What does this mean for car dealers?

Until this announcement, Facebook collected data from three sources which it used to accurately target its users with ads. These sources were:

• Facebook’s…

Men and women communicate in different ways and have different expectations when buying a car. Therefore, it’s critical to incorporate different contact strategies into your communication methods with your women customers.

1. Know the difference between talking and communicating. There’s a big difference between talking to and communicating with women. Communication builds trust, and trust matters to women. In fact, trust ranks as the #1 reason women choose their…

As an industry, we’re witnessing the largest shift and money grab in history -- from the likes of Carvana, Blinker, and Fair, to the possible entrance of Amazon into car buying.

And now, another huge retail company has decided to jump in… but in a way that dealers may be overlooking.

Walmart recently launched a used-car buying service in…

If you have flown recently there are two unescapable and related facts: (1) nearly every seat is full and (2) nearly every seat is priced differently. This is because airlines realize that planes taking off with empty seats represents lost revenue that will never come back. Our service bays and technician time are pretty much the same – idle time is revenue lost…

If you’ve been in the retail automotive industry for any length of time, you’ve seen how inaction is thought to be the best course of action. With today's evolving retail world where consumer’s can order oil and battery changes on Amazon, I’m sure there are many more changes that Amazon is hatching for the automotive industry.  If your attitude is that you are making money…

Marketing is an incredibly complicated and convoluted field which involves everything from direct marketing, to brand management, customer communications, social media, public relations and on and on. Whether you call the person responsible for your digital marketing efforts the “CMO,” or delegate these tasks to an Internet Manager at your dealership, the fact remains that…

LONG BEACH, California –April 5, 2018-- --myKaarma, the leading communications and payments software provider for automotive dealer service departments, today announced it has received a $15 million investment led by Kayne Partners, the growth private equity group of Kayne Anderson Capital Advisors, L.P., an alternative investment firm managing $26 billion in assets. The investment will be used to…

Pre- and post-purchase analytics are the key to cracking the code for selling to your #1 buyer: women. Women are buying 45% of all vehicles today, which translates to 819 total vehicles per year at an average new car dealership. Yet most business leaders still don’t celebrate this market, nor do they undertake mining data to advertise and sell directly to…

When consumers search for vehicle service options in your area, does your dealership’s website appear on the search engine results page (SERP)? For most dealers, ranking organically for search terms is difficult because their websites are optimized for sales and not necessarily for service. Additionally, it’s difficult to compete with aftermarket service centers that have…

LONG BEACH, Calif.,-- April 2, 2018-- -- myKaarma, software that helps dealerships communicate better with their customers at every stage of the service process, right from check-in through to payment, today announced that Mercedes Benz of North Palm Beach stopped using their regular phone system in service and now puts every call, text and email through myKaarma. The system keeps a record of every customer interaction, is fully searchable…

There is nothing more frustrating to a customer than being told a repair will take X amount of time - only to be informed later that it will take longer. To those who work in busy dealership service departments, this happens frequently. Customers come in for one thing and, during the multi-point inspection, additional issues are found. Or, as can sometimes be the case, a…

According to a recent article in Automotive News, Motorcars Honda in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, believes that the future of franchise dealership profitability lies in efficient vehicle service, and as a result it’s service…

As new vehicle sales profits become more difficult, it is important to increasingly turn your attention to growing your service business.  Dealers are rightly interested in finding new service customers to replace lost customers. However, service conquest is very difficult because you must overcome three challenges: reaching current driver, determining service need, and…

The buzz today among vendors in the automotive industry is all about making the car buying transaction faster and more convenient for the consumer. I get it. Consumers think it takes too long to buy a car, so technology companies are inventing ways to trim down that transaction time. Sure, it may make car buying an easier and more convenient experience for consumers which,…

Your Trust Dashboard Part 2

In our most recent blog, we reported that trust is the #1 factor for women in determining where they buy and service their cars. Yes, there’s a direct parallel between increasing trust to increase sales. But trust can be a nebulous…

By many historical measures, service opportunities have never been greater for auto dealers. In the last decade auto sales have boomed, creating an unprecedented service opportunity tailwind for the next decade. More factory scheduled maintenance programs are driving initial service visits. Increased CPO volume has created more reconditioning and used vehicle service…

Rewards programs are indisputably a staple in common society. Most retailers have them and consumers have come to expect them.

The problem is that most retailers view rewards programs as an expense, rather than a revenue generator. Sure, there are discounts and other things that come along with rewards programs – and those are the “expenses” some retailers…

 New App speeds up check-in process, virtually eliminates damage claims

& increases upsell opportunities

LONG BEACH, California -- March 19, 2018-- --myKaarma, a software company that helps

dealerships communicate better with their customers at every stage of the service process, from check-in through payment, today…