The simplest call to a service department is the customer who calls to schedule an oil change. A busy shop doing 50 oil changes a day with a $2 show bonus shells out $100 every day just in employee bonuses for handling these simple calls. You have to agree with me this doesn’t make any sense.

Instead, why not use a Digital Voice Assistant…

Enlisting a Digital Voice Assistant (DVA) to handle routine inbound service questions and appointment requests is a no-brainer for BDC managers and service advisors. Who doesn’t want 100 percent connectivity, a better customer experience, and the opportunity to re-allocate staff to revenue-generating activities like calling customers who previously declined…

What consumer doesn’t love the internet? It has been especially transformative for the automotive industry. Not only can shoppers compare vehicles, options, pricing, and availability with a click of the mouse, but they can also purchase the vehicle and have it delivered to their driveway.

The market disruption is in full swing, evident in the…

As used car sales continue to climb, legislators are now more cognizant of and are focusing on how dealerships are selling pre-owned inventory without first getting safety recalls repaired.

As I covered in my previous blog, a bill is currently being put forth to…

The independent dealers I’ve talked to are killing it right now. They snapped up inventory before the chip crisis that continues to make finding quality used vehicles like finding a needle in a haystack. Consumer demand led to a record 10 percent increase in used…

Over the last year, any business that remained open did everything possible to reassure customers their premises were safe and followed the latest CDC COVID guidelines. Social distancing, masks, and disinfecting surfaces for customers have become standard practices and, in some cases, are mandated by states. These measures require extra work and extend…

For decades, the unofficial motto of the auto industry seemed to be “we’re for anything but change.” Then the pandemic threw our “normal” sales process into a tail spin. Seemingly overnight, dealership floors turned into ghost towns and the sales process moved online.

While some dealerships are in states that are now open with decent…

Today's vehicles have more technology than ever before. With OEMs on a mission to make more EVs; Apple entering the retail automotive space; Tesla continuing its brand popularity; and vehicles more operated by computer than by motor, problems are sure to arise!.

Technicians are already in short supply. Dealers are doing everything that they…

It’s an understatement to say this year has been unpredictable. In the last few months, showroom traffic has recovered due to pent-up demand and stimulus checks, but there’s no guarantee these levels will stay consistent. Dealers are reporting higher volumes of internet and phone leads due to changes in customers’ daily lives, e.g. people working from home and resistance to going out unnecessarily. How is your dealership keeping up with these shifts in traffic?

During the…

In this era of transparency, consumers can gather more information than ever before. In the past, they relied upon the dealer to provide it to them. Now, however, they can visit multiple websites in order to gain the information they need before even contacting a dealership. Once the consumer decides they are ready to buy (or close to it) and start to take…

Every penny spent on advertising and marketing is to get more people into the dealership. Dealers also make a significant investment in the salespeople themselves, training them to help develop the person-to-person skills needed to sell to all the prospects marketing dollars drive into the dealership. Those person-to-person skills are where most…

Anyone in retail car sales learned early on that you can’t judge a book by its cover. Most everyone has at least one story in which they did and lost a sale. If you look, many of today’s millionaires don’t dress like millionaires. Just take a look at Mark Zuckerberg who sports a t-shirt and jeans daily. That being said, in today’s digital world, first…

Dealer Teamwork announced yesterday that it is now a premier partner in the FordDirect AdVantage Digital Advertising program. Here's Dealer Teamwork's press release:



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Dealer Teamwork, an…

As a dealer, it was always frustrating to spend a ton of money on leads just to see sales-to-lead ratios stuck at 8-10%. Essentially, if I spent $25 per lead from third-party providers and received 100 leads, I would need to recoup over $2500 to make that service worth it. However, that doesn’t always happen. Some dealerships would say, “Hey, we sold two cars…