5:30 AM and The #AlphaDawg is on the Point

SO YOU WANT TO BE A MANAGER... do you have what it takes?

First time in a long time I've been able to time stamp my Good-Morning Message at 5:30 AM. .... My visit to the Back Surgeon yesterday as an outpatient has me up and…

As negotiations are an expected part of the vehicle buying process, there are three strategies we advocate doing often and consistently to increase your sales gross and reduce many of deal-cutting concessions.

Depending on how you respond to a customer will determine if you get the deal and how comfortable the customer feels about their experience.

By…

Customer satisfaction is one of the burning issues in businesses today. To invest or not to invest into CS improvement? Many companies are still in doubt whether their investment will pay off at the end of the day. Using quantified examples and appropriate methodology, Cisco and IBSG (Internet Business Solutions Group) have drawn up a report with their point of view…

Service advisors can make the difference of hundreds of thousands of dollars annually in revenue to the dealership. They see your customers more than anyone else, yet receive little support from the dealership. Many dealerships consider advisor staffing a cost that must be limited, which is very shortsighted. They throw people into the position without any training just to…

While statistics may seem boring, they are certainly key when choosing a marketing strategy. They can highlight where you should direct your efforts in order to be the most effective and maximize ROI.

There are a ton of statistics floating out there and thousands of articles which – if you don’t believe me – should be sufficient to convince you that video…

How to sell a motor home quickly while optimizing the transaction amount is the question every seller wants to be answered. However, if you are selling your used RV for the first time, you should understand that selling a rig is not much different from selling a house. As a seller, you are likely to find yourself in a position where you will have to put a lot of strategic thinking before taking a single step. A good strategy is the one that ensures a lot of response, and what do you need to…

Customer experience has become an industry “buzz term” of late when talking about customer acquisition and building loyalty. Most of the time, the focus is on the small things that turn a customer off -- attitudes, inefficient processes, or other such actions. But what happens when, well, everything goes wrong?

Imagine if a couple visited a showroom where…

Cars Performed Better than Light Trucks Last Week

Welcome to this week's edition of Black Book Market Insights, with in-depth analysis of used car and truck valuation trends and insights straight from the auction lanes.…

     I am amazed when making inquiries at the tonality of the person answering the phone. Although some are cheery and seem genuinely happy to assist you they are few and far between. These calls are being made to people in the "customer service" entities of the businesses I select to contact- particularly the automotive business.

     I contacted a particular dealership and one of the sales people answered the call. What I got was "Sales" in a tone of voice that it was an imposition…

The annual Swapalease.com March Madness Driver Survey results are in, and most drivers believe Duke will win this year’s tournament, while most say UCLA is their favorite team. The annual survey by online car lease marketplace, Swapalease.com, asks basketball fans to pair up their favorite teams with certain types of cars to coincide with the NCAA tournament. The online survey is presented to more than 2,500 drivers across the U.S. each year.…

Black Book, a division of Hearst Business Media that provides industry-leading used vehicle valuation and residual value forecast solutions, announced today the Black Book Used Vehcile Retention Index, designed to offer an unbiased, accurate view of the strength of today’s used wholesale market values. Click here to obtain a copy of the latest Index.

The Black Book Used Vehicle Retention Index is calculated…

New data reveals key tips to clean up websites leading to 42% increase in CTRs, 15% profit lift, and a 5-fold increase in lead data

INDIANAPOLIS, IN - MARCH 13, 2017 - Decluttering dealership websites and focusing on targeted messaging and “personalized” Calls to Action (CTA) can significantly increase click-through rates, lead data collection, and, ultimately, dealership profits, according to consumer website data(1) analyzed by PERQ. PERQ, who are experts in website…

Timonium, MD – March 13th, 2017-- Helion Automotive Technologies, a leading Information Technology (IT) Managed Services Provider, today issued proactive security recommendations for auto dealerships that may experience customer data breaches. The recommendations come on the heels of an incident that occurred last month and was widely reported in news outlets.

In…

Someone's always coming by the dealership selling "plate lunches." Good ole', waist-busting southern cooking such as Smothered Chicken with rice and gravy or Fried Fish and Crawfish Etoufee-these plates are so loaded down with food, you can literally hear the Styrofoam cracking when they hand it to you. 

Most vendors sell their dinners the same…

In your marketing strategies, you should be working hard to tailor your message to specific audiences. Luckily, Google has a tool that can be used to help you. It allows us to show a certain piece of content to an audience if it meets a certain criteria. Learn more by watching this week's Hard Facts with Samantha!…

With the massive onslaught of vehicle recalls it is pretty much guaranteed that all parties involved are paying attention. Today that ranges from consumers to OEMs to dealers to insurance companies; and tomorrow that will soon include rideshare companies like Uber and Lyft.

One of the biggest, and perhaps most well-known recalls, is unrepaired Takata airbags…

Many of us relate business travel tips to helping us enjoy our business travel and nothing else. If the tip helps us save money, time and energy while on a business trip, we accept it with open arms. However, there is more to these tips, and it can effectively make your life beautiful in every…

In today’s hyper-competitive industry, women buyers are crucial for dealer’s success. Almost 8 million new cars are being purchased by women alone. And, Certified Trusted Dealers are expanding their business to this powerful buying segment. In fact, these Certified Trusted Dealers have a cumulative 97.1% satisfaction score vs non-certified trusted dealers 85.5% satisfaction score. What a difference!

Women-Drivers has just compiled our annual comprehensive report on…

If you are a Facebook user – just like roughly one-third of the planet – then you have probably noticed that Facebook sends birthday alerts via text messages. If you google the words “Facebook birthday alert texts” you will get a ton of results from websites where people asked how to disable or turn them off. Annoyed by this or not, this issue has risen a lot of…