It’s time for the DealerRefresh “Best of 2007” posts. This is a round-up of the year’s best-received posts along with some of my personal favorites.

So, if you missed anything from 2007, here’s a second shot at it.

• Are you missing internet leads from your dealer website? – be careful that our leads are not “evaporating”

• Nada 2007 Review – My personal review of NADA 2007

• 5 Steps to better customer service! – Why is it so hard to come by good customer service in the automotive vendor industry?

• While I requested quote from your dealer website, I also sent it to… – This one got some attention.

• Have you been "Flogged" ?? – This can suck when it happens!

• Do videos really help sell cars? – Do you really need videos of your inventory?

• I met my future BDC agent – She is pretty young, but a sponge for learning.

• Is your SEM vendor acting in your best interest? - some of you have really just wasted a lot of money

• Speculation on the future – somewhat frightening – Can you see what a mess all of this could put all of us in?

• Are the "Phonebook to Web" services worth anything? – SuperPages.com – YellowPages.com – Yellowbook.com – what is their worth?
• Should dealers be blogging? – 5 reasons why dealers do not blog.

• Are our manufacturers worse than we are? – Why are other manufacturers so far behind?

• High traffic with low conversions? Is this a franchise-related problem? – Watching  Internet traffic patterns shift.

• AutoUSA – Something isn’t kosher! – Was AutoUSA sending me duplicate leads?

• Are you skipping steps? – It’s easy to forget about the basics.

• What’s Wrong With Video? – Using video help build transparency.

And of course lets not forget to include the DealerRefresh comment record breaking..

• AutoTrader.com Pricing??? Post with over 120 comments and still counting. 

It was exciting going back and reviewing all the posts and comments for 2007. There were quite a few more then what I had thought. The number of people participating continues to grow, though I know there are still a lot of readers out there reading but not commenting. So for 2008 I encourage you to participate.

THANKS TO EVERYONE for reading DealerRefresh and for their participation in 2007. We have a great community here and some of the best talent in the industry participating. It’s truly exciting and I can’t wait to see what 2008 brings us.

Jeff Kershner

I get so sick and tired of these internet customers. You can’t make a dime off of them and they’re waste of my time. Let me tell you WHY!

They come into the dealer armed with information and print outs from Edmunds, KBB.com and other various websites. You end up spending half the day with them; answering their questions, explaining to them that what they read in the forums is misrepresented truth, test driving several vehicles while they compare everything to their print outs. After spending half of the day with them, building rapport, performing a great demo and product presentation while being very professional and courteous, I have to hear “I know your invoice, back end and the dealer incentive for this car, so I want your absolute BEST DEAL!”.

Two to Three hours later I realized that I just spent way too much time with this customer AND I’m about to make a whole WHOPPING $50.00 bucks for a mini deal. Really, it’s not worth the effort unless it’s a volume unit that puts me over the edge for a bonus. Otherwise, I’d rather wait around for a normal customer to visit the showroom floor, someone that I have a chance of making some real money on, and someone that will appreciate the service and time I can offer them.

I’m not sure why, but the Internet sales manager still feeds me a few leads from time to time. You almost never get these customers to answer you back. I’ll send them an email with my contact info asking them to call me for more information on the vehicle they are interested in, but that’s a waste of time cause they never contact me back. MAYBE two out of a hundred times I’ll actually get someone on the phone, BUT when I do, they’re either a bunch of kids playing around on the internet or worse yet, some schmuck wanting nothing more then “YOUR BEST PRICE” only so they can shop around with my numbers.

The Internet sales manager keeps telling me that I need to follow up with emails and phone calls, phone calls and emails. He’s always telling everyone that it takes an average of 9 phone calls to get a customer on the phone. If that’s not enough, I have to figure out this CRM to track and makes notes for all the emails and phone calls Iactually  do make. Who has time for that? I just want to sell a car and If a customer is truly interested, they’ll call me back or answer my freaking email.

On the rare occasion when I actually get one of these internet customers to come into the showroom, they usually want to steal my car and want FULL retail for their trade-in. Comeon people, you can’t have it both ways! I mean, this is a business and we are here to make money. The last time I checked there wasn’t a steeple and a cross on top of our dealership building. I thought we were here to make a profit.

You know what’s really interesting? My best customers (and the ones that give me the best CSI scores) are ALWAYS the ones that pay the most for their car, or at least allow decent profit. WHY IS THAT? Truthfully I’d rather have these people all day long. I don’t mind spending the extra time with these customers. I always remember my paying customers and send them cards during the holidays and even call to wish them a happy birthday. These internet customers have no loyalty to the dealer or the sales people so why even waste that much energy on them? The way I see it, the return doesn’t make much sense. And if they actually refer a friend or family member, they want the same nothing making deal.

I’m at work from bell to bell most days and this is what I have to deal with. Is this what the future holds for being a car sales professional? I’m not sure how much longer I’ll keep doing this. I think I speak for myself and many of the sales people that have been in this business for sometime. Case example, look at Circuit City! They move over to a non-commissioned sales force, fire off all of their highest paid sales professionals and now their customer service is the pits and their stock is worth whole $4.63.  The Internet has ruined the car sales business.

Guest Posting by Earl Veteran
 

I realize this isn’t totally relevant to our usual topics, but this is GREAT marketing. Plus, who doesn’t like the Whopper?

Burger King’s Whopper Freakout has to be one of the best TV / Web viral campaigns ever. ""It’s seven minutes long. It pisses off Burger King customers. It makes fun of competitors. In other words, it rocks!"

I’m totally craving a Whopper now!

A new study by Capgemini identifies changing buying habits driven by the Internet.

"the Internet is at the top of the list of information sources for consumers when researching car purchases;

80% of those surveyed now use the web, but the way it is being used is changing. New online tools such as search engines, automotive blogs and web forums have become key information sources for vehicle buyers who are turning to user-generated websites to obtain a more objective view."

• 29% referred to consumer-to-consumer sites like blogs and forums when researching information
• 78% of respondents rely on search engines.

Happy Holidays everyone!  How about a little break on Dealer Refresh, with an explanation of what each month means in the car-year.   Have some fun with it!

That’s right, save your champagne and New Years songs for September.

September:  First “oh shits” hit when sales start to slow.  New model year arrives to help make more sales. Salespeople are still living large.  Vendors are doing okay.

October: Second “oh shits” hit.  More new models roll out to help.  Salespeople start complaining about not having traffic.  No more new vendors!

November: Executive management “oh shits” turning into – “somebody make changes”.  New models selling for invoice.  Salespeople stop using their drycleaners.  Vendors keep a knockin’ but can’t come in!

December: That “somebody” starts figuring out which outside managers can be recruited and who can be replaced.  New models have incentives from manufacturers.  Salespeople start dipping into savings.  Vendors fired!

January: Newly recruited managers start and old managers leave.  New models being sold for under invoice. Salespeople start getting jobs in the real estate business.  What’s a vendor?

February: New promises from management. Those new models are being traded in.  It is time to start training salespeople again.  Vendors are saying NADA FTW (For The Win)!

March: Management heads back to the golf course.  KBB & Edmunds start buying cars again.  Massive sales hiring begins.  Dealers start calling vendors with a timid “hey – remember me….yeah, we fired you in December, but….”

April to August = no worries…keep bringing me new vendors!

• Cars.com partnership goes live with Yahoo, while AutoTrader partners with kbb.com. I think Cars.com got the better deal here! What do you think?

• Web2Carz wants your dealer’s inventory on their website and it’s FREE! Plus you get your inventory will be send to their data distribution partners such as Google and Oodle. Contact Alex Bravy for more information at 1-847-780-4821.

• AOL teams up with VAST.com to power AOL Autos used car marketplace. I spoke with Kevin Laws, CEO of Vast and Doug Eddy of AOL, they seem to have an interesting product in their hands. I’ll be keeping an eye on this.

• According to a Deloitte & Touche study:

  “The Web surfing habits of boomers and over-60s are more firmly rooted in traditional media than those of their younger counterparts”

  “67% of boomers visited sites after seeing ads on TV or in print. Matures, those between 61 and 75, were just as likely to be driven to the Web by print ads and less likely by TV ads.”

• Online Wheels and Deals …Today’s Auto Retailers are a Tech-Savvy Bunch, according to a Recent Study.

  JupiterResearch and NADAguides.com surveyed 106 car dealerships nationwide.

  “28 percent of the respondents indicated they spent more than $50,000 in 2006 on online advertising and marketing”

Rilynn Victoria is the new addition to the Kershner household.   Jeff and his wife deserve big CONGRATULATIONS from all of us on Dealer Refresh!

Before we get too far into the cigars and the “atta boy Jeffrey’s”, we need to petition  those guys  at MileOne to give Jeff a raise.  If she’s anything like her father, Rilynn’s tastes are going to put Jeff in the poor house.  She’ll be replacing Gerber with Guchi before he knows it, and you can only imagine what kind of a social networker she’s going to be!  Jeff won’t only be saving up for college tuitions, he also has to look
into those extended cell phone plans with the big texting package.  What was that?  She already said her first word?…..Mercedes?

David – a little HBO please….and that’s “Help a Brother Out”!

Jeff – Congratulations to you, your wife, and your son!

-Alex

Why aren’t dealers social networking?

When I attended the 2007 J.D. Power Roundtable a few months back, every time I turned around someone was talking about dealers and SOCIAL NETWORKING!

“Dealers need to be social networking!”

“Why aren’t dealers social networking?”

There are many reasons why dealers are not social networking and I’m not totally convinced that all dealers need or should be social networking. But, rather than writing why dealers shouldn’t be social networking let’s look at a few of the advantages why maybe they should be.

1. Branding and Awareness Opportunities for your dealer

It can be important that your dealer secures its name and brand/message on the more popular social networking sites. I had initially set up a myspace page for Mercedes-Benz of Hagerstown and while I was adding friends, I had several people respond back with “I had no idea there was a Mercedes dealer in Hagerstown”.

Social networks like myspace, facebook and now Twitter, can help get your dealers name and branding out to others that could otherwise not be aware that your dealer even exists.

2. Search Engine Saturation

Tired off all the other websites (like the infamous automotive.com,  invoicedealers.com and now dealer rating sites) showing up on the first page of the search engines, or better yet, first placement when someone Google’s your dealers name?

When you sign up for many of these Social Networking sites, if you set it up correctly, it will include your dealers name in the URL (i.e. www.myspace.com/yourdealersname, http://youtube.com/user/yourdealername, etc.). Your dealer name is many times also used in the title tag of your social profile page.

But why is this important?

Having a number of profiles spread out among various social media sites will help you to have better control over the first page (or more) of search results for your dealerships name. This will help you keep your competitors and 3rd party lead sites like automotive.com from sitting on the first page. Even if they do make it on the first page, you have a better chance of drowning them out.

This can also help prevent flogging!

3. Build Link Popularity

Websites essentially need three things if they are to experience first page visibility in the search engines.

1. Great Content
2. Great SEO
3. Great Incoming Natural Links.

One way to obtain natural links is to link back to your dealers web site within your social network sites. Many social media sites will allow you to include a paragraph or so about your dealer but MOST IMPORTANTLY, many allow you to add links to your dealer’s website. Once your dealers various social networking profiles are indexed in the search engines, many will count as inbound links to your main site. This will give your dealerships website site a small push in the Search Engines.

4. Traffic to your dealers website

Though I personally think this could be of the initial lesser reasons for dealers using social media and networking websites, it can send traffic to your dealer’s website. Unless you have a powerful analytics tool, it’s hard to track how good the traffic is and if it’s truly resulting in any conversion or sales.

There are ways of using social networks like YouTube and myspace to attract and drive traffic to your dealer website. One example of a dealer really missing the boat with traffic (and viral marketing) is Johnson Autos and their Badger Commercials. They have some great branding commercials that even promoted their dealers website. If they were really smart, they would have uploaded these commercials to YouTube and used the videos on several social networking sites (and their own dealer website). Luckily for them, some “Joe” decided they were funny enough to get onto YouTube and took it upon themselves to record and upload the Badger Videos for the world to see. I’d love to know what kind of traffic spikes Johnson Auto group is getting as these videos continue to circulate.

However, even if Johnson Autos would have known how to take full advantage of placing their badger videos online; how relevant would the website traffic be? I know I personally went to their website with no intention to buy.

5. Interaction with the Public – Online Dealer Reputation

The reason why it’s called “social” is because it allows people to socialize or interact with each other. I would venture to say this has been one of the biggest fears keeping dealers from embracing social media (other then ignorance). “Talking” to your customer is totally different then having to “interact” with them.

Dealers fear customers talking bad about them, and from the dealers perspective, rightfully so. Car dealers and car sales people are already under great scrutiny and it’s up to each consumers own interpretation to how well they are being treated. I have literally given cars away and treated the customer with the utmost respect (while building value in my product) only to find out they still felt as if they could have saved more money or thought I moved the numbers around to benefit myself and the dealer.

However, if this is what you fear then I have news for you; chances are your customers are already talking so you may as well join the conversation. IMPORTANT: Be sure you have the right person at the dealer to interact with these conversations! It’s not easy knowing how to deal with a consumer’s negative feedback.

Having the ability to interact with consumers is not just about dealing with the bad but also taking advantage of bringing further attention your dealer’s products and services. Using social media to show consumers that your dealer employees REAL people, gives back to the community and operates a business under ethical standards shows that you care and can help the consumer feel more comfortable doing business with you.

Don’t be afraid of social network or media sites. In many ways it can set you apart from the competition. Rather than ignore it, be creative as to how your dealership can benefit from it.