DealerRefresh

Obstacles, Observations and Opinions of an Automotive Internet Sales & Marketing Manager

Archives for November 2012

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Contact At Once! 2012 Dealer Survey Results

This year, Automotive chat vendor Contact At Once! will manage over 4.5 million website chats between consumers and auto dealers, 33 times the number generated just five years ago. Given the increasing use of chat in automotive, it’s not surprising that many dealerships have questions about the implementation of website chat and its benefits.

CAO 2012 Dealer Chat Request Growth Rate

Between August and September of this year, Contact At Once! asked its dealer-base to participate in an annual survey about live chat and more than 2,500 of them responded, sharing their experiences and providing their feedback. Here are a few takeaways from the survey:

Do Dealers Sell Cars to People Who Chat?

[Read more…]

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Don’t Allow Social To KILL Your Conversions

First, let me begin this post by saying I have much love for Facebook. After much observation I’ve determined that Facebook targeted ads pull in more leads than many other marketing tactics for local dealers. However, when I got an email from one of my own employee’s the other day extolling the values of a sports company promotion (below) leading people to Facebook, I realized the madness has to stop.

What is the madness?

Luring your own visitors away from your dealership homepage to other sites, like Facebook and Twitter, with promotions and campaigns. By doing this you are essentially taking customers from the bottom of the sales funnel, your website, back up to the top. You would never greet an up in your showroom by saying..

“Thanks so much for coming, but may I escort you to a dealership down the street for more options?”

While this sounds absurd, it’s exactly what is happening when your dealership designs a promotion that sends would-be shoppers away from your website to visit another.

Apline sport social example

Let’s look at the above homepage from Alpine Sports as an example. Their promotion for free shipping sends visitors away from Alpine Sports own website by directing them to visit Facebook.com/Alpinesports for a free shipping code.

While this may seem, on the surface, like a great way to increase Facebook “likes” and get visitors to their Facebook page. Is this the best way to engage shoppers?

Let’s look at what visitors can do from the Alpine Sports homepage: [Read more…]

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Happy Thanksgiving from DealerRefresh

Happy Thanksgiving
 

I’m always happy when Thanksgiving is here. This occasion allows the opportunity to appreciate and express the gratitude to each and everyone that has been and continues to be an active reader and participant here on DealerRefresh.

We absolutely appreciate and Thank You for your support which has helped us continue to grow, support and provide a place for all of us to gather online to converse, share opinions and best practices while building relationships throughout the industry.

Here is wishing you and your family a very Happy Thanksgiving!

-Jeff

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Your Customer: Now an Early Adopter (Of Mobile)

 

Yes, by traditional standards I was considered an early adopter. I tend to be one of the first to embrace a technology that permits me more efficiency on the go. Smartphone? I had one of the originals – a massive Handspring Treo 300. The year was 2002 – your PC was based on a Pentium processor and James Bond’s iconic BMW Z3 was still in production.

I’ve been using a smartphone for over a decade. Whether that makes me innovative or dangerously close to a Star Trek bedroom set is your call. My first smartphone was large and closer in size to the iPad mini than a current mobile phone. However, despite the size, myself and other early-adopter business pros couldn’t go back. It went quickly from a want to a need. It was the convenience, power, and ability to get things accomplished on the go.

Wait, you understand. A recent study found that more people would rather lose their wallet than lose their smartphone. I think this speaks volumes of how precious our mobile devices have become in today’s society.

[Read more…]

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A Better Analytics Tool To Improve Customer Experience & Conversion?

Using ClickTale to Improve Conversion

While building our new website, www.actontoyota.com, we were continually asking ourselves a number of questions in an effort to create a site that ultimately improves page layout, enhances the visitor experience and, above all, increases conversion rates.

For example, we asked ourselves: What can we do to improve our pages’ layout and contact form placement to increase conversion? Are the pages we’ve built filled the type of content our visitors seek, find engaging, and want to interact with?

To help us answer these questions and more we turned to ClickTale, the industry leader of customer experience analytics.

ClicktaleWith dozens of unique features, ClickTale offers an all-around optimization suite that combines visitor recordings, mouse move and click heatmaps, form analytics, and more as part of its analytics information. We especially like ClickTale’s in-page web analytics. Now, we are able to know what our visitors do inside all the pages of our website thanks to ClickTale recording everything from mouse moves and clicks to actual keystrokes inside every page of our site.

Click here to watch the 1 minute video about ClickTale

Ultimately, we’re excited to share ClickTale with this community as we’re confident their analytics will provide unparalleled insights into how visitors engage with a website. In just a short time, we know it has already helped us.

[Read more…]

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Secrets of the Inbox – Presentation for #DSES

Malinda and I wanted to give a another quick THANKS to everyone that supported our session at #DSES this year. We had a great time presenting. Though another 30 minutes for Q&A would have been nice.

We’ve had many requests for a copy of the our presentation “Secrets of the Inbox – The New Evolution of Email“. So here it is….

If you didn’t attend this past Driving Sales Executive Summit, all I can say is YOU MISSED OUT. Jared and the Driving Sales team went overboard this year. Hands down the BEST conference in our industry thus far!

Days before our session, we invited attendees to sign up for our FREE email audit report. This audit not only included a snap shot view of your dealers / email providers reputation but also a complete email mystery shop analysis using AIUA as a basis for scoring.

Malinda and I are working together to CONTINUE to offer our FREE Email Audit Report (for as long as we can) to any dealer that would like to participate. Again, this is FREE to any dealer that’s a DealerRefresh Community Member.

To get started, fill out this quick request form. After you have completed the form, you’ll receive confirmation letting you know that we have begun processing your information and will be starting your FREE Email Audit Report.  

Our email audit takes about 7-12 days to complete. Once completed, you’ll receive your full FREE Email Audit Report right to your inbox. For the Mystrey shop portion of the Email Audit Report, you’ll also receive a log-in to not only review your results, but also a complete review and score of your performance in relation to speed of response, phone call, quality of phone call and email response based on AIUA.

As a follow-up to our session, Malinda and I will be hosting a “Secrets of the Inbox – The New Evolution of Email” – PART 2  webinar on December 12th 2012. More information around the webinar will be coming your way soon.

Until then, sign up for our DealerRefresh newsletter to stay updated.

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Looking Inside the Minds of Car Shoppers!

Dealership Reputation Keyboard Key

While working on my presentation for Digital Dealer 13, I really wanted to effectively show folks how to get into the minds of our modern day car shoppers. The answer is really quite simple to see, in fact it is right under your nose at the place most car shoppers begin their car buying process – Google!

I spent a lot of time creating some example videos of how people search on Google, and I would like to share my summary video with you.

Without question, the greatest change in the history of the automotive retail industry has been the introduction of the Internet, and how it has changed the car buying process. Before, dealerships held the power of information, and shoppers had to visit the dealership in person to get the info they desired to make a car buying decision. This encouraged most dealerships to adopt selling practices that discouraged sharing any information over the phone, and created one of the most common lines that can still be heard in the dealership today – Just get’em in!

[Read more…]