I recently wrote a blog article entitled, “You Can’t Build a Great Organization Around Satisfied Customers.” In that piece I explained how, by definition, a satisfied customer has merely had their expectations met. Period. He is not wowed or im

Recently, my company conducted a mystery shopping study to gauge the status of dealer responses to customer price quote requests.  Brace yourself, here are the results: Twelve percent of leads received no response—not even an auto responder.  Fif

The 10th Digital Dealer Conference & Exposition in Orlando last month was the best ever.  One major concern though:  I still hear way too many dealers and partners say, “We can’t handle the calls.”  Yes you can! Train everyone to “huma

For the first 100 years of the automotive industry, the main thing you heard about at 20 group meetings, conventions and regional dealer gatherings, was customer satisfaction. With a decline in automotive dealerships and an increase in aftermarket se

Dealership sales are growing once again and so too are the demands on the dealer’s time, their staff’s time and their financial resources. It seems like most manufacturers have some sort of required image program, requirements for facility upgrad

The Japanese earthquake and tsunami have rocked the automotive world.  Honda has reported, at the time of this writing, that it is still not able to manufacturer the Fit small car, the CR-V crossover and the Acura TSX sedan.  Toyota announced that

A top reason an under-performer is kept on a payroll despite failing to realize results is because his or her manager touts the person’s “high potential.” This is notwithstanding the fact that the employee has accomplished little or nothing of

It’s complicated to be an Internet-savvy dealer. Pricing, dealer web site SEO, social media, Internet structure and staffing, lead management, there are many critical success factors, and just as many potential points of failure. If you’re a deal

It’s interesting to me that in this day and time, as knowledgeable as we have become due to the advent of software, we still can’t seem to put a handle on who should price our used cars, how we should price our used cars, or what (software) shoul