If You Think All Customers Want is a 1-Hour Close, You’re Missing the Relationship, from DealerReader Blog.
All your customers are looking for is a quick transaction, right? They want to do all their research up front, sign paperwork and get out. Except that’s not what research is saying. The most exhaustive internet shoppers are also spending time at several dealers. What are they looking for? A positive experience.
J.D. Power came to that conclusion when it studied online shopping behavior in September. “There may be a notion in the marketplace that the more auto shoppers use the Internet to determine which vehicle to buy, the fewer dealers they are inclined to shop, yet we see just the opposite” said Arianne Walker, senior director, automotive media & marketing at J.D. Power. “New-vehicle buyers who do a great deal of automotive Internet shopping also go to more dealerships to shop.”
What that doesn’t answer, though, is what shoppers are looking for when they’re showing up at your door. In a study DealerRater conducted, it’s not necessarily speed. Nobody wants to spend six hours inside your store, but in the study we conducted, 75 percent of respondents suggested that a relationship was more important than how fast they could get out the door.
