By Scott Pechstein, Vice President, Digital Air Strike
1998: “Don’t get in a car with strangers”
2008: “Don’t meet people from the internet alone”
2020: Rideshare: “Order yourself a stranger off the internet to get into a car with alone”
Just like technology and personal transportation options, things seem to be changing more rapidly than ever, especially around consumer expectations. From having the occasional bad review (oftentimes unwarranted) to being hard to reach when a prospective customer is reaching out to you, even the best dealerships are losing customers (and sales).
The good news is there are some very easy ways to fix these consumer engagement challenges.
- Transparency: Car buyers and service customers today expect transparency and speed of response in their interactions with their dealership of choice or they will likely choose someone else.
- Online Presence: It is extremely important to monitor and evolve your online presence and social strategies to keep your dealership top of mind. Dealers should also continue to enhance their lead response and follow-up tactics to ensure a return from their current marketing efforts.
- Video: Everyone is talking about video, but very few dealerships are actually doing something about it at their store. It’s a leap in process-thinking, but one that is growing. Today there are many different options and innovative ways to add video to your customer engagement playbook. Video is relatively easy to implement and makes it fun for your team and for the customer.
To win the sale, dealers must first win the consumer engagement race, and just like the evolvement of technology and transportation, we too must evolve with the various ways customers expect to be engaged along the car buying journey.
ARTICLE BY Scott Pechstein
Scott Pechstein is Vice President of Business Development at Digital Air Strike, the award-winning consumer engagement and intelligent lead response technology partner helping 5,000+ dealers drive traffic, leads, and conversions, while improving customer follow-up, online reputations, and social media strategies.