Sales at Your Fingertips, from F&I Showroom.
The explosion in smartphone usage among car shoppers put phone leads ahead of Internet leads at the close of 2014, a trend reflected in the deluge of mobile-ready offerings lining the aisles at NADA 2015.
The drive to digitally connect dealers with customers reached a fever pitch at the 2015 National Automobile Dealers Association Convention & Expo, where the NADA’s new chairman, Bill Fox, cited a wave of online innovations as one of several key reasons the auto industry has survived economic challenges such as the Great Recession.
“Dealers have adopted the Internet because we know we often make our first impressions digitally,” Fox said during his Jan. 24 keynote at the Moscone Center in tech-savvy San Francisco. “We’ve adopted technology that includes our customers in the sales process more and more. We are innovative and we offer the consumer what they want and need: value.”
But consumers also want a way to connect to dealerships on the devices they use most. Last year, 58% of U.S. adults owned a smartphone, and the development and adoption of new applications for smartphones and tablets is happening faster than any other technological wave in history, according to analytics company comScore.
