Digital Dealer - August 2019 - 17

Road Trip to DD27 | AUG 19-21, 2019 | Las Vegas

WHAT'S NEEDED TO CLOSE THE LOOP BETWEEN
ONLINE RESEARCH AND OFFLINE TRANSACTIONS ARE
SOLUTIONS THAT HELP TELL THE CUSTOMER'S STORY
BEFORE HE OR SHE SPEAKS WITH A SALESPERSON."
pricing, services, and more
are readily available, which
forces dealers to do all they
can to maintain their edge
over showroom customers
when it comes to product
knowledge and local market
data.
Progressive dealers go a
step further by teaming up
with their software providers to extract behavioral
and contextual consumer
information from their web
properties to better facilitate
relationships with shoppers once they get to the
dealership. These dealers
are prioritizing in-dealership
experiences based on their
customers' digital behaviors.
This requires identifying
all the online mediums that
are used to influence shoppers, including email marketing, social media, and
digital retail. The challenge
is using all mediums cohesively to develop the buying
persona of the shopper. The
hope is that these efforts will
one day foster a frictionless
experience for consumers.

OPTIMIZING THE
TRANSITION

The good news is that
more and more dealers are
beginning to embrace the
need to offer their customers a digital retailing
channel. This comes at a
time when the burgeoning
software category now has
20+ new tools from providers claiming their solutions

deliver "accurate" payments
to shoppers. That's a discussion for another article.
For this exercise, let's focus
on why dealers are making
it tough on themselves when
it comes to digital retailing.
The problem is, there just
hasn't been much movement when it comes to
what happens once a digital
retailing solution gets added
to a dealership's website.

2. MANAGE THE
INFORMATION: Always use

your CRM for onboarding
new customers. Just make
sure you set up a review
request with all stakeholders
to ensure customer personas are identified. If you're
just now getting started,
focus on the customer path.
In other words, how did the
customer make it to your
dealership?

THE CHALLENGE IS
USING ALL MEDIUMS
COHESIVELY TO DEVELOP
THE BUYING PERSONA OF
THE SHOPPER."
We've covered what needs
to happen, but let's focus
now on three areas dealers
can work on today to optimize that online-to-showroom transition.
OPTIMIZING THE
ONLINE-TO-SHOWROOM
TRANSITION
1. MANAGE THE
MESSAGE: It's crucial that

your marketing messages
are aligned, both internally
and externally. For that
to happen, there must be
communication between
management, sales, operations, and the dealership's
software partners. By having
a consistent message, there
are no surprises when we
reach shoppers with our
marketing campaigns.

It's also critical that you
import data from other
resources. For instance, integration between the dealership's CRM and website
will allow you to know every
interaction a shopper has
with your digital properties.
Lastly, the cleaner the data,
the easier it is for you to
view the consumer journey
and what might influence it.

3. MANAGE THE
EXPECTATION: Creating

an amazing digital experience starts with a dealership
action plan. Think of it like
an onboarding experience
for new users. That means
you must understand why
your sales team needs to
be more informed than the
shopper. You also want your
D I G I TA L D E A L E R . C O M

digital and traditional mediums aligned.
You'll need to seek out
efficiencies and understand
transparency and what it
means to your shoppers.
Additionally, you'll need to
provide your customers
with a post-sale roadmap. It
should detail how the consumer can take advantage
of your service department.
To deliver a frictionless
online-to-offline experience,
dealers need to leverage
their vendor relationships
and their internal tools to
transition consumers from
online research to offline
buyers. Great strides are
already underway, but the
industry is just now taking its
first steps on the path to its
digital future.
For more on closing
the loop between online
research and offline transactions, join Cavan Robinson and Kris Nielsen for
their session, "Level Up:
How Dealerships Are Connecting Online Shoppers
with Offline Experiences,"
at Digital Dealer 27 (Aug.
19-21, 2019, Las Vegas,
NV).
ARTICLE CO-WRITTEN BY
CAVAN ROBINSON, Director
of Product Marketing for
DealerSocket's DealerFire digital
solutions product line, and KRIS
NIELSEN, Sales Operations and
Customer Experience Manager
for Soave Automotive. Email
them at crobinson@dealersocket.
com

AUGUST 2019

17
http://www.DIGITALDEALER.COM
Digital Dealer - August 2019

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