Let’s stay that estimate is accurate (we began offering 24/7 service BECAUSE of overnight demand). With our lead conversion rate of more than 60 percent, that’s at least nine leads – with a potential for two or three car deals –plus timely intervention in a potential sales or service CSI issue. So if a chat vendor tells you 24/7 doesn’t work, they’re really saying they can’t figure out how to MAKE it work. Read post

It was a humbling experience to watch the final DSES speaker submissions roll in last week. Over 140 impressive industry professionals from inside and outside the dealership raised their hands asking to be considered to share some of their wisdom and insights with the progressive DSES audience this October. It’s an honor for us to be considered a high caliber event worthy of attention from so many great people. Thank you to everyone who sent in an application!Read post

It’s Saturday! Blow up the Balloons, blow up the squiggly air man thingy, get your game faces on and get ready. Barely anyone will walk on to your lot today. Any ideas why?Read post

As social media gets more and more entrenched in our daily lives, it’s becoming the easiest and most visible place for one of the most important things your company can have but can’t buy – word-of-mouth marketing. You can have your customer experience down pat, a loyalty program that rocks and customers lined up to do business with you; but does that mean you’re leveraging everything you can? Many social media sites like Facebook, Foursquare, and Yelp have some sort of “deal” type feature. What would happen if you take advantage of this feature and tie it in to your existing loyalty program? Here are some things you may or may not know about these deal features. (I’m going to focus on Facebook since it has the most advantages, in my opinion.) There have been many studies that have concluded that 60% of people “Like” a business’s Facebook page for special offers and deals. Facebook has two features: check-in deals and off...Read post

There are too many opportunities out there in the world of social media that makes it a bad idea to ignore the medium. Businesses can make an impact if they put in the effort. Unfortunately, not everyone is ready. It’s still possible to put in minimal effort and have a decent presence. When it’s time to put in full effort, you’ll be better prepared if you have a nice string of daily content that fills your pages. Automation is a bad idea and can do damage in the long run, but there are ways to put in a little bit of effort and still do okay, at least holding down the fort until you’re ready to blast off. Diversity is a key, so having a rotation of content types that get posted once a day can keep things rolling until the time comes to take it seriously. Scheduling a single post a day and rotating the various types of posts will give you an acceptable presence. Keep in mind that this will not help you find success. It will only allow you to keep success fro...Read post

DealerOn Weekly Webinar Series Thursday, June 20 12 PM EST/9 AM PST "How to Attract Today's Internet Shoppers" Sean Peoples, VP of Sales CarGurus Today’s auto shoppers have more data than ever before: MSRP, Invoice Pricing, incentives data, analytical products that outline market pricing and demand trends, editorial content such as vehicle and experiential reviews, etc. So why are they still complaining? For the love of cheese, what will it take to get car buyers to actually like the car buying experience?! Well you’re about to find out! Sean Peoples of Car Gurus is armed with a truckload of comprehensive data and in this 1 hour webinar, he will tell you how to best market your vehicles and dealership on your website and third party sites.  Properly attracting today’s savvy internet car buyers will maximize profitability, dramatically increase inventory velocity and greatly improve customer satisfaction.  It’s a win-win-win! If you ar...Read post

As a car dealer, you’ve been thoroughly trained on all steps of a sale from greeting through negotiation and final sale. And, you apply these steps well. But, it’s a good bet that even armed with all of your knowledge and experience there have been more than a few times when you found yourself wondering, "What happened? I thought everything was going well and yet the prospect walked out the door." Here, you will learn unusual but highly effective tips to help you focus on signals that you might otherwise miss – signals that could be the difference between clinching a deal and having the potential buyer walk out the door. Women-Drivers.com reveals that women car buyers visit 1.9 dealerships before purchasing. That means that while 5 out of 10 women who walk in are going to buy a car from you; and 5 are going to leave - and 89% of those who do leave will not return to your dealership. Do you track the number of browsers that visit your dealership? If you did...Read post

Chances are when you think of internet advertising your are thinking of purchasing keywords on Google. Given that Google has over 85% of the search market, it definitely makes sense to concentrate advertising efforts there. That being said, your dealership may want to take a second look at Facebook. Unlike advertising on Google, the goal of Facebook advertising is not really to drive clicks to your dealership websites. Instead, you should think about Facebook as the new TV- an outlet to create brand awareness (in a hyper-targeted fashion)....Read post