Using data to help your sales staff truly understand their customers and anticipate their needs will lead to a better overall experience in your dealership. In this article, automotiveMastermind builds on an airline analogy to help showcase the need for a holistic approach to dealer customer experience (CX):

• - While all facets of an airline staff work independently, much like your dealership, the work is interwoven in the eyes of the customer

• - Provide your team with resources, capabilities and authority to build a great CX

• - Drive customer loyalty through consistent CX

The last time you took an airline flight, how was your customer experience? What goes into answering that question for you – and what does it tell you about your dealership’s customer service?

On your last flight, was the check-in disorganized or understaffed? Were the flight attendants unable to provide the beverage you requested during in-flight service? Maybe the airplane restroom wasn’t clean enough, or your baggage took too long to arrive?

Did you walk away happy, or not?

An airline’s gate staff, flight crew, aircraft maintenance and baggage claim functions are as operationally independent – if not more so – than the marketing, sales and customer service teams in your dealership. But just as you instinctively assess your experience with an airline as a totality of how you felt in every facet of that process from your first interaction to your last; so too do your customers feel about their experience with your dealership. Just as you think of “the airline” without stopping to assess the different operational areas by which they divide themselves, so too do your customers think of you as “the dealership” without differentiating between marketing, sales, finance, or service.

A Holistic Approach to Dealer Customer Experience

It is critical for your entire organization to have a holistic view of customer service, based on the concept that a customer’s experience – “CX” – is as unified for you as it is for them. That means while you may keep operational areas separately managed, those divisions – and the handoff between them – need to be as seamless and invisible as possible to your customers. This happens with careful analysis and planning of the entire customer experience, through dedication to building a customer experience culture and through providing your team with the resources, capabilities and authority to deliver those experiences regardless of where that customer is in your organization at any given time.

Use Data to Understand Your Customers

This all begins with understanding your dealership’s customers. In the old days, the mantra told us to “Know your customer.” That’s still true, of course, but it’s no longer good enough to end at simply knowing who they are. In a world where your TV recognizes what you want to watch, your GPS can predict where you’re going when you get in the car and Amazon knows what you’d like to buy before you do, your customers expect you not just to know who they are but also to understand their wants, needs, interests, expectations and concerns.

It’s admittedly ironic that the path to understanding your customers as unique individuals for whom you tailor customized experiences starts with the impersonal logic of databases and machine learning, but there’s no other way to accomplish that objective at the kind of scale a dealership requires. The more your employees know about a customer and the more context they’re provided by the automated tools that do the homework for them, the better they’re able to understand that customer and interact with them in a way that maximizes their customer experience and cements their relationship with your organization.

Be Consistent

However, simply having the right information about a customer and having people in place who are engaged in using data to provide great customer experience isn’t enough, if the experience isn’t consistent. Just as the example of your experience with all the facets of an airline shows how one underperforming component can sour an entire experience, so too can an under-performing part of your dealership.

Nobody credits the airline with getting to the gate on time or remembers the smiling flight attendant who gave them an extra bag of peanuts. Similarly, your marketing could be on point, your sales process a joy and the vehicle delivered in pristine condition with a smile – but if the finance process was painful and impersonal, that’s what your customer will remember. You can’t afford to tolerate any under-performing component of your dealership when it comes to customer experience, because that’s what will end up defining the experience your customer remembers and limiting the potential of your future relationship with them.

Build from the Foundation

Great dealer customer experiences build loyal, high-value customers. They’re the foundation of a sustainable dealership model that lets you protect existing market share while you use the same digital capabilities that underpin your CX operation to expand your marketing reach and conquest new customers. But just as your airline can do everything right except lose your luggage and expect you to walk away happy, neither can you afford to depend on some areas of greatness to counterbalance pain points for your customers.

Where are your customers not having a great experience – and what are you doing about it? Are you ready to truly understand your customers and ultimately sell more vehicles? Contact us today for a VIP consultation.

Shaping company culture around the customer experience is what led Amazon to become one of the most successful companies of all time. In this article, automotiveMastermind covers why dealerships should adopt this method to drive dealer customer retention and how they can do it with three tips:

- Instill a culture built on great dealership customer experience

- Manage the dealership culture you defined

- Recognize and reward employee engagement

What makes customers want to buy a car from your dealership? What makes them repeatedly brand and dealer loyal?

These are simple questions with enormously complex answers. One consistent theme underpinning the entire dealer-customer relationship is CX, or customer experience. And while there are a variety of factors that play into customer experience, the constant across all of them is that at the end of the day, it’s the human interactions between your dealership staff and your prospects and customers that matter more than anything else. That’s a reflection of your dealership’s culture, which doesn’t always happen organically. It takes devotion along with consistent and effective management – and leadership by example – to instill, grow and maintain such a culture in any business.

Creating a culture that delivers a great car-buying experience is worth the work because that experience is what sells cars and keeps a dealership’s customers coming back, in good times and bad. Customers want to do business with people they like and who treat them well. When that happens, they’re far more likely to become loyal repeat customers who make an outsized impact on your bottom line year after year and sales cycle after sales cycle.

Instill a culture built on great dealership customer experience

How do you instill the type of culture where customers are valued and appreciated and where the customer’s experience is the most important factor in any decision? It starts with defining it and setting expectations for employee engagement. How do you expect people to operate in your dealership? How do you expect them to treat each other and the customer? How are they empowered in their pursuit of doing the right thing?

For example, Amazon’s workplace culture is famously competitive. In his first letter to shareholders after taking Amazon.com public in 1997, Jeff Bezos talked in depth about his plans for building a company for the long term during a time of great industry change. This included setting cultural expectations for Amazon’s employees: “When I interview people I tell them, ‘You can work long, hard, or smart, but at Amazon.com you can’t choose two out of three,” he wrote. Amazon also publishes and holds its managers to a set of “Leadership Principles” that promote its desired culture, including its famous “Customer Obsession” – “Leaders start with the customer and work backwards. They work vigorously to earn and keep customer trust. Although leaders pay attention to competitors, they obsess over customers.”

You may not believe Amazon’s unique culture would be right to transplant into your dealership, but one core lesson from their success is it’s your job to define your desired culture, explain it and then manage to it as part of a broader go-to-market strategy.

Managing the dealership culture you defined

Once you have culture defined and explained to your team, the management component is critical to turn words into reality. You can’t do good work without the right tools, and you can’t expect your team to deliver meaningfully personalized service to your customers if you don’t arm them with the tools to do so. This means investing in analytics-driven capabilities such as database access for consumer insights, credit transparency tools, targeted marketing campaigns, service history integration and other solutions. These tools allow your team to do their homework and come prepared to make the right offer, at the right time, for the right vehicle and at the right price.

Customer experience is about human interactions, but the best human interactions take place when the employee has all the information they need ahead of time to meet the customer’s unique needs.

Recognize and reward employee engagement

If you show your employees you’re serious about investing in a customer experience-driven culture and giving them the tools to do it right, then they’re more likely to take it seriously and become a part of making that culture a reality. Without that kind of visible commitment, your staff likely won’t take your commitment to customer service seriously – and neither will the customers with whom they’re interacting.

When your employees do get it right, reward them quickly and meaningfully. Famed General Electric CEO Jack Welch joked that employee recognition should involve “the right mix of plaques and cash,” and that’s been a part of the standard dealership management toolkit for decades. Culture is more than sales numbers, so don’t just reward on sales metrics or other financial targets.

In addition to those kinds of recognition, make the effort to find ways to reward the behavior that values coworkers and customers. Recognize and reward creativity in solving customers’ problems, covering for coworkers who have family emergencies, staying late as needed without being asked, showing respect for customers’ unique needs and the like.

At the end of the day, you’re trying to create a culture in which your dealership demonstrates that it cares about its customers, at every possible opportunity, because a dealership full of people who truly care is the kind of dealership customers stick with for life. So, reward people for demonstrating that they care, and for doing their part to grow that customer experience-driven culture.

The more employees know that healthy and positive behavior is rewarded, the more they will embrace your culture and become partners in growing the kind of environment in which great customer experiences are born, and one where the bottom line grows along with the relationships you build.

Are you serious about investing in a customer experience-driven culture? Contact us today to learn how a data-backed automotive sales platform can drive exceptional customer experience.

Automotive sales forecasts are leaving many dealers feeling less than optimistic about the future of dealership sales. In order to remain profitable in a flattening market, dealers must keep a pulse on everything that’s happening in the industry. In this post, automotiveMastermind dives into the automotive industry trends from Q1 2019 that dealers need to be aware of, including:

• Dealership Lots Overflowing Due to Underwhelming Vehicle Sales
• Divergent 2019 Retail Strategies from Tesla & Porsche
• A Scarcity of Automotive Service Technicians

Underwhelming Vehicle Sales, Overflowing Lots

What:
As car retail sales slowed across the auto industry, the number of vehicles on dealers’ lots hit an all-time high this quarter. Even famously “recession-proof” brands such as Jeep have suffered, posting consecutive monthly sales declines.

Why:
NADA and others continue to sound alarms over vehicle affordability, which means not only sticker shock but also financing challenges for consumers. Dealers need to make sure their marketing and sales efforts include a data-based view of a prospect’s financial situation, ensuring they’re not investing resources on an offer a customer can’t afford or other unqualified leads.

That’s why Mastermind built a relationship with consumer credit experts TransUnion, so information can be built into the consumer relationship as early as possible. When combined with data-based marketing outreach that looks at every potential customer in the market to score and identify the bestprospects for a targeted and individualized marketing and sales campaign, this model of analytics-based selling is the fast lane to meeting month-end targets and moving vehicles off the lot.

Tesla and Porsche Take Different Retail Roads

What:
Two premium automakers announced very different strategies for their retail footprints as 2019 got underway. While Tesla made news saying it would roll back its already-sparse retail footprint, Porsche unveiled plans to invest in the customer experience at its dealerships to connect consumers even more closely to the brand.

In a blog post and SEC filing, Tesla said it was “shifting sales worldwide to online only,” and that “Over the next few months, we will be winding down many of our stores, with a small number of stores in high-traffic locations remaining as galleries, showcases and Tesla information centers.”

Meanwhile, Porsche was accelerating in the opposite direction, unveiling a “Destination Porsche” retail concept that makes its dealerships “not just a place to transact business, but a place that you would want to come in and soak up Porsche culture,” according to company COO Joe Lawrence. This includes holding motorsport-watching parties, hosting local Porsche owner group events and other related content. This announcement came after the ninth consecutive year of U.S. sales growth and seventh record sales year in a row. Porsche North America sales set a record of 57,202 vehicles.

Why:
Both Porsche and Tesla have passionate consumers, but the two companies have deeply divergent views of the dealership’s role in building and maintaining that relationship.

Porsche treats the dealership as a critical part of its customer relationship, winning its luxury segment in the 2019 J.D. Power Customer Service Index. Its intention with “Destination Porsche” is to make the dealership a place consumers want to be, making it the center of a rich customer experience that goes beyond sales or service, and builds opportunities for engagement to increase loyalty and amplify customer retention efforts.

Tesla, however, acts as if the dealership – or “store,” to avoid state dealership laws – is almost a necessary evil, stressing all Tesla sales take place online. Even though CEO Elon Musk wrote, “stores and Tesla product specialists and owner advisors will always be of critical importance to our long-term success,” his view of the dealership role is highly transactional: “Many potential Tesla owners will still want to talk to a Tesla representative in person or want a test drive from a Tesla representative,” he wrote, adding, “Stores also have a small number of Tesla vehicles available to drive away immediately for customers that want a car right then and there.”

Tesla appears to view the retail footprint as a cost center rather than a revenue generator. This was clear when it announced a change in plans not long after its initial store-closing announcement, saying it would “keep significantly more stores open than previously announced” but that “As a result of keeping significantly more stores open, Tesla will need to raise vehicle prices by about 3% on average worldwide.”

Tesla delivered its first car in 2008 and introduced its first mass-market model in 2012, while Porsche has been selling cars to consumers since 1948. To date, Tesla has been almost entirely in conquest mode and had little need to engage in retention marketing. As the company matures and its customers start reaching the end of their ownership cycles, it will be interesting to see whether Tesla’s model for minimizing the dealership role in the automotive industry is a sustainable bet and whether making a vehicle purchase “not much harder than ordering an Uber,” as Musk put it, is all that’s necessary to keep customers coming back.

Service Technicians Stay Scarce

What:
Auto Dealers are having a hard time hiring and keeping automotive service technicians. One estimate from NADA is that between retirements and career changes, dealers need to hire roughly 76,000 technicians a year just to keep up with demand. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts there will be 45,900 more service techs needed in a decade.

Dealers still appear to be attracting qualified technicians by offering more than other employers:
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median salary for a service technician at an auto dealer is $43,180, compared to $37,420 at collision shops or independent repairers or $33,640 at tire stores or parts & accessories shops.

Why:
The dealership service experience is critical for a customer’s overall satisfaction and customer retention. The right number of qualified, capable technicians is a huge part of that, without enough of them, customers wait longer for repairs, often resulting in customer dissatisfaction. Also, Under-qualified techs are also more likely to fail to complete a quality repair, leading to return visits that can cause harm to a customer’s satisfaction with the dealership.

It’s not news to dealers that service tech recruitment and retention is an important part of the business, but with a bleak hiring landscape stretching out a decade or more, there’s no better time than now to make a serious commitment not only to retaining the techs you have, but also to finding innovative ways of recruiting more to meet the needs of the future.

All of this should occur as part of a comprehensive overhaul of the service department’s place in the dealership, integrating the service drive as a sales driver and making analytics-based contact with a customer, a regular part of the service drive process.

How Can Mastermind Help?

Do you have questions about how car sales trends are changing the customer experience
process? Contact us today to learn more about how Market EyeQ can help your dealership identify, communicate with and close more buyers in your market.

Don’t close down your F&I department just yet, as it turns out the dealer-assisted loan might not be dead after all. Despite what some media reports recently claimed, your ability to put customers into the right financing for the right vehicle will continue to be a critical component of the dealership sales process for the foreseeable future. In this article, we’ll break down everything dealers need to know about the current state of automotive financing.

Automotive Industry Reports on Financing

In early March, Automotive News and other media outlets reported on a survey from credit scoring analytics firm FICO that found dealership-acquired financing was down 10 percent in 2018 from just a year earlier, at 63 percent from 73 percent in 2017. More concerningly, the survey said only 40 percent of surveyed consumers planned to acquire financing for their next vehicle through their dealership. Obviously, this kind of massive – and incredibly fast – transition in the relationship between dealers and consumers concerned many dealers who see F&I as a critical component of their interactions with their customers.

However, a lot of questions were quickly raised about FICO’s survey results, which didn’t seem to reflect dealers’ actual experiences. Few dealers had reported seeing a 10 percent drop in finance deals in 2018, and captive lenders weren’t reporting similar figures.

What the Data Says, The Real Report

NADA’s economists dug into the question, and it appears the issue isn’t that consumers aren’t getting financing through their dealers any more, but rather consumers apparently aren’t very good at remembering or explaining how they got their vehicle financing. Despite what the 510 consumers surveyed by FICO told researchers, the much more comprehensive JD Power Power Information Network (PIN) dataset, which includes millions of transactions from 14,000 participating dealers across the country, showed dealer-assisted financing had held roughly steady from 83.1 percent in 2017 to 83.7 percent in 2018.

In short, FICO collected the responses they were given and the media reported the results in good faith, but the reality appears to be that consumers are still reliant on dealers to walk them through a financing process that continues to confuse them, even with all the options for research and shopping available to them.

Automotive Financing Lessons Learned

There’s also a related lesson here in that just as good data is far more helpful than consumers’ anecdotal input for industry researchers when consumer finance is involved, so too does good data help dealers work with individual customers to find the right financing for their personal situation – whatever they may think that is. Dealers know from experience customers can run the gamut from wildly optimistic to wildly pessimistic about their personal financial status, which is why it’s critical to make solid data a part of the sales process as early as possible.

Looking beyond their survey results, FICO’s industry experts identified just this form of data-driven finance engagement as a real opportunity for dealers. “There’s certainly a lot of opportunity for lenders to improve the digital process,” said Ken Kertz, senior director and practice leader of auto and motorized vehicles at FICO in an Automotive News article. “We’re still seeing that the dealer is the epicenter, and customers would prefer simplicity and preapproved offers with rate subvention and incentives.”

It’s good to hear that dealers are still at the epicenter of the automotive finance process. The more dealers put good data at the center of their own processes, the longer that will continue to be true.
automotiveMastermind centers our products and services around advanced data analysis that drives sales with personalized marketing and unparalleled CX. To learn how we can transform your dealership, contact us to set up a demo.

Six years ago, Mastermind attended our first National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA) Show in San Francisco, with a small 10x10 booth. We disrupted the industry with the introduction of behavior prediction technology to help dealers sell more cars. Our proprietary algorithm and Behavior Prediction Score® revolutionized the way that dealers communicate with their loyalty customers, ultimately increasing retention sales. Over the years, we evolved the concept of ‘equity mining’ into ‘data mining.’ Since then, many of our competitors have developed a similar likeliness-to-buy scoring system and NADA show floors annually are filled with companies claiming to do all or part of what we do. This year was no exception and we made several major announcements leading into the show, capped with receiving an award for excellent dealer satisfaction and the debut of the first-ever automotive sales platform.

Award-Winning Technology

Mastermind was founded on the principle of simplifying and improving the car buying process for both the dealer and consumer. We empower our dealer partners to have intelligent and personalized conversations with prospects utilizing our proprietary behavior prediction technology and highly-personalized marketing. As a result, this year we were recognized with a DrivingSales Dealer Satisfaction Award in the Owner Marketing category.  The award measures dealer satisfaction with vendor products and services and is based on cumulative ratings tallied and verified during the calendar year. We’re so grateful for our dealer partners and we appreciate all of your kind reviews that allowed us to win this award. 

The First-Ever Automotive Sales Platform

Fast forward to NADA six years later. As we stand on the same show floor where we debuted Mastermind to the industry six years prior, we debuted to the industry the first-ever automotive sales platform, Market EyeQ. Market EyeQ allows dealers to view their full prospective buyer market more holistically, no matter if that customer comes from your retention, service, or conquest portfolio. Backed by real-time proprietary data, Market EyeQ helps identify, communicate with, and close more customers in a dealer’s local market.

Part of what makes this sales platform so unique is Mastermind’s partnerships and relationships which grant us powerful datasets. Access to proprietary household demographic data from IHS Markit and key vehicle history details through the Carfax Snapshot tool gives dealers an exclusive 360-degree market view. Further, our partnership with TransUnion uncovers potential sales opportunities with customers who have not previously bought from a dealership. These partnerships, coupled with information from your current Dealer Management System (DMS), allow dealers a holistic view of their local market by enriching the data they have on-hand and supplying them with data for prospects unknown to them.

Why limit your focus to 10,000 loyalty customers when you can see 100,000 customers of all types in your local market, including loyalty, conquest, and service customers?

What does this mean for dealers? No more segmenting your buyer audience and managing multiple technologies to find and market to different types of prospects.

With projected sales for 2019 to dip below the 17 million mark, dealers will need to do even more to compete and grow in this flattening market. At Mastermind, we are committed to leading the charge in the industry for our visionary approach to selling cars. We have set a precedent as the company that can help dealers stay ahead of evolving sales trends.

We met with more than 150 dealers during NADA to debut and demo the industry's first-ever automotive sales platform, Market EyeQ. Did you miss out? Sign up for a demo today.

2019 was the last year the global automotive industry’s leadership had to brave Detroit’s January weather to participate in the North American International Auto Show (NAIAS) and the Automotive News World Congress. The events move to June in 2020, but left their final midwinter imprint with a variety of news and announcements of interest to dealers:

Ford & VW Join Forces

The biggest high-level industry news out of the two weeks in Detroit was the announcement of a partnership between Ford and Volkswagen to collaborate on commercial vans and midsize pickups, with potential future joint development of next-generation autonomous and electric vehicles. The alliance, which does not involve any exchange of ownership equity, aims to deliver medium pickup trucks manufactured by Ford on the Ranger platform in the European, African and South American markets beginning in 2022; followed by European-market commercial vans in 2023. Ford plans to manufacture commercial vans for this market, while Volkswagen will focus on passenger vans. The companies also say they are “open to considering additional vehicle programs in the future.”

While the implications for North American dealers may be few and far between in the short term, the partnership does have long-term implications both for the overall sustainability of both automakers as well as potential for future new product development that would result in new vehicles on showroom floors.

Midsize Market Moves

The hot midsize SUV market, which has been a key profit center for automakers and dealers, got even more competitive at NAIAS.

Ford announced the new 2020 Ford Explorer, with the biggest news being its move from a FWD platform shared with the Taurus to a RWD platform it shares with the new Lincoln Aviator. Even 4WD variants – which Ford expects to make up roughly 70 percent of its sales – will default to RWD. The new Explorer is also the first to feature a 10-speed automatic transmission that Ford jointly developed with General Motors.

Kia unveiled the 2020 Telluride, which the company calls its “flagship SUV.” Kia’s leadership say it is aimed at the Ford Explorer, Toyota Highlander and Honda Pilot market and predicts it will join other new and relaunched vehicles to increase the company’s U.S. sales figures up above 600,000 in 2019 compared to two flat years just under 590,000.

Coming Soon to Showrooms

Other important vehicle launches at NAIAS with competitive implications for dealers included:

2019 Ram HD: At the same show where the 2018 Ram won the North American Truck of the Year award, FCA unveiled the newest version of its heavy-duty variant.

Cadillac XT6: The Escalade’s newest “little brother” shares a platform with the GMC Acadia, Buick Traverse and Chevrolet Enclave.

2020 Volkswagen Passat: VW hasn’t given up on sedans and has updated the Passat for consumers who haven’t either.

2020 Toyota Supra: After almost two decades, Toyota is bringing the beloved enthusiast sports car back to North America in a low-volume production model it hopes can be a “halo” car to get traffic into its showrooms.

NADA Watches Affordability

While new products are great for dealers to have, customers still have to be able to afford them. At the Automotive News World Congress, National Auto Dealers Association (NADA) CEO Peter Welch said affordability is "probably the biggest thing” he is concerned about for the auto industry. He told Automotive News, “People buying $55,000 pickup trucks with $1,000-a-month payments — I’ve never seen it. A lot of people don’t think that’s sustainable.” However, said Welch, NADA’s forecasters don’t necessarily think the good times are over just yet. "I don't know why we can't have a few more good years on a plateau," he told the World Congress attendees. "I'll take a plateau between 16.5 million and 17 million for as long as we can get them."

Toyota Bets on Truck Growth

Toyota Motor North America CEO Jim Lentz told Automotive News that while Toyota expects its light-vehicle share to slip in the U.S. in 2019, the company projects strong Tacoma and Tundra truck sales to more than make up for decreased car sales and result in an increased overall market share. This would be a continuation of existing trends, as Toyota’s car sales fell 12 percent in 2018 while light-truck sales increased 8 percent.

Toyota is investing to increase truck production in Mexico and the U.S. to meet demand, said Lentz, adding "If I could build more Tundras today, I could sell them.”

How Can automotiveMastermind Help?

Whether the new products are on your showroom floor or on your competitor’s, you’ve got new marketing opportunities and challenges. Our solutions help dealers stay ahead of the evolving competitive landscape. Get in touch with us today to learn more.

automotiveMastermind (Mastermind), a leading provider of predictive analytics and marketing automation solutions for dealerships and manufacturers, today announced its Market EyeQ sales platform, another evolution in the company's mission to transform the automotive retail experience. The announcement was made during the National Automobile Dealers Association Show (NADA) 2019 taking place from Jan. 25 to Jan. 27 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco.

"Market EyeQ is the core sales platform dealers need to compete in today's flattening market," said Johannes Gnauck, founder and co-CEO of Mastermind. "Historically, dealers have segmented customers into three categories: retention, service and conquest. We're empowering dealers to view their full prospective buyer market more holistically, no matter if that customer comes from their retention, service, or conquest portfolio. The Market EyeQ sales platform is backed by real-time proprietary data and helps identify, communicate with and close more customers."

With key partnerships, Market EyeQ is the first tool of its kind to provide access to all prospective buyers for a dealer in one single sales platform. Mastermind has access to proprietary household demographic data from IHS Markit and key vehicle history details through the Carfax Snapshot tool to give dealers an exclusive 360-degree market view. Further, the TransUnion partnership uncovers potential sales opportunities with customers who have not previously bought from a dealership. These partnerships, coupled with their current Dealer Management System (DMS), allow dealers a holistic view of their local market by enriching the data they have on-hand and supplying them with data for prospects unknown to them.

"When we started this company, we set out to improve the car-buying experience for buyers and sellers," said Marco Schnabl, founder and co-CEO of Mastermind. "We started Mastermind by solving dealer's challenges that we knew of as former car salesmen. As the industry evolved from equity mining to data mining solutions, none of these categories ever fully encompassed everything Mastermind could do for dealers, and that remains true today. Market EyeQ is the first sales platform that provides a holistic view of a dealer's local market and allows them to sell in a more effective way, increasing sales as a result."

The organization is a winner of a 2019 Driving Sales Dealer Satisfaction Award in the Owner Marketing Category. More information is available here.

About automotiveMastermind
Founded in 2012, automotiveMastermind, a business unit of IHS Markit (Nasdaq: INFO), is a leading provider of predictive analytics and marketing automation solutions for the automotive industry. Market EyeQ by Mastermind is a single sales platform that identifies, communicates with, and closes every buyer in a local market. Mastermind is headquartered in New York City and San Francisco. For more information, visit automotivemastermind.com. Based in London, IHS Markit is a world leader in critical information, analytics and solutions.

automotiveMastermind and TransUnion today announced a partnership to help dealers identify highly qualified customers coming to the dealership for service.

Dealerships with access to the automotiveMastermind (Mastermind) solution now have the ability to deliver prescreen offers to consumers through serviceMastermind, a streamlined service that allows dealers to know when qualified customers come through the service drive, enabling them to begin new sales outreach. Customer data is obtained from TransUnion in connection with the prescreen and gives dealers invaluable insight about those customers.

TransUnion's backing of the solution allows dealers to pull real-time credit-based information that can be used to better understand consumers browsing the dealership showroom or customers having their vehicle serviced. As an integrated part of Mastermind's solution for dealerships, this quick and easy assessment of a customer's creditworthiness enables dealers to deliver the right offer, to the right customer, at the right time.  

"The combined power of our partnership with TransUnion, and IHS Markit data, gives dealers greater visibility on who is servicing at their dealership, including contract, loyalty and garage indicators, allowing them to market to service customers with the right message," said Johannes Gnauck, CEO and co-founder of Mastermind.

"We want to provide dealers with the most compelling, market-relevant data possible to strengthen the customer experience and, ultimately, customer relationships."

"This solution will enable dealers to make smarter decisions and tailor their offers to the needs and preferences of their customers," said Brian Landau, senior vice president and automotive business leader at TransUnion. "Through the partnership, dealers will have the right tools to grow their prescreen functionality and build demand, while equipping their customers with a more seamless car shopping experience."

serviceMastermind will be available to all eligible Mastermind dealer partners in the first quarter of 2019. The solution has been tested by a few key dealer partners who have seen strong results: initial tests show between 65 – 80 percent of customers were activated into the sales workflow, and 27 – 52 percent of those converted customers bought a vehicle through that dealer.

About automotiveMastermind
Founded in 2012, automotiveMastermind, a business unit of IHS Markit (Nasdaq: INFO), is a leading provider of predictive analytics and marketing automation solutions for the automotive industry. Market EyeQ by Mastermind is the single sales platform to identify, communicate with, and close every buyer in a local market. Mastermind is headquartered in New York City and San Francisco. For more information, visit automotivemastermind.com. Based in London, IHS Markit is a world leader in critical information, analytics and solutions.

About TransUnion
Information is a powerful thing. At TransUnion, we realize that. We are dedicated to finding innovative ways information can be used to help individuals make better and smarter decisions. We help uncover unique stories, trends and insights behind each data point, using historical information as well as alternative data sources. This allows a variety of markets and businesses to better manage risk and consumers to better manage their credit, personal information and identity. Today, TransUnion has a global presence in more than 30 countries and a leading presence in several international markets across North America, Africa, Latin America and Asia. Through the power of information, TransUnion is working to build stronger economies and families and safer communities worldwide.

We call this Information for Good.℠

automotiveMastermind® (Mastermind), a leading provider of predictive solutions for dealerships, today announced the appointment of Kos Jha as Chief Technology Officer and the promotion of Daniel (Dan) Malloy to Vice President of Sales.

In Malloy's new role he will drive the expansion of Mastermind's presence in the automotive industry by adding new brands, dealer groups and individual retail stores to automotiveMastermind's portfolio mix. Previously, Malloy served as National Sales Director.

Jha, who joins Mastermind from S&P Global Market Intelligence, will be responsible for managing the technology and global engineering teams, while closely aligning with the product organization.

"We are most committed to being a true partner to our dealers and that begins from the very start of our relationship. Now, more than ever, dealerships need to look at their market holistically to maximize all possible sales opportunities," said Marco Schnabl, CEO and Co-Founder of automotiveMastermind. "Dan is committed to help dealers address their challenges and pain-points through partnering with Mastermind."

Malloy's experience in the retail automotive industry spans more than two decades. Prior to joining Mastermind, he held the position of General Manager for Audi of Freehold (New Jersey) and Group 1 Automotive – working with brands like Honda, Mercedes Benz and Volkswagen. He also worked with DCH Auto group providing new car sales management, marketing initiative implementation and more.

"Mastermind is continuously innovating and pushing the boundaries of predictive solutions and this year is no exception," said Malloy. "There is a lot to get excited about in the upcoming year. I'm passionate about being a strong resource for dealers and am looking forward to showcasing this in my new role."

Jha's experience in the technology industry spans more than 25 years, joining Mastermind from S&P Global Market Intelligence where he was CTO for client-facing platforms and analytics products. Jha led large global teams to adopt modern cloud-native architectures and big data and analytics technologies to deliver growth and transformation. Prior to that he worked at EY in management consulting to lead IT strategy and implementation and at Honeywell as a Technology Manager to build software products.

"Kos is an extremely diversified leader who will further help us build a world class product development team around our strategic product vision," said Johannes Gnauck, CEO and Co-Founder of automotiveMastermind.

"Mastermind is constantly updating and innovating its technology to best serve dealer partners and their customers," said Jha. "My goal is to ensure that the technology is always catering to dealers' needs and providing the predictive analytics and solutions for each dealer's market."

automotiveMastermind has a proven track record of transforming the dealership experience for consumers and revolutionizing the way automotive dealerships and manufacturers, find, engage and earn long-lasting customer relationships.

About automotiveMastermind
Founded in 2012, automotiveMastermind, a business unit of IHS Markit (Nasdaq: INFO), is a leading provider of predictive analytics and marketing automation solutions for the automotive industry. Market EyeQ by Mastermind is the single sales platform to identify, communicate with and close every buyer in a local market. Mastermind is headquartered in New York City and San Francisco. For more information, visit automotivemastermind.com. Based in London, IHS Markit is a world leader in critical information, analytics and solutions.

The holidays are behind us, and the new year lies ahead. What do recent developments in the technology and automotive industries suggest might be on tap for 2019? How can and should dealers prepare themselves, and where are the opportunities to get ahead of the competition?

Here’s some news to consider:

Amazon becomes America’s most valuable company

What: Amazon passed Apple and Microsoft to become the world’s largest company, measured by stock market valuation.

Why: The big brown boxes on front porches – and soon in people’s garages – driving that valuation all have one thing in common: all are things the consumer didn’t drive to the store and pick up themselves. Ironically, Americans are buying less stuff at the store and having more of it delivered. At the same time, they’re increasingly moving to bigger vehicles with more cargo space. SUVs and pickup trucks finally have room for everything, just as consumers no longer need to go out and pick up anything.

This means dealers need to invest in understanding at an individualized and personal level how and why their customers will be using their vehicles in order to make the most effective recommendations. (One likely factor: Kids and sports gear. The number of American children who play on a youth sports team is at an all-time high, even as overall youth athletic activity continues to drop).

Luxury buyers claim two-thirds of EV tax credits

What: Purchasers of luxury vehicles accounted for two-thirds of the electric vehicle tax credits handed out in 2018, and some industry analysts predict that number to reach as high as 75 percent in 2019. However, EV tax credits face an uncertain future in general, with some scheduled to phase out under current law and others potentially ending sooner than planned.

Why: Even as manufacturers invest big in electrification, it’s still largely a luxury good for American car buyers – and ending the EV tax credit wouldn’t help reverse that trend. Brands like Tesla, Audi, Jaguar, BMW and Mercedes won’t be as sensitive as, say, a Chevrolet Bolt or Nissan Leaf to an effective $7,500 price increase. If you’re a dealer in the luxury space, how well are you able to identify potential customers for new EVs? If you’re not, what can you do to help customers who want an EV justify the price premium, and how can you identify the people for whom that sacrifice is worth it?

Some humans don’t welcome robot drivers

What: Police in areas where self-driving cars are being tested report a variety of human-on-robot “road rage” incidents, in which vehicles were run off the road, had their tires slashed or were vandalized or threatened.

Why: While there’s a lot to be said for the autonomous vehicle future, plenty of people are concerned about what it might mean for their communities and for themselves. Others simply prefer human interactions over engaging with automated systems. For dealers, it’s an opportunity to engage with their local community as the human face of their brand’s autonomous future strategy. It’s also a reminder of the importance of human connections when interacting with automotive consumers, even when it’s backed by complex and critical digital technologies. Remember, the root of “personalized” is “person,” and many consumers neither want nor trust automated interactions.

Fewer working customers in the future

What: After a long stretch of decline, the workforce participation rate – basically, the percentage of the adult population that’s either working or looking for work outside the home – ticked up again as core unemployment remained low. But economists warn the trend of more people dropping out of the workforce to resume for the foreseeable future.

Why: More people going to work every day in the short term means more potential customers. How does your dealership identify people who hadn’t been good candidates before due to lack of income, but might now need a new daily driver. Don’t forget that in the long term, estimates of future sales figures are often based on predictions of broad population size. But when increasing percentages of that population aren’t working – or aren’t working the kind of formal job that allows them to qualify for traditional automotive financing – how are they going to become your customers? How well do you know what your customers’ plans are for their own future, and what does that mean for their transportation purchasing plans?

How Can automotiveMastermind Help?

If you’re trying to predict the future, then it’s good to have predictive analytics on your side. Our technology helps you stay connected to changing buyer behaviors, changing industry conditions and evolving economies. Get in touch with us today to learn more.