This is a guest blog by Carla Fitzgerald, Chief Marketing Officer of Spireon.

Carla is speaking at DSES in a breakout titled, Next Generation Automotive Customer Lifecycle: How Connectivity is Transforming the Buying Experience for Consumers and Dealers Alike.

Connectivity is a central part of the human experience in 2018. Many of us keep tabs on family and friends through text messages and location sharing apps, as well as follow our favorite celebrities and athletes through Twitter and Instagram. Imagine trying to pick up someone from the airport without first tracking his or her flight status, checking real-time traffic to the airport, and — maybe most importantly — using texts to know exactly when he or she is ready and by which landmark to meet. (Unfortunately, some of us lived through that era, and we’re still traumatized.)

The point is, connectivity is ubiquitous. It’s grown beyond the novelty of arbitrarily knowing where someone is on a map; in business specifically, it enables efficiencies we never before thought possible.

Creating Loyal Customers

In auto sales, customer lifecycle is king. A great buying experience leads into a long service relationship, which leads into the next car purchase, and so on. After years of building trust and solidifying ties, you may have yourself a lifelong customer who is faithful to you and your brand. This is the customer who turns down overtures from your competitors, both in sales and service, because he or she trusts you. This customer spends all of his or her car budget with you.

Sounds good, right? Well, with the latest technology on your side, you can cultivate legions of lifelong customers. The key lies in connectivity.

Connected cars are not new, but their utilization by auto dealers to improve the customer lifecycle is. Connected car technology leads to invaluable data — data that can be analyzed to uncover dealer and consumer blind spots throughout the customer lifecycle. Data analytics can identify factors at the dealership that affect what consumers set out to buy and what they ultimately end up buying. Data analytics can show you how to best manage your inventory to make the greatest impact on sales. And with customer connectivity data as your guide, you can align dealer operations to improve consumer engagement and loyalty.

Giant Data

We hear a lot about the data revolution. It’s a big concept that one might look at as some fairytale giant sleeping in the woods of some far off fantasy land (or Silicon Valley). Well look out folks — that big data giant is awake and approaching all the dealer lots in the land! As he approaches yours, you’ll need the tools to train him to be manageable and articulate, and before you know it, he’ll begin sharing the trends and critical insights to help you turn every customer experience into a golden goose.

Come join me at Innovating on Customer Experience, the mightiest breakout session in all DSES 2018, on Monday, Oct. 22, at 11:15 a.m. I’ll introduce you to how connectivity and vehicle intelligence is transforming the customer lifecycle for the next generation.

Carla Fitzgerald is chief marketing officer at Spireon, provider of Kahu vehicle intelligence built for dealers, and an industry veteran with more than 25 years of experience in mobile and wireless technologies. Outside of work, she enjoys dog walks by the beach, great meals with family, and tracking her son’s vehicle trip history and speed alerts with Kahu.