Introducing Google Plus Pages, Google Plus For Businesses & Brands

Well, they said they were working on it, and now it's finally here. Google Plus for businesses and brands is now a reality with the introduction of Google Plus Pages. Pages is basically the Google Plus version of Facebook Fan Pages, and gives businesses a chance to claim a profile on the social network so they can interact with and engage their customers and fans.

PCG Digital Marketing today announced that Dealer e Process was chosen to receive a 2011 Automotive Website Award (AWA) in the Technology category for Best Fixed Ops Website Marketing Software. Dealer e Process is also a 2010 and 2011 Pinnacle Award winner, the highest level award in the AWA, for search marketing. The awards were presented to the leading automotive website companies and software vendors at the AWA ceremony that took place October 7th at Caesars Palace, just prior to the DrivingSales Executive Summit.

The Technology category recognizes companies for excellence in website technology. This is a broader category that allows the AWA study team to adapt to changes in the marketplace and new solutions that may not have been on the radar screen the previous year. The Technology Awards also allows the AWA team to recognize products that have been road tested by dealers and have demonstrated outstanding value.

Dealer e Process Software Increases Fixed Ops Revenue

Car dealers looking for new ways to increase Fixed Ops revenue need to start with the basics. Dealer e Process took a hard look at the traffic that is already coming to service pages on dealer websites. They decided that they could increase the conversion experience by rethinking the appointment process. The result of their conversion and engagement study was the creation of the Virtual Service Advisor (VSA). The software replaces boring service appointment forms and interacts with consumers by providing live pricing and service suggestions for their vehicle. The end result is a 300% increase in service leads through this online scheduling tool when compared to service appointments booked with traditional “boring” forms.

The 4th annual Automotive Website Awards (AWA) are created by PCG Digital Marketing,, recognized leaders in automotive digital marketing strategies. For 2011, PCG Digital Marketing recognized the industry’s best website platforms across five different categories: design, technology, search marketing, mobile websites and mobile applications.

The Automotive Website Awards seek to provide car dealers with an unbiased evaluation of automotive website platforms and integrated search marketing tools. The 2011 AWA study included a review of over 50 automotive website providers.

This year’s published study includes 160 pages of valuable information regarding automotive website platform choices, search marketing performance, design, technology, social media and mobile applications. The report is the industry’s reference guide for the best in automotive website technology, design and marketing.

Dealers can purchase the 160 page buyer’s guide to help them with their purchasing decisions in the year ahead by visiting the official AWA website.

Everyday I wake up and head into the offices of Dealer e Process, I am systematically doing searches on Google to see what has changed from 24 hours ago. And guess what - here we go again! Do a search on your dealer name and take a look at Google's latest change to the bread crumbs for your dealers website.

These links, Search Inventory, Used Specials, Hours & Directions, Used Specials, Parts Department, Certified Inventory,  were known as bread crumbs to a website. Now, Google has quadrupled the size of these bread crumbs including a description and link to the appropriate portion of the website resulting into a loaf of bread!

Here is the golden question; How is your dealer website going to dictate which links Google decides to pull as a bread crumb? I would highly suggest that you make sure that all images and buttons on your website have the proper alt image tags in place, and every page of your website have unique meta data.

How does this benefit the dealer? The great part of all about this change, is it pushes the majority of third party listing for your dealership name "under the scroll", where nobody looks!

For those of you who know me, you know how I love to keep an eye on others industries in hopes of bringing great technology and insight to the auto industry. That being said, I was doing some searches this morning as I was working on a new SEO strategy for the Fixed Ops side of the business for Dealer e Process and dealer websites, when I discovered something new AGAIN.

Above the Place Page Listings, there is now Related Searches broken down by Brands, Stores, Types.

How will Google eventually determine which car BRAND manufacturers to show, which dealership STORES, to show, and which vehicle TYPES to show is anyones guess.

Take a look at the screen shot below of a search for "Brakes".

I'm sure it wont be long before we see this affecting your dealership, so stay tuned for more on this topic as I investigate further. I have performed numerous searches and at this point its hit or miss which searches pull this new special box. Here are a few examples; watches, tires.

Do some searches in your area, as this might be a market thing (I am doing searches from Chicago) and let's see if the results are the same.

Could you imagine what would happen if your searches the word "Cars" and the results for Brands, Stores, and Types left your dealership out of the mix? What is powering these results and when will it hit our industry?? Let's get in front of this change now.

The result of this dedicated service-scheduling site with a Virtual Service Consultant and the power of PPC marketing has been two fold. Not only did traffic dramatically increase, so did the conversion rate. Appointments from the site increased 685%, phone calls from the site increased 501%, the dealership doubled their online RO count and booked over $18,000 in additional revenue in the first month of the site being live. BMW Schereville has proven extreme ROI by the power of a dedicated site and search marketing for service scheduling to increase fixed ops revenue.

“I play a doctor on television”……………..

……..would you let him operate on you? Probably not- yet we still see time and time again people holding “Internet Marketing, Management, Director and/or Guru” titles in dealerships who have absolutely no right being at the helm of the Internet Sales Department ship. He or she interviewed well for the job, threw around the right buzz words and was convincing enough to get an offer letter. He or she talked a good talk, but once on the job they struggle to walk the walk.

Why is that? How does this happen and more importantly what can you do to make sure that when you are hiring for your Internet Department’s Manager you know what you are looking for?

You need to know and document (job description) what experience and skills you need for the sales end of things within your internet department and then identify what experience and skill you need for the technical, operational and promotional aspect of your Internet marketing- 2 separate individuals and/or skill sets. More often than not a store hires an Internet Manager with the expectation that the manager will:

• Provide IT support
• Manage the store(s) network
• Troubleshoot for end users of systems
• Manage the dealer’s websites(s)
• Promote the website (SEO and SEM)
• Promote the store (merchandizing of inventory and ecommerce marketing)
• Manage the departments staff- develop and motivate
• Manage the CRM and its users
• Manage Third Party lead providers
• Manager inventor on websites such as Cars.com & Autotrader
• Manage a pricing tool such as VAuto or Firstlook
• Sell the appointment, and in some stores sell the vehicle

These expectations are a very tall order for one person alone to pull off. The reality is that it will be like finding a needle in a haystack to fill a job description that lists all of those performance requirements. To fill that would mean finding someone who has the ability to deliver soft skills (sales, negotiating, communicating, rapport building –people skills etc) along with hard skills (vast technical knowledge, computer skills etc.)

Don’t get me wrong, it can be done, but it is very tough to find a candidate that possesses all of the skill sets necessary to fulfill each one of these requirements. Usually if a person is strong in soft skills they have a tendency to be weaker in the hard skills and vice a versa. Not impossible, just unlikely.

We have a tendency to do what I call “easy hires” in dealerships. Here is the scenario; we like a particular sales guy or girl, she or he is just not quite cutting the mustard in the sales department, they have a knack for computer knowledge, you find yourself going to him or her when there is a “technical issue” with your network or something computer related. What do you do? Well a lot of stores take someone like this and place them at the helm of that Internet Department ship or the BDC- you give them the scalpel and sutures and tell them to get to work. Best intentions are usually at play here but a set up for mediocrity at best for the employee and the department.

Your Internet Department cannot thrive with mediocrity. If you want to own your segment of the market you have to do what everyone else isn’t doing.

If your hiring for the department is an outside job be careful that you are not looking for the “Geek Squad” guy or girl to come cruising in with a pocket protectors, radiation burns from their computer screens and a plethora of Internet Marketing and technology buzz words they throw around……this is not a sound criteria in which to decide to offer them the Internet Department Manager position either. This type will do well with your technical and operational end of things but typically fail miserably when it comes to people skills necessary for sales.

The most successful Internet Departments I ever worked with had 2 captains at the helm. They did not necessarily share “captain” title either. The Internet Manager was the driver of the department- the people driver and his or her “assistant” was the technical guru. A good Internet Manager will see to it that his or her department is structured that way. A good Internet Manager (or any manager for that matter) knows exactly his or her weaknesses and hires and develops people around themselves accordingly.

I recommend when interviewing, that first and foremost on your interview question sheet is how the candidate plans on creating a fine oiled machine. This will help you to determine with all that is needed to be done well in your Internet Department if this person has the leadership qualities necessary to identify deficiencies and find or develop their people to support them..

Dave Page

Dealer e Process

I had an epiphany the other day. The number one concern that people have when doing business with a dealership is that they are going to be taken advantage of. People are afraid of the car buying process and even more concerned when bringing their vehicle in for service. My epiphany concerns the later.

Minimize the “fear” and uncertainty for a customer visiting a service department and you can only increase business. It’s that simple. Where do you start? With your website!

With a few simple steps you can not only lead the horse to water (your website/service department) but you can also dramatically increase their likelihood of drinking (setting an appointment to visit your service department).

Statistically 83% of customers who buy from a dealership do NOT return the vehicle to that dealerships service department after the sale. That is a lot of lost service opportunity for a store.  A sure fire way to increase service traffic off of your sold units and capture some of that 83% is to drive these people to your website and reiterate to them the benefits of servicing their vehicles with you. In order to do this effectively there are a few steps you can take to lead the horse to water and to make him drink. Here are a few recommendations:

1)      48 hours after the sale have an email sent (another incentive to get this from the customer as they are buying!) from the Service Director introducing their department and directing the customer to the website for all future service needs. Provide sold customers an online incentive to visit your service department. For instance, provide that first oil change at a discounted or no charge rate, offer a free car wash, etc.  In other words, make it worth their while to come back.

2)      Remember service clinics? When was the last time you had one at your dealership? What a perfect time to cover the vehicle and its needs and explain to them the new way you do business, ONLINE.

3)      Have a dedicated web page exclusively representing your service department; better yet invest a little money in a auto dealer service website. Divert a few bucks from your ad budget to drive traffic to your service department. After all isn’t it your service department that keeps your dealership afloat during stormy weather?

4)      Make sure that you have a live chat option so that visitors can ask questions as they navigate through your service page or site.

5)      Create an intuitive experience- an experience that gives the visitor a sense you KNOW the vehicle they are driving as well as the preventative care it requires in order to be well maintained. Perhaps a Virtual Service Consultant. When a customer visits your service website and puts his or her information in to start an investigative or appointment setting process, provide manufacturer maintenance recommendations and/or dealer recommendations and services for their specific vehicle.

6)      Create a fear relieving experience for your service “shopper”. Post awards, testimonials, and community involvement information along with printable coupons and incentives to visit your store.

7)      Provide a comparative price schedule for regular maintenance needs. For instance create a matrix that outlines, oil change, tire rotation, brakes, A/C checks etc. and a list of local aftermarket shops/competitors such as Midas, Firestone, Jiffy Lube. Give your shoppers what they need so they do not have to leave your site and possibly not return.

8)      Do not be afraid to quote a price. We overcame this fear with cars shoppers and we need to do the same with our service shoppers.

It is time that we dismiss the perception consumers have regarding our dealerships service departments. Our advisors, writers, techs and mechanics are highly trained and more qualified than the aftermarket place down the street. It is time that we take back what we gave away by leading the horse back to the water and making them WANT to drink it. You can most cost effectively do that starting with your internet marketing. Make these tweaks today and watch your service appointments start to increase tomorrow.

Dave Page

Dealer e Process

Recently I had a candid conversation with a dealer regarding his “weathering” of our recent economic storm. He emphasized that he was able to keep his stress level to a minimum due to his experience and forward thinking and execution of a sound plan in good times.

He shared with me that the 5 years prior to this recession he put his past experiences to work and created a plan to cultivate and maintain a strong service department. As he put it “I had seen as a young professional in this industry the power of a strong service department in tough economic times and its ability to carry a store until the storm had passed. I took that first-hand experience and when I obtained my own store made that part of my long term business plan and it worked again, just as it had in the past”

As I listened to his strategy in a nutshell; marketing, advertising, appreciation of solid service employees and follow up along with his monetary investment in building the service side of his dealership- there was not even one mention of his using his website as a service revenue generating tool. He used the standard old school techniques which in the grand scheme of things capped him from an affordability standpoint on the size of the market he could capture. Old school advertising and marketing using print, radio and mail could not reach the size audience he could have reached using the Internet. In spite of this though, he was successful. I can only imagine how much more successful he could have been had he placed priority on using his website as a service revenue generating tool.

This got me to thinking- how many dealers out there really give the marketing, advertising and development of their service departments the attention they deserve? When you take into consideration that 20% of people who walk onto a showroom floor buy and 100% who walk into a service department buy- might make sense to pay this red headed stepchild of a store a little attention.

When is the last time you saw a dealership website emphasize it’s service department on the Internet and focus on driving traffic in with it? For grins, go to Google and search “oil change” or “brakes” or “automotive repair”…….if you find what I found you will be hard pressed to find a dealership on the first 1-2 pages and most likely not at all in sponsored links. You might as well have a banner in the desert at this point, considering 87% of all Internet shoppers never go past the first page, 4.4% will go to the second and less than 2% will flip to the 3^rd page on a search engine result page.

When you search these keywords or key phrases you will see nothing but aftermarket service providers, Jiffy, Midas, Merlin…these are the guys that are taking your service business and doing quite well with it thank you very much. As a dealer, you have the advantage with a customer who has bought a vehicle- and statistically you keep 11% of your sold customers as service clients. REASON- the only thing the general public has ingrained in their heads is that a dealership charges more and takes more time than an aftermarket “service providers”.

Time to change that, give the attention to your service department that it deserves after “carrying” you more times than not. Market, advertise, educate consumers as to the value, features and benefits of using your service department versus one of those “other guys”….and whatever you do- USE YOUR WEBSITE…that’s where consumers are looking and from what I have seen that’s exactly where your competition is corralling them to their bays…….while maybe yours sit empty…

Just a thought.

Does your store play the sales game with a style similar to Tiger Woods? Does your store “appear” to be a great professional, ethical and respectful player at first only to prove otherwise once a customer sets foot in your store? Let me ask it another way; does your Internet and/BDC department perform  like a competitive “pro” on your first nine holes of the sales game, getting them in the door- only to find your sales department causes the game to fall apart with a weak and cheap approach on the back nine of the sales round? Does a less than satisfactory number make you feel like you were chased and beat with a 9 iron?

 Automotive sales are much like the game of golf: there is a front nine and a back nine to the “game”. 80%+ of the time the front nine of the game, generating and cultivating of the sales leads, takes place in an Internet and/or BDC department through an Internet lead or phone up.  When the front nine is “played” well in a store, there is an appointment set by your Internet and/or BDC department. This appointment “shows” and the back nine of the game is played out. There is either a “score” (sale) or the brutal reality that you just played an expensive round and you are a shankapotomus. When you compare the cost of advertising and doing business with today’s green fees you can see that blowing a sale in your store on the back nine can cost more than a round of golf, and isn’t nearly as much fun.

 Here are 3 things to consider for increasing your stores likelihood of a playing a great back nine once the front nine has been completed:

 First impressions- you never get a second chance to make a first impression. Cliché I know, but so critical in this case. Do you know how many times I have walked into a store to find an antiquated “firing squad tower” of sales managers? To the average visitor this presentation is menacing to say the least, makes one feel as though they are approaching the Wizard of Oz.

Let’s start with body language- smiles are usually at a premium in stores that have less than stellar closing ratios. I once visited 17 stores in one day and made a note of the number of stores where I was greeted by a warm friendly face. Three (3), that’s right THREE stores used smiles as part of their sales process. Not surprising to me, these were the only 3 stores out of the 17 that had sales activity underway. Coincidence? The other 14 stores sales people all looked as if they were fed the same Ex-Lax frosted brownies.

If you cannot be a welcoming environment in the first 30 seconds of a prospects visit- you substantially lower your likelihood of a sale. (Regardless of how wonderful the appointment setter is). Remembering here that a customer can drive 10 miles in either direction of your store and most likely find a like or exact vehicle to the one that brought them into your store. Customers are looking for a SALESPERSON first- car second.

 Transition from Internet/BDC sales lead to sales floor opportunity- make the appointed prospect feel “expected” and special- you and I know just how “special” they are (it’s what we are all working so hard for right? The appointment?)….let them know how “special” they are, give the impression you have been waiting for them when they arrive. Appointment boards where the prospect can see it is a huge tool for this effect. A store I worked in Seattle made sure that every appointment whenever possible was posted on the managers appointment board and the vehicle of interest was prepped and sitting ready for a test drive in a designated “holding” area- cleaned, warmed up or cooled off.

 Communication- Make sure the right hand knows what the left hand is doing. This is a leading factor of a debacle in a store that has an Internet/BDC department which creates appointments for sales people. Your departments have to be on the same page ALL the time. This starts with how you present your store, inventory and specials on your website and in your advertising.  Once a prospect gets ONE piece of information different from what he or she received from the Internet/BDC department- your credibility has taken a hit and you will spend a significant amount of time having to rebuild it in order to move the prospect along in the process. Once you have created this shake in credibility- it is very hard- if not impossible to regain control and rapport with the prospect. A critical factor; sharing of correspondence and ALL information that the prospect has received from your store prior to their visit making sure that there is consistency in your communications with the prospects across the board.

 By making sure you have these few consistent policies in place you can greatly improve your likelihood of closing those much cherished Internet and/or BDC appointments. Play the whole game with professionalism, integrity and respect towards your prospects- remembering they can “play around” at dozens of other courses but they chose yours- Show em that you are truly the Jack Nicklaus of the game.

Dealer E Process

For more information on Internet/BDC Consulting, Contact Dealer e Process at 877-551-2555

FINE WINE

Is your inventory like a fine wine aging to “perfection?” The word “age” and the word “inventory” used in the same sentence in our industry spells COST- to you!

 My job is to go through dealer’s websites and analyze their web presence, the “stickiness” of its visitors and the websites general effectiveness as it relates to ecommerce efficiency and inventory management.

 I have noticed over the last 2 months a phenomenon as I visit hundreds of dealer websites a week- less than 20% have advertized updated specials for their aging inventory- and typically the ones that DON’T have the oldest inventory. As a matter of fact over 50% of the sites visited had NO advertised specials at all. I found quite a few dealer sites that had large amounts of inventory that had been sitting on their lots for two, three and four hundred plus days! Yes you read that right. One particular site showed an average of over 200 days in stock for well over 40% of their total inventory

 In tough times we are going to see these numbers increase- but what baffles me is the majority of stores do nothing to merchandize the aging inventory aggressively through their website capabilities or their inventory management tools. Plain and simple, they do very little if anything to get the word out to move the inventory. There is no excuse for inventory of this age in these numbers sitting on a retailer’s lot, especially in the age of the Internet.

 Your website is the place to feature the inventory that is costing you money with every day that it sits there-SPECIALS.  With the features available to you through your website provider and/or inventory management systems you are only (or should be) a click away from pushing the old stuff to the front of the line so your store can wave it’s arms alerting shoppers of your eagerness to deal on these units. There are no excuses anymore for not advertising specials because it has never been easier. A well managed website, with a constant eye on inventory is all you need to tackle this problem.

 Well Managed Website

This means make sure you have someone who really knows how to navigate and maximize your website from the back end and utilizing all features. This doesn’t mean that just because your cousin’s brothers girlfriend is out of a job and “is really good on the computer” she is a “really good” candidate for the job of your ecommerce. Neither is an existing porter who “wants to move up and is good on the computer”. Make sure you have the right person and then turn to your web provider to provide training and support for this person. Use this aspect of their services- it is there (or should be) and it is invaluable to you.

 (Make sure that who ever is going to be responsible for the management of your website has examples through references of his or her work and involvement with past employers eCommerce and webmaster tasks.)

Quite often dealerships throw the responsibility of managing their website into the job description of their Internet or BDC Manager. Quite often these people are not qualified in the areas that one needs to be qualified in order to effectively manage a stores marketing through the website. Most of the time a good Internet and or BDC Managers area of expertise is process management and people skills (or that is where it should be). That is where their efforts need to remain. Outsourcing for the management of the website from a merchandizing and marketing standpoint quite often is the most effective approach. Allow your Internet and/or BDC Managers to do what they do- manage the various sales opportunities you hired them to manage.

I am not saying here that there aren’t people out there who possess the skill sets required to be successful Internet/BDC Managers AND eCommerce webmaster experts who merchandize and market your inventory effectively- but there are two opposite skill sets required for these jobs that are not usually found in the same person. Personality competencies alone for these two job types are typically opposite ends of the charts- so it is hard to find a person who possesses both. Not impossible, but unlikely.

 Constant Inventory Management

It needs to be part of your stores daily process to review your inventory through your inventory management system. This needs to be done by sales management FIRST, with instruction to the eCommerce webmaster SECONDLY as to what needs to be moved and at what price. If you coordinate sales management (new and used) to work with your Website manager (master, administrator etc.) daily at the beginning of each shift the process will take less than 15 minutes per day once you have dialed into having specials managed effectively.

 Your inventory control system should provide you with all that you need to monitor and track every aspect of your inventory. Reports are but a click away as is the ability to feature inventory that needs to move. If everyone is doing their jobs correctly, all data is being entered as it should be, every shift should be looking at real time available inventory and specials that are designed to get the inventory off the lot. Once a week a queue can be done to run a report to see what worked as far as how things were “specialized” and what didn’t work. Moving forward, you will have a plan with proven successes behind you to put into place each time a vehicle hits that “dinosaur” status.

 Incentivizing your sales, BDC and Internet personnel is also an effective way to move old product. Spiffs that make it worth while for a rep to “feature” a special when talking to a customer will dramatically shorten a vehicles shelf life. If you have a sea of vehicles on the lot and no one knows what is 200 days old- then how can you expect people to emphasize a “special”.

 An Internet shopper can more easily be appointed if during communication with him/her your people are able to stress to them that the “special” advertised on the website is on the lot ready for them to see. Then make sure you have a sign on that “special” vehicle coordinating with what was said about the vehicle on your website. The days of mystic secrecy of “Internet Deals” need to come to an end. They are confusing to your staff, the customer and counter productive for your store as a whole. How many times have you heard either a client OR one of your employees say “I didn’t know that this vehicle was offered as a special on the Internet?” If you are going to advertise specials then advertise specials- so everyone knows, not just the Internet shopper and the Internet department. Lack of communication is what causes discrepancy within a dealership with both disappointed shoppers and employees. Loose loose.

  To sum this all up, a bit of familiarizing or re-familiarizing yourself as well as your sales employees with your websites capabilities in merchandizing and inventory control through the help of your website provider is key to moving old inventory.

Committing to a 15 minute daily regime with the joint involvement of your Webmaster, Internet/BDC and Sales Management staff will allow you to create the consistency required to manage inventory and greatly reduce the problem. Using the features of your webs eCommerce capabilities, along with pulling your staff together you can painlessly correct this problem with resources you have available to you at no additional cost.