While Digital Retailing has remained a buzz word within the industry, the situation we are all currently facing has turned us talking about it into actualizing it in our uncharted new normal. How we actually approach Digital Retailing, however, varies drastically dealer to dealer. Namely, it is easy to talk about what Digital Retailing potentially means, or promoting it on your website - but when it comes to actualizing an internal process, marketing it, and, more importantly, managing the touch-points, there is a lot to accomplish. 

Here are some of the key components to consider when approaching digital retailing. 

Digital Retailing is More than Just Updating Your Website. What is Your Actual Process? What Does Digital Retailing Mean? 

For so long, the digital retailing conversation encapsulated the idea of having a physical cart on your website. The idea that the customer could add a vehicle to a cart and move through the various steps. And while that is a unique idea, it's the steps that define your sales process that count. 

There has to be a clearly defined process that both your dealer teams and customers will easily be able to follow. The notion that merely saying you offer "shopping" from home or "contactless delivery" does not mean anything to the customer. Your dealer teams also must understand every step of the process, everything from inventory selection (needs analysis), credit applications, trade-ins, delivery, and OEM delivery guidelines, to name a few. One of the most essential steps in this online process is the needs analysis. In that, when the customer does select the vehicle they are interested in, you are making sure it is the vehicle they would like to test drive by confirming their needs, wants, and desires in features, etc. 

So what does this process look like? 

Marketing & Sales Process: A transparent process that is outlined on your dealer's website, which really should be its own page - perhaps something to the effect of "contactless delivery." On that page, you can easily layout the actual process. 

Step One:  complete the needs analysis - the customer selects their vehicle of interest.

Step Two: complete the pre-approval process. 

Step Three: select an at-home consultation time.

Step Four: complete the trade-in process.

Step Five: complete the at-home delivery and OEM delivery process. 

Outlining the core steps will make it easier for your customer to know what to expect. As for the actual in-person at-home consultation, you need to outline, again, what the customer can expect in person. For example, you can outline the process - mirroring the above - informing the customer that you will bring the vehicle to them for a test drive, complete a trade-in analysis, etc. 

As for the Other Components to the At-Home Process, Here Are Other Items to Consider: 

Trade-in: This is probably one of the hardest components of the at-home delivery process. Where we must test drive their trade-in and do a complete analysis. However, with all of the tools we have out there - including being able to take photos of the vehicle sending them to the sales manager - we can help our used car sales managers by gathering as much information as possible. 

One of the other things you can do - depending on how far the dealership is from the customer - is after taking the test drive, take their trade-in back to the dealership allowing the customer to keep that brand-new vehicle in their driveway! But make no mistake, the trade-in process has to be transparent! The last thing you want to do is wind up having this process become much like it is at the dealership: the wizard behind the curtain, no? 

Instead of being the wizard behind the curtain - for those of you who use trade-in tools - you can complete the "walk-around" taking photos, and offer the customer the "range," which is entirely based on the information entered. Now (and I can hear the disinterest already), you have to train your sales consultants to make sure they are capturing the core components of the walk-around: tire test, dings, scratches, accidents, and how many owners to name a few. By offering the customer a thorough walk-around, the customer might actually even point out issues with the vehicle! Lastly, the sales consultant has to be honest and explain that the final trade-in value is subject to a final approval! 

OEM Delivery: More often than not, the OEM delivery process is a means of keeping the customer "occupied" while they wait to get into finance. But if we take a step back and think about it for a minute, isn't the customer a bit too preoccupied with what's arguably one of the most stressful parts of the process? By working with the customer at home - on their turf - the customer might be more invested in learning about their new vehicle. The other big difference with the at-home delivery is that instead of waiting on more than one customer at a time, you are giving the customer your undivided attention! What isn't the customer going to not like about that!? 

Social Media & Follow-Up: Given that the customer is on their own turf, they might be more inclined to allow you to take a photo of their new vehicle on their driveway! It does not get any better than that, no!? You also want to make sure that you take the time to follow-up with the customer, which means also offering another "at-home" follow-up consultation to revisit any features that they are either unaware of or having trouble with. If you can accomplish that before they receive the OEM survey, it could have a positive impact on your dealers CSI, but more importantly, it also means that you have a happier, stress-free customer. 

Bottom Line: Is there a lot involved with this process? Yes! Will it be easy to implement at your dealership? No! However, for those dealerships that are willing to make the investment - offering their customers a new experience - it can have a positive impact on your dealership's bottom line. But to make that happen, as mentioned above, there has to be a self-explanatory front-facing process that both your sales consultants and customers can easily understand. The other facet to making this a success is ensuring that your dealer follows the process. And while we all struggle with break-points in the process, it is much harder to "control" those break-points when you are on the customer's turf! 

Have you adopted digital retailing? If so what are some of the successes or obstacles you are facing? More so, how has your dealership handled those obstacles?