We love to talk about the things we love. Whether it’s our favorite sports team or the new burger place we tried last night, we can’t seem to help ourselves when things delight us. And it’s totally natural. Almost effortless. It doesn’t feel at all like an advertisement to us or the person we’re sharing it with.

Anyone with a local business knows instinctively that they live and die by word-of-mouth. A recent study found that a staggering 90 percent of purchases are influenced by word-of-mouth.

But how can you get people to talk spontaneously about your dealership like this? The answer is surprisingly simple, yet profound - be remarkable.

Key Takeaways

1. How to give your customers a remarkable experience
2. How to kickstart a word-of-mouth engine for your dealership
3. Simple steps and takeaways to take “give your customers something to talk about”

To be systematically innovative you need to determine what is a great idea and a bet. Bet’s are fine, but you must be ready to move from them quickly. Bet on a new process or plan and then manicure it over and over before you scale it. Being innovative is not about the idea. It’s about the implementation and changes made to fit your current strategy. Listen to John Rossman talk about the big disconnect in everyone’s innovation plan.

Millennials have been labeled as many things but one of the things they look for most often in their careers might surprise you. Learn what is important to Millennials by watching the video.

Using Google My Business to its full ability will give your dealership a great marketing advantage. Utilizing the Q&A, post, services, and product sections to help you show all the things your dealership can offer prospective customers. Using Google My Business to its full extent will help your store be more visible to customers and more transparent to Google. 

The customer experience is much broader than the discovery or transaction portion of the experience. By understanding the details of the bad day of a customer you will be able to grow your customer experience. Find the breaks, the place where there is little transparency, and that is where you can start improving their experience. By attacking the details and trying to understand the customer will enable you to provide a better experience for all of your customers. 

AI is unbelievably powerful. AI is going to make the internet look like the opening act to a play once it is on the scene. Customers are all over the place when it comes to the car they want to buy. Often times they are looking at purchasing a vehicle for over 40 days and still haven’t narrowed down which car they want when they are 10 days away from the purchase. Learning how to target the ‘influence moment’ where you are most likely to drive a sale.

We sat down with Clint Pulver at DSES 2019 to discuss an empowered workforce. Many companies focus so heavily on the profit, margins, and numbers. They forget about the people. If you don't have a balance between the standards and the development of your organization, and the connection and the advocacy that you have as an employee then you will suffer with poor retention for this current generation. Great leaders have found a healthy balance of profit and productivity by empowering their people.

We sat down with Brittney Muller to talk about maintaining your online presence. Always making sure that your website is functioning exactly the way you intend can take a large part of your time and not leave any time left to be creative. You can get around this by automating certain steps in the maintenance process and setting up notification systems that alert you when anything goes wrong on your website. How do you handle maintenance for your website? 

Are you aware of what the search results are? If you create a piece of content and don’t have an image then you will struggle. If you go after only the high volume search then you will struggle. Improve your odds of ranking by seeing what is out there and then make yours better. If you are doing any type of SEO and aren’t aware of what the search results then that needs to change.

Give the consumer more confidence by creating an omnichannel experience. The speed, convenience, and transparency are great. While only a few people will do their whole purchasing process online, giving them the option to do so is important. You can’t afford not to offer an omnichannel experience. Your customers are getting the same experience with other industries. Engagement through technology enables your customers to feel confident.

Brian Skutta, President of Automotive at Spireon, talks about the value of technology in omnichannel today.