State after state, Tesla has scrapped and clawed their way into the fray in a model that shirks the automotive retail norm: direct-to-consumer sales. While ten states still outright ban direct sales, 20 have explicitly allowed Tesla to sell directly to the consumer in some capacity. The fight against the sales model has largely been from dealers and dealer associations that aim to make Tesla conform to laws that have stood since the ‘30s.

But now it’s a whole new ball game. Laws are still in place but the new normal may never favor the current retail automotive model again. The longer coronavirus keeps us from operating the way we once did as a society, the more potential exists for a significant shift in how things are done.

Please know that I am NOT advocating for direct-to-consumer sales. Rather, I’m pointing out that dealers need to be aware of the car buyer’s mentality and know how to work their own angle.

Fully Online Sales

Tesla’s model is almost exclusively an online sales experience. In a couple dozen states, there are outlets where shoppers can view and test the vehicles, but orders are placed online. It eliminates nearly any exposure to potential hazards like COVID-19 and is much more convenient.

How to Fight It

Don’t. Sell online. It’s an option that’s growing in popularity and dealers should be prepared for it.

No-Pressure Experience

When you shop with direct-to-consumer retailers whether it’s automotive or otherwise, there’s very little pressure during or after to complete your purchase. And if there is pressure, it’s with an easily avoidable phone call or an email or text message you can simply not reply to. Shopping is at your own pace.

How to Fight It

Make it about the shopping experience rather than the sale. Car shoppers appreciate the human contact and relationship development from an in-dealership experience, not to mention an overwhelming desire for a test drive, when it’s done right.

No-Touch Deliveries

Today, there’s fear of contact that will last well beyond the thick of the pandemic. It’s bound to affect how customers feel about someone previously test driving a vehicle they’re hoping to buy. With no-touch deliveries, exposure to others is extremely limited, plus it’s sanitized thoroughly at the time of delivery.

How to Fight It

Customers will expect the same from a dealership. Test drives could be limited to a select vehicles while the vehicle they’ll take home is left untouched on the lot as inventory. Prove to customers that you’re doing everything possible to limit contact with their new car.

Again, I’m not saying that direct-to-consumer sales are right or wrong but they certainly are different. And they’re positioned perfectly to take away business from traditional dealers. As others like Rivian come to market, you’ll need to identify and mitigate their advantages and turn their disadvantages into reasons why customers should shop at your store instead.

‘Live On Location’ radio shows are still a staple in Saturday morning car sales. It’s been an effective way of capturing an audience’s attention and drumming up leads to move metal. Despite the growing enthusiasm behind music streaming services like Spotify and Pandora, as well as SiriusXM satellite radio, AM/FM radio continues to be the more popular choice.

Radio doesn’t appear to be in decline just yet. But there are options for advertising locally that can double down on the effective strategies you already have in place. I’m talking about digital influencers in your area.

What Digital Influencers Do

If you watch YouTube videos, you’re probably familiar with the group known as digital influencers. They are the ‘host of the show’ typically, whether it’s for car reviews, outdoor adventures, product reviews, or a day-in-the-life-of type videos.

Many digital influencers are multi-channel owners like Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. Their channels can have hundreds of thousands or even millions of subscribers. And when they post content, it’s immediately gobbled up.

It’s not uncommon for vendors to sponsor local influencers. Fishing videos are often sponsored by Mystery Tackle Box, for example. The message comes across loud and clear as an endorsement. And it’s all because these lay people have connected with a crowd better than almost anyone. Better than you.

How You Could Use Digital Influencers for Your Dealership

There is an incredible sense of connection that followers have to influencers. If you read comments or follow their social media stories, you’ll come across opportunities for a meet-and-greet with these online stars. And suddenly, they have that voice that people take for gospel.

Use these to your advantage.

Find a Local Influencer

Online, marketing gurus are quick to offer ways to find influencers for your niche. Absolutely DON’T do that. Growing dealership business with an online influencer is going to take going outside your industry. You want someone that will tell their diverse audience why they should visit you, not a group of car nuts that they should visit a car dealership. The goal should be tapping into new demographics.

Put some time into your search for local online personalities. It honestly doesn’t matter what industry they’re from. You’re looking for someone with a positive voice and has tons of followers – over 1 million, preferably.

Give the Influencer a Reason to Promote

Here’s where you pony up. A solicited message has to be authentic for their audience. You could sponsor an episode of their show in exchange for a shout-out, but that’s not getting you anywhere. Put them in your metal. Give them a short-term lease or one of your most popular models for the week to review. That’ll give them something to talk about on their show. Make specific requirements in exchange such as at least 60 seconds in three video intros promoting your business.

Host a Meet-and-Greet

You wouldn’t believe how many people want to shake hands with the influencers they follow on social media. When you host a meet-and-greet at your store, you can count on droves showing up. You’re putting local residents on your lot, which you know is a great way to showcase your products.

MediaKix research shows that 89 percent of marketers find that “ROI from influencer marketing is comparable to or better than other channels”. As well, 71 percent agree that the quality of customers and traffic from influencer marketing is better than other marketing sources.

In the digital age, you might want to explore additional marketing opportunities. Print is gone the way of the buffalo, but radio is still effective. But online influencers are a relatively untapped source in the automotive industry. Be an early adopter.

I can’t help but sense that most of the retail automotive world feels threatened by the push toward an online sales experience. It’s been coming for well over a decade in a mainstream fashion, not just as a flash-in-the-pan trend. It’s not a Tickle Me Elmo or a Slap Chop. Buying online is going to stay, and it’s going to become the crux of the retail automotive business. It didn’t come up out of thin air, so it shouldn’t be taking any manufacturers or dealers by surprise.

What it should have done by now is triggered opportunities in your head. There should be a list on your desk of ways your dealership or department can capitalize on the online automotive marketplace. It should be an ever-present thought in mind because it’s not ten years or even five years away. It could very well be the biggest news story of 2018.

If you’re stuck in the mindset that online sales and out-of-dealership sales experiences are doom and gloom, it will be. But for dealers who welcome a better customer experience, it offers ample opportunities to thrive and grow.

It Expands Your Sales Radius

It makes sense with a brick-and-mortar sales process to target the prospects closest to your home base. With online sales, you can advertise and extend your range effectively, so long as your inventory and staffing are sufficient.

Three-quarters of online car shoppers still want to drive before they buy. Extending your store’s sales range requires putting cars near them. It can be as easy as renting a secure compound or storefront as a satellite location, stocking it with common vehicles, then sending a product advisor to meet interested clients off-site.

It Minimizes Tire-Kickers

Every online lead is a serious sales opportunity that is only a click away. What previously needed to be filtered for quality leads is chock full of prospects who want you to help them finish their car buying experience on the spot (their spot, not yours).

It Provides More Opportunity for Your Service Department

Selling cars online is a starting point – soon, all your products will need to be offered remotely. The service department can begin offering at-home basic services to secure customer loyalty, and pick-up and delivery valet services obviously keep your customers’ attention and all but eliminate a wandering eye for service providers.

It sounds like more of an annoyance, more trouble than it’s worth, but it’s what the coming trend demands. It’s this or a steep drop-off in service traffic.

Prepare for It!

If you have a traditional store currently, it doesn’t take much at the store level to develop an online car buying experience. Only a few items need to be done to get your building and staffing in place:

• You’ll need more staff. Valets, product advisors, and service staff, specifically. Because you need to be increasingly mobile, you need to add personnel that can handle the influx of outbound traffic.
• Mobile service units. It’s quite basic, really, requiring a mobile lift, a set of mechanic’s tools, a mobile air compressor, and a parts department that can quickly equip the service unit with the right parts they need for the job they are going to.

The harder part isn’t at your store level. You need to implement changes that go beyond your four walls.

• Make online sales part of your brand image. You’ll want to consult an advertising expert for the best way to do so.
• Develop your online content. Your website must offer a seamless experience for the sale or the frustrated customer will simply click over to another dealer. Create valuable content, evergreen blogs, new model descriptions, and in-dealership product videos. Make it so the shopper doesn’t need to go elsewhere for information.
• Get your F&I department ready for the road. Armed with videos showing the benefits of the products they offer, a connected tablet or computer to serve the customer remotely, and a customer-centric focus, the F&I staff will need to become mobile to round out the complete out-of-dealership selling experience.

Word-of-mouth is the best source of advertising there is, and it’s also the least expensive. On the opposite end, a bad customer experience is incredibly costly and damaging for the same reasons. When people have a really good or really bad experience, they tell their friends and family. And often, it’s not the sales department experience that drives customers down the street.

Personal Experience Tells the Tale

I’ll speak from personal experience, but take it for what it’s worth: a car industry professional taking the family vehicle in for service.

I’ve taken our SUV into the selling dealership, where I used to work and left on good terms. I’ve requested the routine maintenance and all seemed to go swimmingly, although notoriously slow. Returning to pick up our vehicle (without a phone call to say it’s ready), I paid the invoice and was on my way. No description of the service, no contact from the advisor after check-in, nothing.

Later, when reviewing the invoice, I discover work that needs to be done. A loose tie rod and stabilizer link, brake pads are worn. Obviously missing from the checklist are routine services that have yet to be completed, including transmission fluid and transfer case fluid.

I dealt with the poor service through management, but that’s not the point here. What I’m getting at is that the horrid service I received tainted me against the dealership. My wife absolutely loves our SUV and would never want to trade it in. But she won’t set foot in the service department herself for the same reasons I’ve explained.

If something happened to our beloved SUV, would we return to buy a replacement at that dealership? Not a hope in Hades. The service experience has been so terrible that we wouldn’t even consider it.

The Layperson is More Sensitive Yet

If you’re reading this, you’re probably an automotive industry professional as well, in some capacity or another. We’ve become desensitized to some of the problems experienced. I know from my personal service department experience in the past that I often thought customers were overreacting to ‘minor inconveniences’ in their visit, but it was ME underreacting.

You can’t tell a customer how they should feel. That doesn’t work. If a customer is discouraged, upset, feels neglected or under-serviced, there’s a two-part solution: acknowledge their frustration, then work to correct it. You just might be able to turn their experience around so they give you another shot.

More importantly, you want to be proactive instead of reactive. When you implement the best practices in your service department environment, you can avoid a customer’s displeasure in the first place. For my service visit, all it would have taken is a phone call or text message. Contact me to tell me that I have additional repairs required. Let me know when my vehicle is ready. And it definitely wouldn’t hurt to check my service history and sell me the services I need completed.

Customers WILL Explore Their Options

A displeased customer has options, whether you want to acknowledge it or not. Your service department may be their only local choice for warranty and you might be the authority on the particular brand. As in my situation, you store could lose out on potential new and used car sales due poor service on the back end.

To be crystal clear, for every customer you lose because of poor service in the back end, you’ll lose at least a few more. Statistics say that customers who are unhappy tell seven people of their experience. Are you willing to lose out on those potential customers?

I can guarantee that my selling dealer has lost out on sales because of MY experience. I’ve advised people who are searching for their next vehicle, and that advice never includes my selling dealer. As much as we love our SUV, we don’t want to hurt relationships by sending someone to a frustrating service department.