Over the last few years, Cobalt has been trying to win over their dealers and build confidence in them as a website provider.  In the last 12-18 months, they have really switched gears and wanted to focus on SEO.  With the help of Google Guru, Brian Pasch, they made some changes in how they can help dealers with their websites.  The biggest change in the last 18 months is the url’s on specific vehicles are now including year, make, model, and city with Brian’s suggestions which will optimize the search within Google, Bing, and Yahoo. 

Fast forward to July 21^st.  Cobalt just released PowerSEO.  There are only a handful of dealers on the program right now as it has just been rolled out.  PowerSEO is targeted to generate more organic traffic to the dealer’s website, which we all want.  Each dealer will be assigned an SEO specialist which will monitor and optimize the dealer’s website and pages with the dealer’s marketing goals.  They will do it all for you. 

1. They will set up all of the business listing pages on Google Places, Yahoo Local, and Bing Local.  They will also synchronize all of the information on online directories and yellow page websites. 
2. Monitor and analyze their website continuously for keyword content.
3. Perform regular optimization to improve the visibility of their website to search engines.
4. Do quarterly review of PowerSEO performance with the dealer.

Dealers will be able to access performance reports in the Dealer Command Center on a daily basis to see how they are performing in the search engines and see what the keywords that are working the best are.

Cobalt did do a pilot with 5 different GM dealers prior to the launch of the product.  They saw significant improvement in their organic traffic.  Traffic was up about 10% just due to the optimization tweaks that Cobalt did with the SEO Specialist.  The pages that they focused on were the New Vehicle Search, Used Vehicle Search, Finance, Hours & directions, and Parts and Service.  Here is a shot of what was improved:

 There There are obvious benefits to this program.  It will drive more organic traffic to your website, which has a higher closing rate than your third party leads.  Make you more visible on all of the search engines.  Increase your Google, Bing, and Yahoo search results pushing your competitors down the page.  The one thing that I liked is that it takes a lot of work off the dealer’s hands and they can focus on what we do best, and that is sell some cars. 

If you are a Cobalt dealer or have an ADP Digital Marketing package, you can contact Ellen Jones or your representative from Cobalt and they can get you set up with this program and take you to the next level. 

Over the last few years, Cobalt has been trying to win over their dealers and build confidence in them as a website provider.  In the last 12-18 months, they have really switched gears and wanted to focus on SEO.  With the help of Google Guru, Brian Pasch, they made some changes in how they can help dealers with their websites.  The biggest change in the last 18 months is the url’s on specific vehicles are now including year, make, model, and city with Brian’s suggestions which will optimize the search within Google, Bing, and Yahoo. 

Fast forward to July 21^st.  Cobalt just released PowerSEO.  There are only a handful of dealers on the program right now as it has just been rolled out.  PowerSEO is targeted to generate more organic traffic to the dealer’s website, which we all want.  Each dealer will be assigned an SEO specialist which will monitor and optimize the dealer’s website and pages with the dealer’s marketing goals.  They will do it all for you. 

1. They will set up all of the business listing pages on Google Places, Yahoo Local, and Bing Local.  They will also synchronize all of the information on online directories and yellow page websites. 
2. Monitor and analyze their website continuously for keyword content.
3. Perform regular optimization to improve the visibility of their website to search engines.
4. Do quarterly review of PowerSEO performance with the dealer.

Dealers will be able to access performance reports in the Dealer Command Center on a daily basis to see how they are performing in the search engines and see what the keywords that are working the best are.

Cobalt did do a pilot with 5 different GM dealers prior to the launch of the product.  They saw significant improvement in their organic traffic.  Traffic was up about 10% just due to the optimization tweaks that Cobalt did with the SEO Specialist.  The pages that they focused on were the New Vehicle Search, Used Vehicle Search, Finance, Hours & directions, and Parts and Service.  Here is a shot of what was improved:

 There There are obvious benefits to this program.  It will drive more organic traffic to your website, which has a higher closing rate than your third party leads.  Make you more visible on all of the search engines.  Increase your Google, Bing, and Yahoo search results pushing your competitors down the page.  The one thing that I liked is that it takes a lot of work off the dealer’s hands and they can focus on what we do best, and that is sell some cars. 

If you are a Cobalt dealer or have an ADP Digital Marketing package, you can contact Ellen Jones or your representative from Cobalt and they can get you set up with this program and take you to the next level. 

I was on the phone with a dealer friend of mine in our 20 group.  About a month ago, there was a nasty post on their Facebook page about a deal that went south and the dealer wouldn't refund their money to them.  I just happen to be on Facebook at the time of the post and sent her a text to make sure that she saw it right away.  Initially while she was doing some investigation, she couldn't find this customer anywhere in her system.  She responded to the upset customer on Facebook to contact the General Manager to get this issue resolved.  They didn't hear from the customer right away and thought that this was maybe a bogus post and was going to delete it from their page.  Low and behold, a call came in.  After a message back and forth, they finally got a hold of the customer.

Here is what happened.  The customer wanted out of the deal for some reason.  He called the salesperson and let him know, but he didn't want to lose the deal and said that they couldn't have their money back and actually hung up on the customer.  The hang ups happened a few times.  Since the customer didn't have a Facebook account, he decided to open one up since this dealership has a good presence on Facebook to voice his concerns and that he would never do business there as a result of this incident.  He was heard and the situation was resolved.  The customer ended up deleting the string of comments on his own.

So what is the correct way to respond to that upset customer online?

1. Try not to bring your emotions into the situation.  That is tough since they may be bashing your company publically.
2. Don't delete the comment.  Respond to them publically and apologize for their experience and give them a contact person and number to take this offline.
3. Resolve it offline.  When it is resolved, have them respond to the thread how the situation was handled in a way that was satisfactory to them.
4. If they continue to bash you on other sites, just keep with a standard apology with a name and phone number to contact.

Let's face it, we all will have them come in and it all boils down to how you handle that upset customer.  Not everyone can be happy and it happens.

I was on the phone with a dealer friend of mine in our 20 group.  About a month ago, there was a nasty post on their Facebook page about a deal that went south and the dealer wouldn't refund their money to them.  I just happen to be on Facebook at the time of the post and sent her a text to make sure that she saw it right away.  Initially while she was doing some investigation, she couldn't find this customer anywhere in her system.  She responded to the upset customer on Facebook to contact the General Manager to get this issue resolved.  They didn't hear from the customer right away and thought that this was maybe a bogus post and was going to delete it from their page.  Low and behold, a call came in.  After a message back and forth, they finally got a hold of the customer.

Here is what happened.  The customer wanted out of the deal for some reason.  He called the salesperson and let him know, but he didn't want to lose the deal and said that they couldn't have their money back and actually hung up on the customer.  The hang ups happened a few times.  Since the customer didn't have a Facebook account, he decided to open one up since this dealership has a good presence on Facebook to voice his concerns and that he would never do business there as a result of this incident.  He was heard and the situation was resolved.  The customer ended up deleting the string of comments on his own.

So what is the correct way to respond to that upset customer online?

1. Try not to bring your emotions into the situation.  That is tough since they may be bashing your company publically.
2. Don't delete the comment.  Respond to them publically and apologize for their experience and give them a contact person and number to take this offline.
3. Resolve it offline.  When it is resolved, have them respond to the thread how the situation was handled in a way that was satisfactory to them.
4. If they continue to bash you on other sites, just keep with a standard apology with a name and phone number to contact.

Let's face it, we all will have them come in and it all boils down to how you handle that upset customer.  Not everyone can be happy and it happens.

There are times when a call is in order to a previous customer, but the question seems to be, "What do I need to say to the customer?"  A lot of times, a renewal call is treated like a normal touching base call to keep your name in front of the customer.  That is not the case.

The reason for a renewal call is to get them back in the store and get them thinking about a new vehicle.  There are a few steps to do to make it an effective call to the customer.

1. Look at the previous deal.  Most CRM tools will store all of the pertinant information in the system and you should know if they bought or leased, what their payment is, and maturity dates.
2. Maybe do an online evaluation of their vehicle to see if they may be in an equity situation.  We all need nice trades and they are the best source to get them.
3. Check notes and history with the customer.  Make small talk before going for the appointment.  This goes back to making great notes in the system so you can refer back to them down the road.  If their son is playing soccer, make a note of it and when you call them, you can say, "Is johnny still playing soccer?"  This will make you stand out from the other salesmen.
4. Check inventory to see if you have something like what they bought from you last time or even a possible upgrade where you think you can keep their payment close to what they are paying now.

After this quick evaluation, call them.  The number one goal is to get them in to discuss options with them.  Once you get them in, go from step one of the sales process and qualify them in what they may want or need and go from there.  Get these calls done early in the month as people do tend to get busier as the month goes on.

There are times when a call is in order to a previous customer, but the question seems to be, "What do I need to say to the customer?"  A lot of times, a renewal call is treated like a normal touching base call to keep your name in front of the customer.  That is not the case.

The reason for a renewal call is to get them back in the store and get them thinking about a new vehicle.  There are a few steps to do to make it an effective call to the customer.

1. Look at the previous deal.  Most CRM tools will store all of the pertinant information in the system and you should know if they bought or leased, what their payment is, and maturity dates.
2. Maybe do an online evaluation of their vehicle to see if they may be in an equity situation.  We all need nice trades and they are the best source to get them.
3. Check notes and history with the customer.  Make small talk before going for the appointment.  This goes back to making great notes in the system so you can refer back to them down the road.  If their son is playing soccer, make a note of it and when you call them, you can say, "Is johnny still playing soccer?"  This will make you stand out from the other salesmen.
4. Check inventory to see if you have something like what they bought from you last time or even a possible upgrade where you think you can keep their payment close to what they are paying now.

After this quick evaluation, call them.  The number one goal is to get them in to discuss options with them.  Once you get them in, go from step one of the sales process and qualify them in what they may want or need and go from there.  Get these calls done early in the month as people do tend to get busier as the month goes on.

So the question at hand is "Is the internet a lead generator or is it an influencer?"  This is a great topic for discussion.  I feel that it can be both to an extent, but which one weighs more than the other?

Autotrader just released all of their info that they gathered with Polk on Understanding the Influencers that Drive the Vehicle Purchase.  When I signed into the webinar the other day, I was anxious to see what they had to say and found out in their study and how it paralleled with the study that was done for our dealership.  To give a little background, the study was conducted by Polk and commissioned by Autotrader.  They wanted to understand what media sources influence the new and used vehicle buyer last year.

Some interesting things came out of the study that hit home and how the internet is getting so big in the vehicle purchase.  Yes, we know that it is big, but HOW big is it?  Well, here are some of their findings.  The new car buyer will spend a total of 19 hours shopping for their next new vehicle.  Of the 19 hours, 7.5 were offline and 11.5 were online.  On the used car buyer, a total of 18 hours were clocked with 7 hours being offline and 11 hours online.  This just goes to show how important it is for your online presence is strong and your merchandising is at it's best.  If it's not, then the mouse may just skip right over your vehicle and they will move on to the next one on the list.

According to the study, the most influential source leading to your dealership is the internet (50% on new car buyers and 58% for used car buyers).  Coming in a close second is referral from a friend or family member (16% for new and 19% for used).  Can you feel the sarcasm here?  So how is your online reputation?  If it isn't good, I would say get a plan in place.  Customers are looking at reviews more and more just like when you are in a city visiting, you are looking at restaurant or hotel reviews to see where to eat and stay.  It is only human to rely on other humans and what they say and think about the business that is in question. 

When the customer contacted a dealership, only 30% of them either called or emailed the dealership before coming in the door.  If you want to think that people aren't hitting 3rd party sites and you aren't getting your ROI that you are wanting, you are wrong.  You have to look at those 3rd party sites as advertising.  Yes, they will generate some leads via phone and email inquiries, but a lot of your foot traffic is from those sites also whether you believe it or not.  Someone asked me what I thought of Autotrader and Cars.com and I said that "yes, they are expensive, but you can't really afford NOT to be on them."  The internet is your newspaper advertising that we did several years ago.  If you are still doing traditional media like newspaper, you are probably blowing your money.  Spend it digitally.  I will say it again, 70% of the buyers included in this study researched your vehicle online, and just walked in the dealership.

Now here are a few staggering statistics.  When the buyer is early in the process, the average number of vehicles that they will consider 5 months from their purchase is 2 vehicles.  When they get to 3 months from their purchase, the number goes up to and average of 2.3.  And during the month of their purchase, they are considering and average of 3.5 vehicles.  So how are you standing out?  Are you showing stock photos or are you showing the actual car in your pictures?  37% of the buyers wanted to see your actual vehicle that is on the lot, not stock photos.  This will make you stand out and you will see more clicks on your cars on those 3rd party sites.  The study found that a consumer is 4 times more likely to click on a vehicle with actual photos than one that doesn't have them.  It also increases the prospects by 2 times.  Need I say more?

These are just a few take aways from the study that I found interesting.  Now back to the question at hand, is the internet an influencer for your dealership or is it a lead generator?

You can look at the whole study by clicking here.

So the question at hand is "Is the internet a lead generator or is it an influencer?"  This is a great topic for discussion.  I feel that it can be both to an extent, but which one weighs more than the other?

Autotrader just released all of their info that they gathered with Polk on Understanding the Influencers that Drive the Vehicle Purchase.  When I signed into the webinar the other day, I was anxious to see what they had to say and found out in their study and how it paralleled with the study that was done for our dealership.  To give a little background, the study was conducted by Polk and commissioned by Autotrader.  They wanted to understand what media sources influence the new and used vehicle buyer last year.

Some interesting things came out of the study that hit home and how the internet is getting so big in the vehicle purchase.  Yes, we know that it is big, but HOW big is it?  Well, here are some of their findings.  The new car buyer will spend a total of 19 hours shopping for their next new vehicle.  Of the 19 hours, 7.5 were offline and 11.5 were online.  On the used car buyer, a total of 18 hours were clocked with 7 hours being offline and 11 hours online.  This just goes to show how important it is for your online presence is strong and your merchandising is at it's best.  If it's not, then the mouse may just skip right over your vehicle and they will move on to the next one on the list.

According to the study, the most influential source leading to your dealership is the internet (50% on new car buyers and 58% for used car buyers).  Coming in a close second is referral from a friend or family member (16% for new and 19% for used).  Can you feel the sarcasm here?  So how is your online reputation?  If it isn't good, I would say get a plan in place.  Customers are looking at reviews more and more just like when you are in a city visiting, you are looking at restaurant or hotel reviews to see where to eat and stay.  It is only human to rely on other humans and what they say and think about the business that is in question. 

When the customer contacted a dealership, only 30% of them either called or emailed the dealership before coming in the door.  If you want to think that people aren't hitting 3rd party sites and you aren't getting your ROI that you are wanting, you are wrong.  You have to look at those 3rd party sites as advertising.  Yes, they will generate some leads via phone and email inquiries, but a lot of your foot traffic is from those sites also whether you believe it or not.  Someone asked me what I thought of Autotrader and Cars.com and I said that "yes, they are expensive, but you can't really afford NOT to be on them."  The internet is your newspaper advertising that we did several years ago.  If you are still doing traditional media like newspaper, you are probably blowing your money.  Spend it digitally.  I will say it again, 70% of the buyers included in this study researched your vehicle online, and just walked in the dealership.

Now here are a few staggering statistics.  When the buyer is early in the process, the average number of vehicles that they will consider 5 months from their purchase is 2 vehicles.  When they get to 3 months from their purchase, the number goes up to and average of 2.3.  And during the month of their purchase, they are considering and average of 3.5 vehicles.  So how are you standing out?  Are you showing stock photos or are you showing the actual car in your pictures?  37% of the buyers wanted to see your actual vehicle that is on the lot, not stock photos.  This will make you stand out and you will see more clicks on your cars on those 3rd party sites.  The study found that a consumer is 4 times more likely to click on a vehicle with actual photos than one that doesn't have them.  It also increases the prospects by 2 times.  Need I say more?

These are just a few take aways from the study that I found interesting.  Now back to the question at hand, is the internet an influencer for your dealership or is it a lead generator?

You can look at the whole study by clicking here.

We as Internet Managers seem to focus so much on the sales end of the operation of the dealership website.  I don't know if it is part of our pay plans, but we should be looking at it from a 30,000 foot view for the dealership.  How can we as Internet Managers grow the dealership as a whole and not just on sales?  I know when I am going through conversion rates for our website, more than 60% of the unique visitors are there for fixed ops.  So what are we doing for those customers?  Here are some thought starters for your main dealership website.

1. Have service specials or a link on your home page to engage the customer.  Call to action is the key.
2. Have a coupon available for your customer online.
3. Have a parts special or coupon.
4. Have your online scheduling form easy to find.
5. Make sure your process is in line to be able to handle those online appointment requests as more and more people are starting to make their appointements online.

Now to think outside the box a little.  Are you generating fixed operations sales by having more websites?  A lot of dealers have micro-sites for sales, but do you have one for fixed ops?  I took the advise of a well known person in the industry and grabbed a url with our city and oil change in it.  It comes up number one in a google search when you search our city and 'oil change.'  You can build a professional looking website using Wordpress and run with it.  The only cost you have is the cost of the url and time to build the site (took me about 3 hours after the tweaking).  If you have a body shop, try it.  If you have a strong parts department, try it.  The options are endless. 

What are you doing to help fixed operations on the internet?  Do you have some micro-sites that are helping them?  Would love to hear your ideas.

We as Internet Managers seem to focus so much on the sales end of the operation of the dealership website.  I don't know if it is part of our pay plans, but we should be looking at it from a 30,000 foot view for the dealership.  How can we as Internet Managers grow the dealership as a whole and not just on sales?  I know when I am going through conversion rates for our website, more than 60% of the unique visitors are there for fixed ops.  So what are we doing for those customers?  Here are some thought starters for your main dealership website.

1. Have service specials or a link on your home page to engage the customer.  Call to action is the key.
2. Have a coupon available for your customer online.
3. Have a parts special or coupon.
4. Have your online scheduling form easy to find.
5. Make sure your process is in line to be able to handle those online appointment requests as more and more people are starting to make their appointements online.

Now to think outside the box a little.  Are you generating fixed operations sales by having more websites?  A lot of dealers have micro-sites for sales, but do you have one for fixed ops?  I took the advise of a well known person in the industry and grabbed a url with our city and oil change in it.  It comes up number one in a google search when you search our city and 'oil change.'  You can build a professional looking website using Wordpress and run with it.  The only cost you have is the cost of the url and time to build the site (took me about 3 hours after the tweaking).  If you have a body shop, try it.  If you have a strong parts department, try it.  The options are endless. 

What are you doing to help fixed operations on the internet?  Do you have some micro-sites that are helping them?  Would love to hear your ideas.