Here’s the challenge. Is your website a Welcome Center or a Detention Center?

My reasoned hypothesis – unless you’ve done a recent, major overhaul is that it’s a detention center.

A Detention Center is defined as -- a jail or prison, a facility in which inmates are forcibly confined and denied a variety of freedoms.

So shut down your laptop, turn off your 50” dual screen monitor and go to your website via a smartphone and think about what’s happening –from a customer perspective. Or even ask them.

Here’s what I believe is compromising our operational execution--so much energy has gone into lead forms left, lead forms right and lead forms center. Lead forms for cars. Lead forms for price. Lead forms for service.

Lead forms even for test drives?

Take test drives for a moment. Customers can schedule flights on apps, but we want a customer to submit a form to schedule a test drive?!?

The majority of these forms don’t satisfy a scheduling requirement. They just send an email to the dealership's CRM. If that’s the case at your dealership, it’s time to re-think your internet service provider and what operational, advertising commitments you’re trying to execute on your website.

So, if you’re also not actually able to schedule service appointments, then you really are confusing what you want with what the customer wants to do. And that’s a huge disconnect in a world where people can use the same Amazon App to watch shows like Jack Ryan or to have groceries dropped off at their house.

The pursuit of form fills—despite customer dislike—creates a Detention Center experience. It's time to start building Welcome Centers for our customers.

Is your website welcoming? Listen as I discuss the importance of having the right tools for your consumers to use on your website.

#localsearchgroup #welcomeconsumers #automotiveretailing #garyveechallenge #dealerships #website

Local Search Group CEO & Founder Jim Flint share some tips for dealers on how to keep up with Google's algorithm changes in this video blog.

A few days ago, I wrote about the Fundamental Attribution Error. It’s when people place the motives for behavior on an individual’s character even though the environment is likely the most important driver.

Today, let’s discuss the Fundamental Conversion Error. It’s more straightforward than the Fundamental Attribution Error. Conversions don’t sell cars. Even though many would tell you that they do—err, statistically speaking, they don’t.

Making resource decisions—read: spending your advertising dollars—based solely on conversion metrics is essentially the equivalent of the warning sign placed on stock purchases. In either case: “Past performance is NO guarantee of future results.