"If it were possible and practical, most people would never set foot in a car dealership when purchasing a vehicle."

The title of this post, along with the introduction were quotes from a recent article that appeared in Money. The survey and results were conducted by Accenture. http://time.com/money/3826562/buying-cars-online-hate-car-dealerships/

It's no surprise that consumers aren't excited about visiting dealerships for sales and service. Why not listen to what consumers are telling the industry, and provide consumers with what they want? 

It seems the entire industry is racing towards "online sales", and or the ability to transact some or all aspects of a car purchase online. Unfortunately, that's going to have minimal impact upon service. It doesn't matter if we're speaking to customer pay, warranty or recalls, online fulfillment will have little to no impact upon fixed operations.

The solution is very simple; Concierge Service. Technology exist today that enables dealers to provide their customers with an Uber like experience; providing consumers the ability to transact business with the dealer without having to leave their home or office. The technology schedules, dispatches, tracks, monitors and provides analytics throughout the process.

Imagine your product specialist conducting a test drive at the consumer's home, or your customer's vehicle being picked up and delivered to the dealership for service, warranty and or recall, all while the customer is provided a loaner. That's powerful!

Customer retention and service retention will become an eyesore of the past through convenience driven models. Even with online fulfillment coming soon to our industry, consumers will still want to test drive the vehicle and service their vehicle without being inconvenienced by going to the dealership. The industry is too focused upon an hour transaction at the dealership, versus making the sales and service process as customer convenient as possible. Speed of transaction doesn't necessarily translate into convenience.

Your customers are very busy, traditionally both spouses are working, shuttling kids to school and sports, and living life...no wonder they don't have time to visit your dealership. 

Ken Hite is Senior Vice President at RedCap. Ken has 25 years experience within the automotive industry, inclusive of retail, OEM, after-market and start-ups. The auto industry must learn to exceed customer expectations and implement business processes based upon customer convenience.