Norfolk, VA – January 24, 2017- Dominion Dealer Solutions announced today the launch of an omni-channel digital solution to drive both traffic and revenue for a dealer’s fixed operations.

Dealers now enjoy consistency in fixed operations data content, messaging and reporting across Dominion’s email marketing, direct mail marketing, search, social advertising, and reputation management solutions. In addition to omni-channel digital solutions, Dominion offers a dedicated, single point-of-contact for all of their dealers’ fixed operations campaigns. With the addition of a Fixed Operations module on the Dominion Digital Dashboard, dealers receive comprehensive reporting on all digital data within a single dashboard. Dealers can expect reduced costs, experience higher traffic, drive ROs and revenue per RO, and build deeper customer loyalty through Dominion’s omni-channel digital solutions.

"As the automotive industry shifts heading into 2017, we recognize the unique opportunities presented to dealers in their Fixed Ops departments. With this in mind, we have built specific digital marketing components into our existing products to provide complete support for dealership fixed operations campaigns,” noted Nicole Case, general manager for Dominion Digital Marketing.

Dominion’s omni-channel digital solutions are independent of PMA restrictions and fill in the gaps left by OEM marketing campaigns. Across the omni-channel offering, each digital solution provides consistent branding, messaging and reporting that dealers require to build a trusted brand and make critical business decisions.

For more information on the benefits of Dominion’s Omni-Channel Digital Solutions for your automotive dealership or to schedule a demo, please call 877-421-1040.

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About Dominion Dealer Solutions

Dominion Dealer Solutions improves dealers' lives by developing advanced technologies including: reputation and social media management, responsive websites, digital advertising, SEO, SEM, multi-channel marketing, and custom market reports. Coupled with award-winning lead management, inventory merchandising, equity mining, customer relationship (CRM) and dealer management (DMS) solutions, Dominion redefines automotive retail by delivering first-class customer experiences for today's automotive dealerships. Based in Norfolk, Virginia, every OEM and over 10,000 U.S. dealers depend on Dominion's foundation of innovation, integrity, excellence and teamwork to provide them with results at every turn. For more information, visit our website, like us on Facebook, Pinterest or YouTube, or follow us on Twitter.

About Dominion Enterprises

Dominion Enterprises is a leading online marketing and software services company offering client solutions across multiple targeted business verticals.  Our widely recognized B2C web and mobile portals, including ForRent.com, Homes.com, and CycleTrader.com, generate nearly 30 million unique visits monthly. Our B2B cloud SaaS solutions directly support clients in establishing their online and mobile brands, generating leads, and managing customer relationships.  Dominion Enterprises has more than 40 businesses and 3,000 employees in our Norfolk, Va. home office, across the U.S., and internationally.

 

Media Contact:

Dominion Dealer Solutions

Peyton Hoffman

Director of Public Relations and Event Management

757.351.7271

Peyton.hoffman@drivedominion.com

Customer surveys are a great way to get feedback from people who are in your dealership. It’s important to be able to understand what they liked or didn’t like about their experience. This helps you be able to perform better in the future. But this isn’t the only option.

Online reviews are an incredibly valuable way for you to really understand what a customer is going through in your store. Surveys get answers to certain questions, but online reviews can get even more detailed information about a customer’s experience. This gives the customer a chance to use their own words and really voice how they feel about the product or service. This gets authentic and valuable information for your company.

These online reviews are often used by dealerships on websites to display how people feel about their products and services. This can be a great way to show that you are willing to take what people say and use it for the benefit of others.

Here’s a few things you need to know about making online reviews work for your company:

1. A waiting customer in the lounge is a perfect candidate to provide an online review


2. Incentivizing them to write a cars.com or Google review while they wait is twice as likely to happen than after they have left the dealership


3. Charj has found that giving a customer a platform to write reviews on can increase the total reviews content growth by 11%

So stop waiting and start working with waiting customers to get online reviews today!

BLAINE, Minn., Dec. 30, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Teamsters who deliver O'Reilly Auto Parts to the company's retail outlets across Minnesota voted unanimously to walk off the job if the company does not abandon contract demands that will drive down living standards and create unnecessary safety risks. The workers, represented by Teamsters Local 120, have been working without a contract since Dec. 10.

"The company is putting profits ahead of safety and fairness by demanding increases in the number of deliveries while paying drivers less," said Troy Gustafson, Teamsters Local 120 Business Agent. "We won't stand for it."

O'Reilly Automotive (Nasdaq: ORLY) reported record earnings in 2015 and has reported sales and gross profit growth in each quarter this year as compared to the same periods last year.

"O'Reilly management is putting its successful business model in jeopardy by playing fast and loose with the safety of employees and customers," said Tom Erickson, President of Teamsters Local 120. "Their short-sighted strategy could spark a work stoppage causing service delays."

Founded in 1903, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters represents 1.4 million hardworking men and women throughout the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico. For more information, please visit www.teamster.org.

We’ve talked in an earlier post about people who are waiting in your dealership for their service to be completed, or to get their paperwork. One thing that you can do with the time that you have customers inside your dealership not actively shopping or participating, is hand them a survey. Waiting gives you an ideal opportunity to ask them to fill something out. Does this work, and how should you proceed? Check out our tips blow:

1. Charj has found that giving a survey to a customer while they wait can get you an 80% response rate. People in the dealerships are waiting for something to occupy their time. They may not seem excited about doing a survey at home, but if they’re just waiting for their car to get done, they’re much more likely to fill out the survey to pass the time.


2. If a customer can answer a survey with a device that isn’t their own, they are more likely to engage. If you ask customers to fill something out on their own phone, they don’t feel any immediacy to get it done. They’ll keep scrolling Facebook or texting their friends. If you give them a device with a survey already pulled up, they’re much more likely to take it seriously and respond instantly.


3. This instant survey response by the customer can lead to proactive containment of any negative feedback they could make online. If they’re not happy with something, they can fill out the survey to express frustration. Your team can then instantly look at the survey and try to address and fix the problem with the customer before they even leave.


4. Some dealerships reported to Charj that they have seen a 6% improvement in CSI when presenting customers with surveys in the lounge. This improvement comes from customers getting to vent, but still giving your dealership a chance to fix the problem or at least talk to the customer about it, face to face. People are more likely to relax when they see an actual person in front of them, who truly seems apologetic and eager to make things right. This is a better option than getting a survey after the customer has left, or seeing a bad review online.

Utilizing waiting rooms to benefit your customer experiences, and thereby making your dealership a better place for customers, will help your dealership succeed. Customers will be more satisfied, and you will be able to nip problems in the bud.

It happens every day; someone brings their car in for a service or is filling out paperwork to buy a car, and what do they end up doing? Sitting in your customer waiting area. Most dealerships have worked hard to have snacks and television readily available so people can be relaxed and entertained, but here are a few things you may not know about people waiting in your dealership:

1. The average time spent at the dealership is 187 minutes per visit. This is an incredibly long time that you have customers inside your dealership, just waiting for their interaction to be completed.

2. Amenities at most dealerships are very diverse, but only provide a service to the customer. This includes TVs, charging stations, magazines, and food; all of which are benefiting the customer only.

3. Waiting customers make the perfect captive audience that is ready for some form of engagement. Most people who are waiting enjoy any form of diversion from their wait, to make time go by quicker.

4. In-person engagements by sales reps may be considered less appealing to customers. Many people view this as overly direct and “sales-y.”

5. Charj has found that advertising to an on-site audience can yield up to 40% average CTR. On-site audiences are more likely to interact with a touch screen, than an in-person sales consultant.

6. By allowing sales consultants to approach customers off of an engagement, Charj has seen that the conversion rate could increase by over 150%.

7. By allowing customers to choose which advertisements they engage with, it makes the up-sell process much easier and less intrusive, allowing the sales consultant to approach them for specific products or services, such as wipers, winter tires, warranties, etc.

It’s becoming increasingly obvious that utilizing a customer’s time while they are waiting for their paperwork or finished car, could prove to be a huge opportunity in improving engagement and increasing up-selling opportunities.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- AutoNation Inc.'s $500 million brand-extension strategy has a clear goal on the fixed-ops side: keep customers in the family.

The introduction of AutoNation-branded parts should give vehicle buyers at the company's new-car dealerships a lower-cost option for vehicle repair once their manufacturer warranties expire, company executives say. But if those customers leave anyway, AutoNation will market its new AutoNation USA used-vehicle store service to those defectors, in competition with independent shops.

"It's going to be a value proposition to our customer," AutoNation COO Bill Berman said after the nation's largest new-vehicle retailer announced its wide-ranging strategy Oct. 28. "They'll be able to have the experience of a new-car franchise dealer but at a price point that more closely resembles independent and outside repair facilities." 

In new-car dealerships, the rate of defection is high -- typically 67 percent of customers leave after warranty expiration, said Scott Arnold, AutoNation's vice president of customer care operations. AutoNation's defection rate is a little bit better than that industry number, and the aim is to improve it further. 

"We're giving the customers options, and we think we will reduce the defection rate," Arnold said. 

AutoNation's new strategy has four prongs related to fixed operations. 

1. Used-vehicle service outlets. The company plans to open at least 25 AutoNation USA used-vehicle stores beginning next spring. Each will have a service department with 10 to 20 bays offering both express service, such as oil changes, and scheduled maintenance and repair work. The USA stores will offer a fully digital experience using tablet computers, likely reducing customer check-in time to 5 to 10 minutes, Arnold said.

The USA stores will offer two years of free routine maintenance with a vehicle purchase. That will make for an automatic tie back to the service department to boost retention. 

AutoNation will also analyze its customer database to find customers who've left the franchise stores and pitch the USA service offerings to them. 

2. Parts. Both the USA and franchised stores will sell AutoNation Precision Parts for maintenance and repair items. The first such self-branded offering -- AutoNation batteries, made by Exide -- went on sale at dealerships in September at three price points. The top-level battery offers a lifetime replacement guarantee. They are not loss leaders. AutoNation can offer the batteries at a 15 to 20 percent discount vs. an automaker's battery, Berman said, but the retailer will still make money.

CEO Mike Jackson said the company is in negotiation with suppliers for "hundreds of more parts." AutoNation parts will range from wipers and filters up to alternatives to high-cost original equipment such as air conditioning compressors, executives said. 

"We think there will be a high adoption rate, just like we saw with [AutoNation-branded] service contracts," Jackson said. And the profit benefit to the company will be immediate, he said. 

3. Accessories. AutoNation began selling aftermarket accessories such as floor mats in October. They are branded AutoNation Auto Gear presented by WeatherTech. WeatherTech is a well-known supplier of accessories. The WeatherTech line is just "dipping our toe in," Berman said.

AutoNation ultimately will add much more to its accessory portfolio. The plan is to create a system in the store to encourage accessory add-ons at the time of vehicle purchase by building the step into the digital sales presentation, Berman said. 

4. Collision. AutoNation will expand its collision-center footprint and renovate each of the company's existing 70 centers to a new corporate design. Some will be expanded. 

The company also plans to open or acquire at least 18 additional centers over the next two years. It acquired one in Westmont, Ill., in October. 

The effort will expand AutoNation's "collision production potential" by 40 percent, Jackson said. 

AutoNation is working to broaden the number of insurance companies designating the company a preferred repair provider. 

Ten of the company's current locations are already scheduled for renovations beginning early next year, Berman said. The goal is to finish the renovations in about five years. 

"Nobody's collision centers look like this," Berman said. "They're going to be beautiful, inviting, customer-friendly."

A groundbreaking jump in technology, bringing real-time, upfront prices to the automotive repair industry

National– Finding an affordable, conveniently located auto repair shop can be a time consuming and stressful process. Perhaps, this explains why a recent survey found that 83 percent of consumers continue to feel overcharged in the auto repair process and rank the experience on-par with going to the dentist (with most women preferring to visit the dentist).

Blitzify, a new mobile application that connects customers and automotive service providers through a comprehensive mobile platform, is changing that. The Easton, PA-based first-of-its-kind startup is revolutionizing the way service providers and customers communicate by enabling consumers to get exact quotes from multiple providers and compare prices with real time data at the push of a button.

How to get a Blitzify quote:

1. You can start the quote process on the mobile app or on the Blitzify homepage by entering your vehicle information, choosing type of service needed and the city the repair will take place.  Or, you can click the “Start Quoting” button on any page on Blitzify to start the process.
    
2. To receive your quote, you will need to create an account.  The sign-up process is quick and easy, allowing you to automatically sign-up using your Facebook, Google Plus or Twitter account information from the website.
    
3. After creating your account, you can click the “Blitz It” button and the team of Blitzify gnomes will rapidly work on finding you four upfront price quotes, emailing web-users the results and appearing automatically to mobile app users.
    
4. Compare the quotes from service providers and look to see if any providers have “additional info” for further price transparency.

Service provider registration is free of charge.