Almost every salesperson or manager that’s been in the business for a while has a story to tell where someone – perhaps even themselves – prejudged a customer and lost a sale. Perhaps that sale was lost to another salesperson at the dealership, or perhaps the dealership lost the sale altogether. But it has happened and still continues.  

Here are a few examples: 

1. According to a recent story on Jalopnik, a man went into a Porsche dealership to inquire about some models. The sales reps proceeded to treat him quite rudely, refusing to answer simple questions about a particular high-end model. A little later one sales rep searched the customer online and found a Forbes article about the young man. Of course, by this time, they had laughed at him, refused to answer his questions and he left.  
2. A couple arrived at an Infiniti dealership in a beat-up Toyota Corolla that had the driver’s side door held closed with baling wire. They were both dressed in ragged clothes that appeared to be dirty. Most of the salespeople immediately scattered, attempting to find something to do other than assist this couple. However, one salesperson chose to ignore their appearance and assisted them. Turns out the couple were very successful farmers and bought two new Q45s that day. When the salesperson asked about the Corolla, the couple said that it had just been sitting on their property and they wanted to get rid of it.  
3. A gentleman drove up to a high-line dealership in a PT Cruiser. He was dressed in blue jean shorts, a black shirt, and thigh-high boots and had tattoos everywhere. None of the salespeople wanted to assist this customer, but one young sales rep greeted him. The gentleman custom ordered a brand-new vehicle that day and turned out to be the lead guitarist in a popular rock band that has entertained crowds for decades.  

These are just a few examples I’ve heard about and/or read. The point is that you never know how qualified that person pulling into your lot is until you talk to them. By ignoring them, or treating them poorly based on how they look, you do much more than lose a sale, you damage the reputation of the dealership.  

For example, the first story got picked up by Jalopnik because the young man shared his experience on Facebook and, at the time of this writing, it had 909 reactions, 196 comments and 91 shares. That’s quite an audience that read this story!  I’ll bet that someone who saw the story was considering buying a Porsche and perhaps reconsidered doing business with that dealership. Sadly, the comments are filled with car buyers telling stories about similar experiences that they’ve personally had.  

Treat every customer that walks into your showroom like gold and you will find that not only do you sell more cars, you also hold more gross. Special finance customers who you treat well and assist in financing will refer their friends to your dealership and tell everyone they know. By ceasing to judge people, you bring goodwill and a better customer experience to everyone. Even if they can’t buy a vehicle right then, they will remember you when they can.  

Do you have any stories of similar experiences at a dealership when it comes to pre-judging customers? Share them in the comments.

Colloquy just came out with its Annual Loyalty Census Report which informs retailers about top loyalty trends. The data in this report (which you can download free at the link above) is important for retailers to view and understand as it reflects the changing attitudes, desires and effectiveness of loyalty marketing, incentives and programs. In fact, this year had some pretty interesting results. 

1. While loyalty program membership increased to 3.8 billion consumers, the growth rate (15%) was considerably lower than 2015, when it was more than 10% higher at 26%. Colloquy attributes this decrease to large mergers and acquisitions consolidating some of the larger retailer’s loyalty program memberships. However, consumers are still signing up for and want the benefits these programs bring. 

2. Retail has by far the largest piece of the loyalty program pie with 1.6 billion members (42%) followed closely by the hospitality industry with 1.1 billion members. 

3. According to Colloquy, most consumers are driven towards companies because they love the brand, retailer, or service. This is the consumer’s main reason for participating in the loyalty program.  

4. Over half (53%) of consumers surveyed stated they liked the program due to ease of use. 39% were in it for the discounts and 37% because the program was easy to understand. 

5.  51% of loyalty program members felt that they could trust the companies with their data, which is a little surprising given the recent high-profile hacks and security issues some major retailers suffered. 

6. According to 57% of those surveyed, the key holdback to participating in a program, or problem that causes consumers to abandon the program, is that it took too long to earn anything that mattered. 

Take these points to heart and check your dealership as far as how the customer experience you provide impacts participation in your loyalty program. You would be wise to also check with customers if they are happy with the rewards offered and whether the length of time, amount of money spent or other factors are satisfactory to them or not. According to the survey, that’s the largest motivator for, well, not caring about your program.  

The best loyalty programs are designed around ease of use and provide customers with an end-goal of an attractive reward that doesn’t seem impossible to reach. However you set up your loyalty program, keep these two things in mind. Of course, if your customers don’t love your service, your loyalty program is meaningless to them. 

Consumers are enrolled in multiple loyalty programs across the retail sector. Some they use simply when they visit a retailer, and some they will go out of their way to visit because of the rewards, along with the fact that they truly enjoy the service and experience. Those are the types of customers you want to attract and then treasure with your rewards program. Frankly, these customers are why rewards programs have flourished and spread across retail in the first place.  

Find that sweet spot in your business that provides an excellent experience and rewards loyal customer and your loyalty program will catch on fire.  

Businesses large and small use data to learn and then make decisions about their customer’s behavior. However, be warned, as decisions based solely on data alone can sometimes not be the best… as was the case with a Denver Broncos season ticket holder.

In a LinkedIn article penned by the fan, he told the story of how his family was on a waiting list for 7 years to buy season tickets to the Denver Broncos. When they were finally offered tickets, they were ecstatic. However, just as is the case with most of us, sometimes life intervenes and this fan’s family had a new child and, in that NFL season, could not attend any games.

The NFL actually provides an authorized outlet for fans to resell tickets to games they can’t attend and promote this Ticket Exchange pretty heavily. Visit any NFL team’s website and there will be mention of it. The fan sold his family’s tickets for every game on the NFL Ticket Exchange and the Denver Broncos noticed – and literally revoked the family’s right to renew their season tickets. Even though the family appealed, they could not persuade the organization to change its mind. To make matters worse, according to the family, the whole process of revoking their tickets, along with the appeal decision, was all done via automated e-mails.

Perhaps this whole scenario would make sense if a person were reselling tickets just to resell them -- with no intent to ever attend a game. However, the issue at hand here is that the Broncos are essentially penalizing a person for following their instructions on how to resell tickets – and, in the end, used data to penalize this longtime fan.

Data can be a goldmine of information if correctly used. It can improve a company’s policies, processes and customer experience, leading to increased loyalty and retention. Businesses, however, should not rely on data alone to make decisions. There will always be a human factor involved that data just cannot interpret.

In this case, there was no way to know that these season ticket holders just had a life event (a baby), or that they intended to resume paying for their tickets and attending games eventually. If the fan’s (author of the article) theory is true, the data from the Ticket Exchange is the only determining factor in the Denver Broncos decision to revoke their season ticket rights. Of course, as you can see, this fan took to social media to tell his story – and is getting plenty of responses, including posts from other fans that have had the same thing happen to them.

This data “misinterpretation” problem – or using data without any human interpretation, exists in many industries. In our automotive industry, OEMs make decisions and penalize dealers solely based on data from survey results. There is no pleading or arguing their case. The data is what it is and dealerships can suffer greatly in allocation, bonuses or loss of incentives.

The problem goes both ways, however. There are dealers who make decisions NOT to deal with customers based on data and, sometimes, don’t consider the human side of the data. Either way, bad decisions can be made that hurt a business -- despite the fact that the INTENT of the business was to use the data to help itself.

Hopefully, this fan’s story gets heard by someone in the Denver Broncos organization who is willing to listen, and he receives, at the very least, true consideration for his circumstances from a sympathetic real-life person -- not a decision solely based on data collected digitally.

Remember, in today’s digital world, the human touch is still incredibly important. Its humans -- not data, -- that keep businesses… well, in business.

When it comes to community service, car dealers are often the very foundation of their communities. A great example is what the Jim Ellis Automotive Group did in May of this year.  

The Atlanta-based group successfully raised $65,000 for first-responder organizations that serve various dealership locations around Atlanta, including the police and fire departments. The money was raised by donating a portion of every new or pre-owned vehicle purchase during the month of May to local first responders. 

 In total, the $65,000 was split amongst 10 local police and fire departments. In addition, the Jim Ellis Automotive Group catered a lunch for each first-responder department and extended special offers to each organization’s members, including $500 off a vehicle purchase and 15 percent off parts and service through the end of 2017.  

Consumers – especially Millennials and Generation Z – increasingly care more about doing business with companies that make a difference in their communities. This event – while certainly a sales event – gave consumers a feeling that they were making a difference by choosing to buy their vehicle from these dealerships.  

That doesn’t mean that you should shout from the mountaintops every time you do something good, or issue press releases. However, at times, there isn’t anything wrong with it. You should certainly use discretion on how to share these activities. Simple activities can be shared with the community through social media images posted to the dealership’s Facebook page and other social media properties. Large scale initiatives, like the one the Jim Ellis Automotive Group coordinated, absolutely deserves recognition in their communities. Raising $65,000 in a single month for first-responders is not a small feat and is for such a great cause. These men and women put their lives on the line in their communities regularly and should be appreciated.  

Kudos to the Jim Ellis Automotive Group for this event and congratulations for the impressive results. Hopefully, the communities are also aware of the initiative -- appreciate it and vote with their wallets by choosing their dealership. 

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, you’ve undoubtedly heard about all the chaos that’s been happening at Uber. What began as a single blog post has gained so much momentum that not only is the company under investigation by the government, but the CEO was ousted very ceremoniously. Allegations of sexism, sexual harassment, abuse and just about every bad thing a company could do to their employees started popping out of the woodwork. And all it took was for one employee to finally have the courage to say something.  

Up until the chaos started Uber was pretty adored by its customers. All of these troubles were well hidden and Uber enjoyed massive growth, even threatening an entire industry -- taxis -- and doing a pretty good job of it. The convenience factor and cost savings were more than sufficient to make consumers choose Uber over any competition. And the ease with which people could earn a living encouraged many workers to join their fleet of drivers.  

However, behind the scenes chaos ensued. As these stories were revealed to the public, all of a sudden consumers started reconsidering their loyalties. This is evident by the growth of Uber’s chief competitor, Lyft, while Uber has slowly been going backwards.  

Company culture is typically viewed as an internal practice. The stronger culture a business has, the more engaged their employees are in helping the company succeed, which leads to higher employee retention. What many businesses don’t realize is that while building a strong company culture is essential to growth and retention, it plays a much larger role in the grand scheme of things: namely brand reputation and customer loyalty.  

Prior to all of the news about Uber, if you conducted a Google search, more than likely you would find positive reviews and news about the company’s innovation, disruption of the transportation industry, astronomical growth and the high valuation they’ve enjoyed. Now, however, the news is filled with the exact opposite. There is even one movement working to educate people about “who Uber really is” and to encourage consumers not to use their service. It even has its own hashtag: #DeleteUber. 

As is unveiling in the public domain with Uber, right before our eyes, weak company culture can turn employees, customers and even the public against a business to the point of creating actual brand detractors (versus advocates). Imagine if a dealership’s whole community rallied to ensure that nobody ever bought or serviced a vehicle with them – ever again. That’s pretty much what’s happening with Uber except on a much larger scale.  

Ensure that your dealership has a strong company culture, including values that are non-negotiable and rigidly enforced. Hire like-minded employees and make sure that any poisonous employees are quickly shown the door. In this way you can protect the only thing that really matters, and that is who you are as an organization.  

Just like you wouldn’t want to do business with someone whose behavior is abhorrent to you, consumers don’t want to do business with a business that misbehaves or doesn’t care about its employees. Don’t find out too late that you have an Uber-like crisis stewing at your dealership. Because, as Uber has illustrated, you may not be able to recover once you do find out.

Amazon was recently awarded a patent that has caused quite a stir amongst consumers and retailers. The patent, originally applied for way back in 2012, details a method for “redirecting, or otherwise controlling customers' attempts to comparison shop on their smartphones when using a store’s Wi-Fi network. The system would identify when a customer is trying to access a competitor’s website and take action. According to the patent description, it could block the action outright, redirect it to the retailer's own website, or distract the customer with a coupon or a salesperson's attention.” 

This has caused much debate as Amazon just recently entered into the physical retail sector with new bookstore locations and the purchase of the Whole Foods grocery chain. There are many opinions out there ranging from those that claim Amazon is hypocritical to those that consider its recent moves outright evil. 

Why so much controversy? Because, up until now, Amazon has probably been the largest beneficiary of showrooming. Many consumers visit retail stores then price compare against Amazon. Many use retailers as physical showrooms for products and then turn around and buy the merchandise on Amazon. This has forced retailers such as Best Buy to start price-matching Amazon. 

The masses are asking why Amazon would want to utilize price comparison blocking software in their own stores which disallows people from the very activity Amazon itself has benefited from for years. In fact, some people are so incensed that they call Amazon evil for simply owning this patent. Is Amazon threatening to harm their brand loyalty by rolling out this technology in stores? Would consumers get irritated if they were blocked from price shopping other retailers with their smartphones while in Amazon’s stores? Most definitely.  

So why does Amazon want this patent? 

To answer that, we need to begin by asking the most obvious question: 

Why, in 2012 when Amazon was a purely digital retailer, and showrooming wasn’t even a buzzword, would it apply for a patent that prevented in-store consumers from price shopping the competition when Amazon was the primary beneficiary of that activity? Do you think it was because they had this psychic ability to predict that they would be entering the retail space? Even their logo means they sell everything from A to Z and consumers should be happy about it. Has their grand plan always been to dominate the planet? 

NO! 

They applied for this patent in 2012 to PREVENT ANY OTHER BUSINESS FROM USING THIS TECHNOLOGY to block consumers from price comparison shopping Amazon while in another retailer’s physical location. 

They were protecting the most lucrative activity for Amazon -- conquesting sales from their physical retail competition. 

By owning this technology patent, no retail store can use this technology against Amazon to prevent price comparisons – say on Amazon.com – without violating Amazon’s patent and opening themselves up to a lawsuit. 

But they have bookstores now -- what about those? First, in 2012, Amazon didn’t even know it was going to open physical bookstores. It was in fact putting those out of business. Second, the bookstores they do have only contain 100 or so of the most purchased books on Amazon, which they maintain at the lowest price on the market. In addition, the bookstores are used more as a showcase for their ancillary products such as the Amazon Fire tablet and Alexa, similar to Microsoft’s retail stores.  

When you’re faced with a complicated puzzle, typically the simplest answer is the correct one. In this case, in 2012, technology was getting to the point where competing retailers would soon be able to block price comparisons on Amazon for shoppers in their stores. Amazon was WAY ahead of the game and beat them to the punch.  

Evil or Brilliant? It’s all a matter of perspective but, in the end, Amazon wins and, hopefully, consumers do as well.

The business world – and the automotive industry – has started to see just how important customer experience is to loyalty and retention. New and improved technologies are regularly released that help streamline the buying process and further enhance the customer experience. 

However, a customer can have an incredible experience in the beginning – perhaps it starts online then transitions to the store – the customer starts incredibly happy with the service, deal and everything else, but then one piece of that experience goes bad and it sabotages their whole perception.  

Take, for example, this story relayed by Forbes from a writer who wrote about how she had a great experience buying – until she met with the finance manager. According to the writer, even after politely declining F&I products, the manager continued to be pushy and aggressive to the point where she almost wanted to leave and never come back.  

The article points out that, according to Forrester’s CX Index, automotive customers who have had a positive emotional experience are seven times more likely to recommend the dealership. In fact, 91 percent who had a positive experience are likely to recommend the dealership, whereas only 13 percent of those who had negative experiences would. This impact extends into service as well with 85 percent of those having positive experiences recommending the dealership for service.  

The author’s point is that for many consumers how a transaction ends dictates the entire purchase experience. Everything can go smoothly throughout most of the process, but ending on a negative note can cause the customer to perceive the entire experience as negative.  

I’m pretty sure that many sales managers and salespeople have had, at one point or another in their careers, a customer blow out of finance and watched that “sale” drive away.  

Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not in any way blaming finance managers for negative experiences. The negative experience can happen anywhere in the buying process -- not just in the finance office. The point is that any mishap or friction along the way can define the experience for the customer. Ensure that all of the processes involved in selling a customer a vehicle focus on what experience the customer will have. By so doing, you can increase customer satisfaction simply by ensuring that customers leave your store completely satisfied with all aspects of the process – not just some of them.  

We’ve all heard the saying that the happiest customers are typically the ones that the dealership made money on – and these are also the ones most likely to send their family and friends to buy from the dealership. If all it takes to create brand advocates, increase gross and referrals, is to ensure a positive customer experience, every dealership should be scrambling to ensure that the experience they offer is a great one! Focusing solely on moving metal can lead to volume, but may hurt loyalty and retention. Focus on the customer and everything else will take care of itself.

The most popular “thing” on the market right now are fidget spinners. In case you don’t know what fidget spinners are, they are little spinning toys that you hold between two fingers and… well… spin. Sounds like something similar to playing with a cardboard box, right? And some people think that’s about right. However, many people claim these “toys” have benefits above and beyond simply being a distraction. Some say they help children with ADHD by giving them something to do with their hands. Some say they reduce anxiety and are beneficial for relaxation. Regardless of whether you believe any of these things or not, fidget spinners are, for the moment, the pet rock of our time.  

Fidget spinners could be looked upon as the type of success every company should strive for. Why do I say that? Because fidget spinners are popular with everyone – kids and adults alike.  

All businesses, at some time, endeavor to get their employees to latch onto some important company idea and… well… love it. If employees buy in to your company’s mission statement, culture and ideals, your business should perform much better. But do you know what your company’s fidget spinner should really be? 

Your customers! 

If all your employees were crazy about servicing your customers and wanted to interact with them because they enjoyed it, your customers would return the sentiment! You see, we are all people persons at heart. Stick a person in a room alone for months and many go crazy from lack of human interaction. Humans are social beings and need that interaction to survive.  

But how do you get your employees to embrace and enjoy your customers just as much as society has embraced fidget spinners? 

That’s actually fairly simple. Just as your customers enjoy positive interaction, so do your employees. Positivity quickly spreads. When your employees treat your customers as welcome guests and humans, rather than just numbers or nuisances, your customers will also start treating your employees in the same manner. This will create a self-perpetuating cycle that benefits both customer experience and employee engagement.  

“How do I start?” You may ask. “I can’t exactly tell my employees to treat my customers like fidget spinners?” 

Baby steps. Take the popular fast-food chain Chick-Fil-A as an example. One of the non-negotiable actions that an associate must follow is this: If a customer says, “Thank you,” the associate MUST say “My pleasure.” It may seem like a simple thing and, while a small gesture, it at the very least encourages civility. Associates who don’t follow this simple mandate cannot work for Chick-Fil-A.  

You’d be surprised how much patrons appreciate this small gesture. It also reinforces the value customers have to employees and creates an environment that’s customer-centric. Perhaps “My pleasure” could even be called Chick-Fil-A’s fidget spinner.  

Your fidget spinner doesn’t have to be some huge customer experience protocol. It could be as simple as “My pleasure.” Having something similar in your dealership can dramatically improve customer experience, employee engagement and company culture. And that’s a fidget spinner that every business should want.

An interesting title for a blog, I know. But an article on CustomerThink got me thinking, as it warns businesses they should be concerned if customers are NOT complaining.  

The reasoning behind this is that if customers aren’t complaining, businesses assume everyone is happy when, in fact, that’s usually not the case. The theory the author posits is that customers could have simply given up on the business and may already be in the process of finding an alternative solution. In addition, not receiving complaints stifles a business’s ability to improve its operations and customer’s needs.  

In the automotive industry, many dealerships rely on manufacturer survey results as the prime indicator as to how their dealership is performing in the area of customer experience. But all too often the survey results are misleading and not every customer completes the survey. Those who do tend to either rate the experience as perfect, or horrible. And, while manufacturers frown upon – and often prohibit – dealerships from “coaching” customers about the survey, that is frequently exactly what happens.  

As bonuses and paychecks tend to be tied to these survey results, it becomes too important for salespeople not to discuss the survey with the customer in some way. There are dealerships who go as far as actually putting a filled out perfect survey on every salesperson’s desk, or in the finance offices, which the customers can see while waiting. Even if the salesperson doesn’t directly talk about the survey, the customers are influenced by what they see and so understand how the dealership would like them to respond when they receive the survey. If the experience was mostly positive for the consumer, many times they’ll acquiesce and reward the dealership with that perfect survey, even if the experience was in fact less than perfect and things need correcting. 

The flip side of the coin is the upset customer. Those customers fill out the survey sometimes as an act of revenge. Of course, there are also times when customers are simply being honest and truly want to share their negative experience with the dealership, hoping that someone will care and the dealership will change.  

With CSI surveys filled out this way, dealerships that rely on these manufacturer survey results to judge if they are doing a good job are seeing a picture that is far from accurate. As a result, mistakes, that could easily be rectified, are not being addressed as many customers choose to remain silent and give a perfect score. 

Most dealers are looking at extremes – perfection (that may or may not have been perfect) and customer dissatisfaction. The truth is that most experiences don’t fall into these extreme categories, but rather someplace in the middle. Customer satisfaction isn’t black and white… it’s mostly gray. Without accurate feedback, dealerships will never be able to improve their experience. By not evolving or fixing problems, customers simply go away and the dealer never knows why.  

If you want an accurate picture of how you are doing consider starting your own in-house feedback program through surveys sent from your dealership. These surveys can be of varying lengths – from a few simple questions to more intricate ones. They can be easily distributed via e-mail using transactional data in your CRM.  

You can determine the ideal length by completion percentages – if the percentage is low, decrease the number of questions, or consider incentivizing completion through a drawing for services or a gift card.  

The bottom line is that dealerships need to receive regular and honest customer feedback on their operations and customer experience across all touchpoints, in all departments. This feedback can provide you with an accurate picture of how your customers felt about their experience and give actionable data to make any needed changes.  

These surveys can also provide information on employee performance when it comes to customer interactions, allowing you to identify employees who are engaged and customer-centric, along with those that are under-performing in areas.  

In the end, customer feedback is essential to your dealership’s growth and survival. As the article states, “…when everything is going fine, something is not right.” Don’t get lulled into complacency with the illusion that everything is fine by relying solely on manufacturer surveys. If you do, you may well discover that everything isn’t fine – and by then, it may be too late.

We all have reference points. When someone asks you, “What’s the best steak you’ve ever had?” you have an answer. In fact, not only do you have an answer, but every steak you eat after that will be compared to it – whether consciously or subconsciously.  

When enough people develop the same opinion, that steak restaurant becomes their reference point for anything concerning steak. And, because of that, they spread word about their satisfaction to others, which, in turn, may make that steak restaurant another person’s reference point. In the end, if the restaurant becomes the reference point for enough people, it transforms into what any retailer works to become – a household name.  

A interesting article on CustomerThink shared tidbits about the rewards from having a great customer service culture, along with how to become a reference point and a household name. 

Following are a few tips the article shared that may be helpful in your dealership: 

1. Improve employee engagement – Employee engagement and customer satisfaction go hand-in-hand. If your front-line employees aren’t happy and committed to your dealership’s success, customers will leave your business unimpressed (at the least) and unsatisfied (at the worst). 
    
2. Improve employee training – If your employees don’t know how to do their jobs, can’t do them effectively, or are unable to handle the customer when things go wrong (which they will), customers will get irritated and your dealership could lose that customer, along with  future customers due to negative word-of-mouth.
    
3. Improve staff retention – Do I even need to explain why any business – much less car dealerships – wouldn’t want to improve their staff retention?
    
4. Improve customer loyalty – Of course any business wants loyal customers. But creating and keeping them requires consistently great service. This is a much harder challenge as loyal customers won’t stick around long if they have too many bad experiences -- and the definition of “too many” varies from customer to customer. Often, one could be enough. However, most loyal customers will give you more than one chance. The problem is that you don’t know which will, and which won’t. So, ensure that your customers receive a consistent experience, regardless of which employee services them.
    
5. Get more referrals – Everyone wants referrals, especially car dealerships. Customers who are referred by a friend of associate tend to come in with less anxiety, are less combative, more willing to take advice and more trusting in the dealership and salesperson.
    
6. Improve profits – This, of course, comes from all of the above. You’ll spend less keeping a customer, less training new employees, less acquiring new customers and maintain higher profits -- in both sales and service.