Legacy Nissan
The Life of the Cocktail Party
I’m from Kentucky, the southeast region characterized by dialect that sometimes presents confusion. Case in point: A friend of mine, after moving to town from Trenton, N.J., asked someone for a quick favor. The reply? “I don’t care to do that.” My friend thought her request had been denied. But actually, in my neck of the woods, those six little words mean “I’m happy to help.”
This introduction serves a purpose. I’ll get back to it shortly. But first, let’s switch gears.
I read an article recently published online by Wired called People Who Are Good at Cocktail Parties Are Also Better at the Internet. It summarizes research by Carnegie Mellon’s Anita Woolley, who reported that people who effectively gauge emotions in a face-to-face environment are generally able to do the same thing online by observing subtle emotional cues in text. I’d like to call these folks state-of-mind readers, but scientists have already coined it. They call this ability “theory of mind.” There’s actually a test to measure it called “Reading the Mind in the Eyes.” Incidentally, women typically score higher than men.
What does this mean for automotive sales? It seems this research could be used to inform personnel decisions and/or training initiatives, especially if we fully understand the complexities of communicating without the benefit of seeing someone’s face.
I won’t pretend to understand all the BDC models, but it’s safe to say that a healthy number of them exist. Some of you might rotate your sales staff from the floor to the phones to online chat. Some probably have staff dedicated to specific communication channels. What this research tells me is that some people are better suited than others to speak with people without the benefit of seeing facial expressions or hearing tone of voice. There are subtleties in language that some folks are adept at picking up on, even in text-based conversations.
This is critical in today’s digital marketplace that often extends beyond any typical market radius. Consider the scenario I described in the opening paragraph. This was a face-to-face conversation where parties had the benefit of observing tone and facial expressions. Yet misunderstanding still prevailed. If it’s that easy to misinterpret language in a face-to-face environment among people of different cultures, imagine how easily we can lose customers in a communication gap online.
Think about how this research can benefit your team. Those with “theory of mind” abilities might help fill the gap.
Legacy Nissan
Plaid Jackets and Lies
Below is a blog post I recently published for customers under the same headline that appears here. It's my manifesto on protecting car dealers’ reputations against bullies on the social Web. As you'll see when you reach the conclusion, I link to this post when I can't quite defend our reputation without playing in the same mud that's sometimes slung at us. Perhaps you can relate.
Car dealers share a bad reputation. (This is your cue to shout, “How bad is it?”) Well, it’s pretty bad. So bad that we’re often accused of keeping Sansabelt slacks and polyester plaid jackets on the market, and for refusing to let the combover die. Aside from a fashion-sense deficit, we’re associated with unethical and dishonest behavior. To top it all off, we’re called dealers. Dang it.
It’s easy to see why we’re an easy target for online harassment. People sometimes see in us an opportunity to manipulate a situation to serve a personal agenda by exploiting this negative stereotype. They make false claims against us, build a mob of online supporters, and we cave to their demands out of fear that no one will believe our side of the story. After all, we’re car dealers. We should accept that no one trusts us, lick our wounds and move on, right? Not so fast.
At Legacy Nissan, here’s what we normally do: We respond by presenting information clearly, concisely and factually. Emotion is left at the door.
The good news is, it works. It’s tough to argue with facts. However, the truth sometimes hurts, and sometimes it’s ugly. Isn’t that why white lies were invented? But we’re not in the business of telling lies—regardless of their color—so instead, we’ve found ourselves ignoring misrepresented scenarios as we help solve problems without properly defending ourselves. Here are two recent examples.
Situation No. 1
A man bypassed his vehicle’s fuel-sending unit—a technique known as hot-wiring— and drove it in this state for about two years until he discovered an open recall to repair it. While attempting to make the repair, our technicians discovered extensive damage from wire tampering that disqualified the recall work. We couldn’t legally or ethically reinstitute the bypass, but we managed to convince the manufacturer to cover half the expense (we covered the rest). While awaiting the manufacturer’s verdict, the customer posted online that his vehicle was fine until we got our hands on it.
To defend ourselves in this instance, we would have been forced to draw attention to this man’s handiwork. Most people would reasonably conclude that anyone who knows enough about cars to hot-wire one is also aware of how dangerous it is. (A spark could cause an explosion.) And because he had made public references to his toddler being a passenger, this became even more troubling. We chose not to expose it.
Situation No. 2
A woman ran out of gas, which ruined her fuel pump. We replaced it, but the new part didn’t solve her problem. Not surprisingly, when she ran out of fuel, she created a snowball effect of persistent damages. While we were busy exploring ways to remedy a problem she created, she was busy on Facebook posting a skewed description of the saga. Without mentioning she ran out of gas, she accused us of being greedy and incompetent, to put it mildly.
To protect our reputation in this case would have required that we disclose her negligence and point out her misrepresentation of the truth. We easily could have done that through service records, but we chose not to.
Both of these situations created minor storms we were able to weather. We didn’t enjoy it when the mob shouted, “Report them to the manufacturer!” or “Get a lawyer!” But that wasn’t the damaging part. The bad part came when each customer—after learning our efforts had succeeded—posted that Legacy Nissan had agreed to fix the problem. Comments were full of applause. People responded with things like, “Yay for you!” “So glad they stepped up and did the right thing!” and “You made it happen!”
As long as we refuse to defend ourselves, we’ll reinforce this behavior and, even worse, perpetuate the stereotype. In effect, we’ll be contributing to our own problem as we condition our stakeholders to disrespect us and hold us in low esteem.
It has to stop. But not through humiliation. Instead, when faced with Catch 22 situations like those described here, we’ve decided to take a direct, yet passive, approach by responding with a link to this blog post. So if you found this content in a heated comment thread, please know we’re making every effort to be kind as we protect our reputation and break down the stereotype that plagues us. We will defend ourselves with documents only if this first step proves ineffective. But rest assured—we will defend ourselves. We owe it to ourselves as well as our industry.
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Legacy Nissan
Reputation Score: More vital than a credit score?
Common today: A customer cannot buy a vehicle without an acceptable credit score.
Common tomorrow: A dealer cannot sell a vehicle without an acceptable reputation score.
It’s quite a switch-a-roo, right?
If we are to believe Michael Fertik, author of The Reputation Economy, our online reputations are powerful and "becoming more valuable than money or power." He says that before long, a reputation score could determine whether or not potential customers visit our sites–online or off.
Don’t believe it? Here’s a case in point: San Francisco-based Airbnb was contacted in November by a traveller who wanted accommodations in Germany. Turns out, according to The Guardian, her existence couldn’t be verified because she didn’t have enough Facebook friends. The consequence? She was denied a room.
It seems that having no online presence might eventually become as damaging—if not more—as having a negative online presence. And this makes sense, right? Would you feel more comfortable selling a car to someone with zero credit or bad credit? A no-credit person can get a co-signer, but unfortunately, there’s no such thing as a co-signer for social presence.
Here’s a non-secret: People are social creatures, and the digital environment is social. Therefore, there’s no sense in working to avoid or manipulate online reviews. Our best bet is to always respond to what makes our stakeholders happy, unhappy or indifferent, and accommodate them when we should. Good reviews will follow. And then, if a reputation score is devised and used as readily as a credit score, we’ll be prepared.
That’s about it for now, except for a few parting words: Establish a Net Promoter Score if you’ve been moved by this post, and measure it regularly. It’s enlightening and can help with your relationship-building ROI. Do you currently have a vendor for this? If so, I’d love to hear your opinions.
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Legacy Nissan
POST method: You can trust it to help build trust
Who do Americans trust more than car salespeople? Basically, everybody. Car salespeople are trusted slightly more than members of Congress, according to the latest Gallop poll ranking honesty and integrity among professionals. In contrast, the Edelman Trust Barometer shows that globally, the automotive industry falls just behind technology, which is the most trusted industry in the world.
People trust auto man
ufacturers but not those who sell their products. This is nothing new. If you compare both the Gallop and Edelman reports for the past several years, you’ll find similar results.
What are we doing about this discrepancy? Not much from what I can see.
If global campaigns controlled by manufacturers are not helping build trust at the dealer level (and apparently they’re not), it makes no sense for dealers to ignore relationship building to focus instead on gimmicky marketing tools and superficial messages. Yet what I observe on social media—the great cocktail party of the Web, where two-way symmetrical conversations are expected—looks like this:
- Steady streams of “grip-and-grin” photos of customers and salespeople standing in front of newly purchased vehicles.
- Status updates that brag about monthly sales volume and goals met.
- Posts that thank fans and followers merely for “liking” a page upon reaching a milestone.
- Product and service advertisements.
These types of posts (particularly if they’re overused) are pretty much another way of saying, “Look how great we are!” To be blunt, vanity marketing is a turn-off, and therefore does nothing to build relationships in a venue full of people who are there because they expect conversations and entertainment. And when vanity marketing is presented in the same social space as ignored bad reviews and negative comments, the problem is compounded.
It’s time dealers become smart about relationship building through social business. It’s strategic with measurable and time-sensitive objectives that are based on business goals. And the technology you choose should be the last thing you consider. “Because all the cool kids are doing it” is not a good reason to use Facebook.
To get started strategically building relationships on the social Web, I recommend the POST method. It's not new, but it’s widely unknown to those outside the public relations profession. Here's the breakdown, but Google it to learn more. Forrester Research offers a decent explanation that goes into more detail than what I'm offering here.
P is for People
Know your key audiences. What are their behaviors and expectations on the social Web?
O is for Objectives
Do you hope to build relationships through customer support? By energizing them? Through collaboration?
S is for Strategy
This is where you determine specifically what you’d like to accomplish so you can measure results.
T is for Technology
Choose technology that’s best suited for your people, objectives and strategy. If you hope to energize your audience, for example, a traditional blog might not be the best choice. A more conversational tool would probably work better.
We can’t expect to say, “I’m trustworthy because I’m successful,” and build meaningful relationships to that end. We must plan, build engagement and measure results that matter. Let’s help customers get to know more about us than just the manufacturers we represent. I think the POST method can help.
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