She Helps Car Salespeople Understand Infotainment- WardsAuto

A recent trend for dealerships has been to hire in a "delivery specialist", someone whose sole purpose is to help deliver vehicles efficiently to customers, including helping set up the customer's phone and in-vehicle technology before they leave the lot. This has come in response to CSI scores being negatively affected by a customer's technology experience at the dealership, and the concept itself clearly has great intentions, and the customer's best interest in mind! As a matter of fact, Cox Automotive found in a recent study, "4 Truths of Connected Retail", that customers actually want to spend more time on the delivery of the vehicle, specifically to learn the vehicle technology.

However, there can be a few problems with hiring a delivery specialist for your dealership. I recently had a conversation with Laurie Foster, founder of Foster Strategies Group LLC and an experienced professional with 20 years in the automotive industry. As we discussed the topic, Laurie brought up a great point: customers want to feel taken care of and like they are of importance to the dealership, and although it would seem that a delivery specialist would help showcase the fact that your dealership wants the customer to have the best experience possible, it can instead come off to the customer that they are simply being passed off so that the sales associate can move on to the next sale. This "passing of the baton" can leave a bad taste in customers' mouths, especially if they have grown to like and build a relationship with their sales rep (as they should!). Another Cox Automotive study, the "2018 Service Industry Study", highlights the fact that one of the best ways to increase customer retention is to simply obtain the customer's trust. A customer's trust in their sales representative is likely diminished when they realize the sales associate won't even be present for the delivery of their new vehicle, which they undoubtedly spent a lot of time working on together.

Another negative aspect of hiring a delivery specialist is the cost. To hire another employee full time at your dealership, when the current market calls for reducing unnecessary expenditures, is obviously a questionable move. According to ZipRecruiter, an immensely popular job aggregator, "as of May 6, 2019, the average annual pay for a Delivery Specialist in the United States is $29,933 a year". An infographic from ZipRecruiter's website is shown below:

What is the best solution, then, in regards to the customer complaints regarding lack of information and instruction on in-vehicle technology? Get your entire sales staff up to snuff on in-vehicle technology and infotainment. Eliminate the need for a delivery specialist entirely, by having confidence in your sales team that they are capable and excited about presenting new technologies to customers.

Visit www.emeraldinfotainmentspecialists.com for more information on educating your staff on infotainment systems, and preparing them to be able to properly demonstrate these systems to their customers.

Most of my adult life has been spent working in sales in one way or another: I spent 5 years working in cellphone sales, and then turned up the heat and decided to get into automotive sales. One would assume that these two positions would be very different from one another, but that is not necessarily the case. I actually entered the dealership world with a much larger knowledge of infotainment systems/touchscreens/in-vehicle technology than most of my fellow employees, who had been working in automotive sales for much longer than I had! In order to explain why I had such a large understanding of vehicle touchscreens and infotainment systems despite never previously working at a dealership, we must actually look at our customers. When a customer purchases a new vehicle, it is supposed to be a time of excitement and joy. Unfortunately, a lot of this excitement can quickly turn into frustration as customers pull off the lot only to realize that they have no idea how to work their new vehicle's touchscreen, get their phone properly connected, or have a celebratory "jam out" session to their favorite music streaming apps.

After the customer inevitably becomes upset with their "confusing" and "overcomplicated" vehicle's touchscreen and user interface, where do they turn? The primary hope is that the vehicle was delivered to the customer in such a way that none of these problems even occur in the first place. The secondary hope is that if the customer has a problem with their vehicle, they will return to the dealership for service and guidance. Isn't this what we want our customers to do if they have a NON-technology related problem with their vehicle? But the reality of the situation is that often times neither of these hopes are met, and instead, the customer brings their car to the technology expert that they know best: the local cellphone store. I cannot tell you how many times I had to ask a fellow employee to cover my station while I went outside to help a customer pair their phone to their new vehicle!

It quickly became obvious to me that I was lightyears ahead in terms of understanding and operating infotainment systems in comparison to my fellow automobile sales associates, and I was excited that this knowledge may give me some type of advantage during my time at the dealership. Although this was definitely true (my customer satisfaction scores were some of the highest in the entire dealership), it was not as true as I had expected. I had expected to be the hero who could save the day when a customer came in for help with their vehicle's touchscreen and getting their phone paired, but the fact of the matter was, that rarely if ever did customers come BACK to the dealership with their technology questions! They were already being taken care of down at the local phone store!

Taking all of this into consideration, I made my next career move, and Emerald Infotainment Specialists was born. Providing training for car dealership staff on how to properly operate these infotainment systems, as well as use them to better connect with customers and close more sales, is the primary goal of EIS. Still a young company, research has been a huge initial focus. Recently, EIS conducted a survey at The Digital Dealer Conference & Expo in order to gain an even better understanding of how the gap can be closed on this missed opportunity. Results are shown in detail below:

As you can see, even though most dealers prefer customers to return to their dealership for service, this is often not communicated during the sales process. When you take a look at the results and DO NOT INCLUDE dealerships selling luxury vehicles, the results are even more striking:

The results are in, and I have to surmise that some of these dealers only hope this is communicated during the sales process, but felt compelled to say "yes, of course we do!". If you are reading this post and questioning the practices of your own dealership, check out Emerald Infotainment Specialists' website for more information.

"Millenials" are a common topic regardless of the industry being discussed, which is why it's not all that surprising to learn that the millennial generation is the most studied generation in history. Therefore, the study of millennials in the mobility sector is not unique, but that does not diminish its importance.

The millennial generation will soon surpass the baby boomers as the largest living generation of the population. This fact, along with increased technological abilities over the past few decades, makes it more clear why the millennial generation is so heavily studied. Not only are the Millenials coming of age to make up the largest purchasing group in existence, but they also surpassed Gen X in 2016 as the largest generation in the U.S. labor force (pewresearch.org).

These numbers can not be ignored in the dealership world. Autotrader recently put out a study on Millennials, "The Next Generation Car Buyer", and the article brings a multitude of interesting information to light. We learned that in 2016, Millenials made up 1 out of 3 new vehicle purchases, and by 2020, they are expected to be the largest car buying group in existence. We also learned exactly what Millenials desire in a vehicle; an infographic from the article detailing the top 5 desired features can be seen below:

It probably comes as no surprise that all five of the top five features desired by Millennials in their vehicles have little to do with the vehicle's mechanics and everything to do with the vehicle's technology. Putting a focus on the vehicle's technology during the sales process is a tactic dealerships should be considering and implementing in the immediate future.

Understanding the prevalence of millennials in the workforce is important for dealerships as well, especially since the average turnover rate for a sales associate is estimated to be around 67% and still on the rise. Because a new hire costs the dealership an average of $10,000, reducing employee turnover is vital to increasing overall dealership profitability. As stated previously, millennials have the largest presence in the workforce, so understanding what drives a millennial's choice in an employer is key. According to the Deloitte Millennial Survey, 78% of millennials are strongly influenced by how innovative a company is when deciding to work there. Putting a focus on technology in the dealership is not only important to millennial buyers, but also to millennial workers.

Love them or hate them, the millennial generation is inarguably a dominant force in the automotive market: both as consumers and employees. Best practices for winning the millennial over, whether as a consumer or an employee, should include an aspect that focuses on the technological aspects of the vehicle.

Check out emeraldinfotainmentspecialists.com for more information on adding a technological focus to your dealership.