Selecting the right technology for your dealership is a big decision. In my years working closely with technology transitions in the dealership, I’ve often seen dealers get caught up in feature lists and capability comparisons. It’s true, you want to feel confident that your technology will provide the tools necessary to run a successful business. Ironically, it’s often the less tangible benefits—and not a set of product features—that make the difference between an ordinary vendor and an excellent partner. In today’s world, dealerships should expect their technology vendors to provide more than just a full list of features. They should expect all of the qualities that make up a great partnership, including effortless customer support experience, frequent training, and real-time information.

Effortless Customer Support Experience

Powerful technologies, with their extensive feature lists, can sometimes be complex and confusing. That’s why it’s so important that tech providers offer an effortless customer support experience. No matter how good your team is when it comes to using technology, they will sometimes require outside support. Technology challenges take your team members away from their important tasks of buying, selling, and servicing cars, causing them to waste resources and effort on less important pursuits. Great technology partners recognize that these challenges are a waste of dealership resources and they work hard to resolve customer issues quickly and effortlessly.

Frequent Training

When evaluating technologies, it’s important to remember that their purpose is to make your business more efficient. Advanced features are wonderful, but all the bells and whistles in the world won’t make a difference if the members of your dealership team don’t know how to use them. The best technology companies have learned the importance of pairing great features with great support. You should expect your partners to demonstrate a commitment to training every employee on their systems. You should also expect them to offer training opportunities frequently and regularly—not just at implementation. Proper training will increase system proficiency, employee efficiency, and dealership profitability.

Real-time Information

One of the primary functions of a good business technology is to enable employees and executives to make better decisions. Good business decisions require good data, delivered in a timely manner. Today, most dealership technologies are capable of processing and reporting information. Unfortunately, many systems process that data intermittently in batches and are, therefore, unable to deliver the real-time information required to make informed decisions. When selecting a technology, you need to look beyond the list of available functions, processes, and reports and begin examining the timing of those processes. Real-time information can help your dealership track performance, stay up to speed with customers, and make better decisions.

In today’s world of powerful technology, great companies are differentiating themselves by providing non-technical benefits to their customers. Effortless customer support experiences, frequent training, and real-time information are a few of the most important offerings that dealerships must begin to expect from their technology providers. In order to successfully select the best partners, dealerships need to look beyond simple feature lists and start examining the non-tangible benefits being offered.

Click here to read more insights from Sharon Kitzman, VP, GM of Dealertrack DMS. 

Henry Ford, a father of the American automotive industry, once observed that "most people spend more time and energy going around problems than trying to solve them." With all of the advancements in technology, Mr. Ford would hardly recognize the industry that he helped establish. When it comes to switching that technology within a dealership, however, he would be quite familiar with the strong aversion to change that still exists today. In order to avoid the pain associated with change, many dealerships spend their time and energy working around the limitations of their technologies. If your dealership decides that the hard work of change is worth the benefit, the following five steps can help ensure a successful technology transition. 

Step 1: Choose a Vendor

In a successful change process, selecting a vendor is the first step—not the last. Vendor selection is a complex process that begins with identifying the specific needs that your dealership is trying to solve for. Once you understand the problem or opportunity, you can start the process of gathering information. Be sure to cast a wide net and to consult with your peers in the industry because they may have already solved for the same problem. Finally, evaluate your alternatives carefully and make a decision. Once you've chosen a vendor, the real work of organizational change begins. 

Step 2: Get Leadership on Board

Making changes to your organization without the complete support of your leadership group is a recipe for disaster. It is essential to get managers on board with technology change and to prepare them to carry the change message to the entire organization. The secret to obtaining management buy-in is clear and effective communication of the organization's long-term vision. Remember to address the unique interests of each stakeholder, but don't lost sight of the company's overall strategy. 

Step 3: Manage Organizational Change

With leadership support in place, it's time to carry the message to the entire organization. First, identify those affected by the change and begin communicating with them early. Clearly articulate the answer to their most important question: "What's in it for me?" You may even consider producing content or holding town hall meetings where team members can have honest, direct conversations with senior managers. In all communications, outline behaviors for success and challenge members of your team to achieve benchmarks and meet expectations. Most importantly, continue communicating—the good and the bad—throughout the duration of the change process. 

Step 4: Build Implementation Partnerships

Most significant organizational change initiatives involved failure and a lot of frustration. But, there is a better way. While change will always involve hard work, dealerships can avoid many common pitfalls by choosing technology partners that have proven process for implementation. Experienced vendors have developed a specific methodology that helps customers steer clear of trouble. The best partnerships are formed when vendors and dealerships agree to hold one another accountable for the steps proven to drive success.   

Step 5: Manage Continuous Learning

Continuous learning refers to the ongoing development of skills in the workplace, with an emphasis on adapting to change. Dealership employees that are given a thorough introduction to new technologies are less likely to grow frustrated while working through the learning curve. But, they perform even better when given the opportunity to learn new skills and ask new questions on a regular basis. In addition to regular trainings, dealerships should take full advantage of any performance management programs offered by technology vendors, as they are an effective way to improve product usage and knowledge.

Changing technology solutions is not easy. But, by following a proven plan, dealerships put themselves in a position to be successful. As heirs to the industry that Henry Ford helped build, we need to embrace technological change and the hard work that comes with it. Most importantly, we need to spend more time and energy solving our problems than working around them.

Click here to read more industry insights from Sharon Kitzman. 

Like most people, you've probably applied a few labels to the rising millennial generation—lazy or inspired, entitled or principled, destined for greatness or doomed to underachieve. The specific set of labels that you’ve assigned to this group of young adults likely depends on your social perspective. But, unless you’re closely following the economic and demographic trends, here are a few millennial labels that you may not have considered: coworker, employee, or even future general manager of your dealership.

With more than 70 million in their cohort, millennials now make up the largest share of the American workforce, constituting more than one in three of today’s workers. In order to remain successful in the coming decades, the automotive industry—and your dealership—must accommodate the arrival and the rise of the millennial generation. And, while I hesitate to apply generalizations to an already stereotyped group, data and trends have revealed the following preferences, goals, and beliefs held by many millennial workers.

Technology as a Tool

Technology is an integral part of the millennial lifestyle. As digital natives, millennials are accustomed to using technology, including mobile devices, to get things done. And, many millennials have rejected the idea that all work-related technology should be provided by their employers. In many cases, they want to make their own decisions about what device, brand, program, and provider they use. Dealerships and dealership technology providers, then, must cater to the new bring-your-own-device mentality. As a result, their systems must be browser and device agnostic. They must support and cater to dealership employees that would prefer to use tablets or mobile phones versus laptops or workstations.

It’s not enough to simply offer high-tech tools for millennials in the workplace. Those tools must be intuitive, attractive, and easy to use. Millennial employees have a strong appreciation for good design and have little patience for inelegant solutions. To keep this group happy and engaged, command codes and other outdated modes of technology operation should be replaced by intuitive navigation and streamlined user experience.

Excessive, On-Demand Information

It wouldn’t be surprising to see a millennial working on a laptop, while using a phone to check social media, while engaging in an IM conversation on a tablet, while monitoring several web pages at once, while binge watching a series on Netflix in the background. As children and students, millennials used search engines, not encyclopedias. In other words, they have always been privy to volumes of easily accessible information and, to them, there’s no such thing as information overload. Millennials have developed an ability to focus on multiple inputs at the same time. In the workplace, this translates into a preference for easily accessible and up-to-the-minute business data and reporting. Dealerships can satisfy that preference by implementing systems that supply remote and mobile access to real-time data.  

Technology over Talking

Because technology has always been a part of the millennial lifestyle, it has significantly shaped the way an entire generation prefers to communicate. Rather than engage in face-to-face interactions, many millennials prefer to connect through technology. This communication style transcends personal and social relationships, and spills into business dealings, workplace behavior, and nearly every other aspect of their lives. Many technologies have been developed to accommodate a preference for digital communication in corporate America. Tools like Skype, Blue Jeans, Hip Chat, and Slack facilitate online interactions that the rising generation finds to be more comfortable and more efficient. Technology providers can align with those preferences by providing multiple support channels through online and offline mediums.

Millennials Want to be Heard

Unlike previous generations, millennials were educated in an environment that encouraged student input, feedback, and participation. As a result, many of them are not content to defer their opinions or to accept arbitrary cultures of seniority, tenure, and hierarchy within the workforce. Dealerships and dealership technology providers should proactively solicit feedback from millennial employees and product users, giving them a voice and a formal platform for sharing their ideas and for expressing their workplace preferences. In addition to providing valuable insights into employee and user preferences, these arrangements can also provide a communication channel that decreases resentment and frustration. At Dealertrack DMS, we convene regular meetings with a millennial subset or our workforce in order to understand their professional preferences and to solicit their opinions on our technology products. As part of our company’s culture committee, it’s up to that group to identify priorities and to become a part of the solution.

Adjustments Create Opportunities

As a growing force in our culture, millennials are having a major impact on our economy, our workforce, and the automotive industry. In order to stay competitive, dealerships must incorporate technologies that cater to the preferences of this new generation. The many labels applied to millennials may not accurately define their rising generation, but adjusting your business to accommodate some of their cultural and technological preferences could help define your dealership’s success by encouraging positive expressions of that culture on tools like LinkedIn and Glassdoor, which will be critical to the opportunity of recruiting quality candidates in the future.