Video marketing has been a growing focus in nearly every industry for over a decade. But during the past year-and-a-half, due to a majority of business moving to virtual, video use at dealerships has exploded. While covid-related restrictions have started to ease in recent months, video has taken root and continued to be an essential tool to help sell more cars. This is because not all consumers are ready to venture out, or they recognize the convenience of an online car buying experience.

At the same time, the used car market is exploding, forcing dealers to increase prices on their lots, with few new vehicles to sell because of chip and parts shortages.

As Carvana and other disrupters are making a play to capture even more market share by running anti-dealership campaigns while willing to lose money buying vehicles high and selling them low, consumers are gravitating towards them.

There is a way, however, to overcome the marketing tactics that these online retailers are pushing so heavily: live video calling. The ability to follow up with your leads with a live video call humanizes your dealership. It gives a face and personality to your sales staff that builds the valuable trust relationship that these companies are trying so hard to break.

While vehicle description pages exist, there is no emotion for a consumer to connect with when they look at text on a screen. Your shoppers will almost assuredly seek more information, while also trying to decide if your dealership is a place that they want to do business with. Through live video calling, your salespeople can connect with their customers, show them the vehicle live and answer any of their questions in real-time.

It does not matter if the live video call is one-sided (where the consumer sees you, but you can’t see them) or two-sided (like a Facebook Live video call). You can build rapport with a customer through a live call, show them the vehicle they expressed interest in and reassure them that YOUR DEALERSHIP will be there for them for whatever they need during the car buying cycle.

As the market continues to lean more and more to the digital side, both dealerships and these industry disruptors will continue getting online leads. The good news is your dealership can still have an advantage over these online companies. Through live video calling, you can prove that you are a business that can still be trusted… much more than any multi-story “car vending machine” can.

Customizable platform provides dealers with complete video solutions for marketing and merchandising vehicles, communicating with customers

Urbandale, IA—August 2, 2021—FlickFusion, the industry's leading video marketing provider, today announced a rebranding of its market-leading video marketing platform for auto dealers, and is introducing Nucleus. Nucleus provides dealers with a core solution upon which they can build a customized and integrated video marketing strategy with a variety of add-on products. Nucleus makes it easy for dealers to use videos to market and merchandise their inventory, as well as to communicate with customers.

“It’s becoming evident to dealers that they’ve got to start doing more with video, but many don’t have a strategy in place behind their video production,” said Tim James, COO of FlickFusion. “Nucleus is the only video marketing platform in the industry that automates much of the strategy of video marketing, including production, distribution and the collection and utilization of data from video viewers.”

Nucleus is a customizable and scalable platform suitable for all dealers regardless of their video marketing experience. Nucleus allows dealers to start small and scale up, or start with a robust video marketing strategy that will immediately boost website traffic, lead conversion rates, as well as search engine optimization (SEO) results.

Dealers can choose from a variety of add-on video products to help them meeting their marketing, merchandising or customer communications goals.

The use of video in marketing campaigns has been proven to increase response rates and ROI. Videos such as New Model Test Drives, Testimonial Reviews and Dynamic Marketing Videos make it easy to include videos in campaigns across every marketing channel.

Dealers spend money to merchandise vehicles in their showrooms, but often do little to merchandise their vehicles online, where most car shoppers do the majority of their research and selection process. FlickFusion’s Inventory Videos and 360-Spin videos provide customers with an immersive shopping experience and the videos can be distributed across all inventory touchpoints. Additionally, merchandising videos displayed along with other videos on a landing page help to bring potential buyers down funnel.

To increase lead response rates and customer engagement, many dealers are turning to video communications. FlickFusion’s Video Texting and Email product, and its Live Video Chat application, help to humanize dealership employees and overcome negative stereotypes. They also deliver the “wow” factor to prospects who receive personalized video texts and emails from salespeople.

The name Nucleus is a re-branding of FlickFusion’s award-winning SmartFlicks video marketing platform. The platform was designed for simplicity, ease of use and has been proven to deliver results, including increased website traffic, leads, lead conversions, appointments and sales.

For more information visit https://flickfusion.com

About FlickFusion

FlickFusion offers a full-solution video hosting, marketing and distribution platform to automotive and other inventory-based industries. The platform delivers automated, integrated and rule/behavior-based, including geo-targeted, video content in real-time, across multiple touchpoints and throughout the entire purchase cycle.

FlickFusion makes it easy for dealers to create desktop and mobile-friendly vehicle inventory videos, video email and customer engagement videos such as testimonials, service department overviews and more. Videos are proven to capture more buyers' attention, advance organic SEO rankings, generate leads and increase conversion rates. The FlickFusion system builds emotional value and customer loyalty for more than 3,500 brands and preferred partners.

Video is a great way to engage car shoppers and there are many ways your dealership can benefit from using it to make an incredible impact during the buying cycle. Here are some simple best practice tips that work well and can help you get the most out of your video content.

1. 1. Utilize Video Walkarounds on Vehicle Display Pages and Additional Touchpoints

A lot of dealerships shoot great walkaround videos of various inventory and then post only to their Facebook accounts. When you are already putting in the effort to get videos of your inventory, why not utilize those videos to their full extent? Customers are mainly digital-first in the modern market, and there are countless opportunities to display your videos – ones that you are likely already paying for, like your VDPs, SRPs, Autotrader, and Cars.com. With hundreds if not thousands of “in market” shoppers on these other touchpoints that you are already investing in, it makes the most sense to put your awesome merchandise walkarounds there too.

1. 2. Repurpose video walk-around content

One of the most obvious examples is video walkarounds. The method that most BDCs or salespeople use is to make them on the fly. A lead or phone call comes in and the consumer wants more information about the vehicle and more images. The BDC or salesperson then goes onto the lot, finds the vehicle, pulls it out of the line, records a video (hopefully personalized at minimum), and then emails it to the customer. What happens when, 30 minutes later, another customer calls in with the same request? Well, the process starts over.

How much time are those employees taking to do this? My guess would be a few hours a day that they "could" be following up with opportunities. There are services out there that can reduce that time to minutes. Once a walkaround is completed, the car itself does not change but the message to different shoppers will. Rather than shooting a totally new video of the same thing, you can simply record a personalized picture-in-picture, showing your sales person talking about the features of the car that specific lead is the most interested in.  

1. 3. Repurpose evergreen content on your website to attract more eyeballs

Another great way to repurpose content is to take your evergreen video content and reuse it elsewhere to attract more views. Let’s say that you made a video explaining the importance of a transmission flush – something that customers in your service drive don’t think of or understand. Why not take that video and make a written version of it for your website? This provides great content for customers in your area searching for that information and is also great for SEO purposes.

1. 4. Social Media

Video can also be effective for social media purposes. All platforms now embrace video as the best content format. Using short-form videos to engage customers in their Facebook feeds (or other social media platforms) is a great way to spread the word about your store and tell your story. Some simple content ideas that you can put on your social media are: videos that show what makes your dealership unique, customer testimonials, current deals/incentives, new model test drive snippets, etc. Video doesn’t need to be complicated to be impactful on social media, just give your shoppers content you know they will be interested in an authentic way.

1. 5. Blogs/Content Marketing

If you are writing blog content, take that blog and create a video of its message. You've already taken the time to do the writing, why not create a dual-use for it.

On the opposite end of that spectrum, you could take those transcribed or repurposed blogs and create an e-book for your customers out of a compilation. Say you made a video explaining the importance of the many service upsells that consumers don't understand. Then you made blog posts from those videos. Why not create an e-book or PDF/graphic compiling all of these explanations that consumers can reference?

Keep in mind that you want your dealership to be the go-to resource for all things related to your brand and services. If you don’t provide that information, they will simply find it someplace else. And that might be from a competitor.

In the end, video content can be repurposed in several ways to help your dealership communicate with customers and improve engagement. It can also provide powerful SEO for your website and build your site into a place consumers visit before the competition for sales and service-related information. You become thought leaders for your brand which can then lead to an increase in sales and a higher percentage of service recommendation acceptance.

When it comes to video marketing it pays to take a look at the larger picture to see how you can utilize video for all of your content – and make life easier.

Urbandale, IA—July 19, 2021—FlickFusion’s COO Tim James will present “Build an Amazing Video Strategy” at the Unfair Advantage Automotive Mastermind Group (UAAMG), August 5, 2021 in Myrtle Beach, SC.

“Many dealerships are doing a great job producing video content; however, many dealers don’t have a strategy beyond just posting that content on Facebook or their website,” said Tim James, COO of Flick Fusion. “This presentation will show dealers how they can strategically place videos throughout the customer’s buying cycle, in the right place at the right time, in order to drive more leads and sales.”

James’ presentation will focus on utilizing technology to maximize the impact of video content across multiple touch-points and during every step of a car buyer’s journey, to provide the best online shopping experience for customers.

UAAMG attendees will leave with the following takeaways:

—What video content has the biggest impact on sales

• —How to utilize technology to maximize the informational and emotional value of their video content while making certain that their video content is being seen by the right shopper at the right time of the buying cycle

• —How to integrate video content into the lead follow-up process to increase appointments set and appointment shows

• —A new way to utilize Web RTC (Real-Time Communication) live streaming technology to connect with shoppers who can’t be reached with ZOOM or other popular live streaming services.

FlickFusion is a Platinum Partner sponsor for the UAAMG event, which is designed for top-performing dealers and managers who are ready to implement proven strategies that will help them become the best in the business.

For more information about UAAMG or to register for the event, visit https://unfairadvantagemastermind.com/

For more information about FlickFusion visit http://flickfusion.com

About FlickFusion

FlickFusion offers a full-solution video hosting, marketing and distribution platform to automotive and other inventory-based industries. The platform delivers automated, integrated and rule/behavior-based, including geo-targeted, video content in real-time, across multiple touchpoints and throughout the entire purchase cycle.

FlickFusion makes it easy for dealers to create desktop and mobile-friendly vehicle inventory videos, video email and customer engagement videos such as testimonials, service department overviews and more. Videos are proven to capture more buyers' attention, advance organic SEO rankings, generate leads and increase conversion rates. The FlickFusion system builds emotional value and customer loyalty for more than 3,500 brands and preferred partners.

Part of the vehicle sales process is to learn the customer’s needs and wants. You probably encounter a large number of consumers who don’t know exactly what they want (or need). In fact, it isn’t unusual for an online lead to provide no additional information other than the vehicle they are interested in. Reaching the consumer to learn more about them and their wants/needs can also be difficult. They might respond to you simply asking for a price, and that could be the only information you have when trying to move forward with the sale and relationship-building process. This conundrum makes it more difficult than ever to sell cars, but luckily video is the solution to this issue.

Recently, a dealer asked a question in a Facebook group that was amazingly simple: “What’s the most important thing for you in a car?” As you can imagine, the answers were all over the place. One of the funniest I saw was "an engine," but many people answered with more interesting responses. The reason they were interesting is that, as a salesperson, you don’t know what a customer wants unless they tell you… and many times they won’t. So how do you sell a car to a customer if you don’t know their needs and wants, and they won’t tell you?

Video walkarounds and video communication. That’s how.

Video Communication:

While a growing number of dealerships utilize video in their lead follow up process, many dealerships still respond to inquiries with a simple “give me a call” or “we’ll be in touch soon,” without answering any questions or trying to connect with the consumer on a personal level at all. This approach simply isn’t enough to make your dealership stand out against the lot on the other side of town. Shoppers look for transparency and someone they can trust when going through the big commitment of buying a new car – and you need to show that your sales team and dealership are trustworthy. Dealerships that utilize video communication in their lead follow-up process not only stand out, but they build those valuable trust relationships that keep shoppers coming back and sharing their experience with anyone they know that may need a car. In other words, you go from just another dealership to a trusted source for your shoppers -- simply by getting face-to-face with them over a video call and answering any questions they may have.

Video Walkarounds:

But… without a great video experience, one that includes video walkarounds, some dealerships might not get much of a response from their shoppers at all regarding their inventory.

By using video to display your inventory, you’re able to make an emotional impact on every shopper and get across all the vital information your shoppers care about the most. When you have a video for every car in your inventory, you get the benefit of humanizing your inventory and your dealership, while giving the customer anything they might want to know in the fastest way possible.

Although photos and vehicle descriptions are extremely important merchandising tools, emotion is what sells. There is no better way to transfer the information the consumer is looking for, while inspiring the emotions that will get the consumer attached to a vehicle, than a good video of the vehicle. With this method, you have a much better chance of selling the vehicle or getting a response from the customer about what works or doesn’t work regarding a specific vehicle. Because of your virtual showroom, once a customer is interested, you know what their needs are and can begin building a closer relationship with them via video communication. Win-win!

Video walkarounds and video communication enable you to better engage the customer, build rapport by selling the vehicle, yourself, and the dealership, and become more of a consultant to them than a salesperson. Don’t simply throw photos of your inventory on your site. Instead, combine video inventory and video communication in your strategy to stand out from the rest.

Think of your presentation like your virtual car lot. Take the customer on a tour of the vehicle via a video walkaround, or personalized video that includes all the selling points you would present if they were there in person – Safety, Comfort, Fuel Economy, Performance, etc.

An equally important note is to, no matter the form of video, use it to also sell yourself and the dealership at the same time you are selling the car. The most important sell is “you.” Introduce yourself and your dealership and let the consumer know that you are trying to learn more about their wants/needs and that YOU will work hard for them and provide them with THE best experience -- so no need to shop anywhere else.

Utilizing video in this way, having a video strategy for every stage of the buying cycle, allows you to find out what your shoppers want while establishing yourself as a trusted resource.

Today’s car buyers are usually excited to show off their new car to their friends, families, and associates, either in person or by posting a video of their new vehicle on social media. This creates a huge opportunity for your dealership to earn sales referral business while building a strong library of customer testimonials to utilize across all your online marketing strategies.  What if YOU assisted the customer with their video while they were still at YOUR store? Now the customer is sharing a VIDEO of themselves with their new vehicle, telling people about the wonderful experience your dealership provided, how happy they are with their new vehicle, why their salesperson was great and why others should buy a car from YOU.

Here is an example of how one successful dealership I know has implemented this strategy. They have an area set up with a gong and red carpet. The salespeople use their smartphone cameras to essentially interview the customer about their experience while they are excited. Best part? The salesperson is in the video WITH the customer. The salespeople work as a team and another salesperson (or manager) does the recording. The dealership gets a solid video testimonial that can be used for marketing; the salesperson gets a little juice to sell himself; and, best of all, the customer gets a video they can share with their friends and family!

You may be wondering how the dealership can get away with doing this, as there are all sorts of “potential” issues with using a customer’s video for marketing and/or review purposes without their written consent.

The dealership does one simple thing to ensure it is following rules, it incorporates a media release into its finance paperwork. This way, when the customer comes out of finance and is taking delivery of their new (or new to them) vehicle, and is excited, the salespeople can capture these memories for the customer. And the dealership can utilize those videos on social media or any other channel they wish. Will every customer agree to do a testimonial? Of course not. But If they do they sign the release in the F&I office.

This is an excellent way to build a solid list of customer testimonial videos that will grow throughout the years. Think about it. If your store sells 9 cars per day and, to be conservative, let’s say 50% decline being filmed, that still means 4-5 video testimonials a day, 120 per month… and so on. You get the picture (or video, I should say).  Now you have a library of testimonial videos to display on a testimonials page of your website, next to your inventory videos, on other third-party touchpoints, on social media, and to use as part of your online marketing strategies.

Some may think it is difficult to elicit these responses. Well, it's not. Just follow two rules: First, train your salespeople to ask specific questions to get the required response you need; and second, always ask the customer to talk about themselves! Don’t ask them why YOU are wonderful, ask them what THEY thought about the experience. You’ll get the answers you are looking for.

If you incorporate video testimonials into your sales and F&I process and train your staff to ask each sold customer to do one, you'll have more videos than you could desire in no time. Now, go make some videos!

When it comes to video marketing, I see a large variety of strategies within the automotive industry. Some dealerships are hyper-focused and create their video content with a defined purpose and strategy, some have a good idea of the “type” of video content that they need to capture but no defined strategy for maximizing the value of that video through touchpoint distribution, and some dealerships simply bring out a cell phone and start aimlessly wandering around their lot, with employees capturing video of whatever they want to. While these actions are certainly a start, it is far more effective to have an overall video marketing strategy. Start by thinking about what video content will have the biggest impact on your shoppers throughout the entire buying cycle. And then figure out how you plan to distribute your content across the various touchpoints to be seen by the right shopper at the right time.

An excellent article in Rolling Stone magazine showcases advice from eight video marketing experts. All of the panelists give solid advice. But the one that stuck out to me the most was by Brian Chin, Co-Founding Partner of p3 Maine, a video production company. His advice was as follows:

“I run a video agency, and far too often we see companies waste money on ineffective video content because they’ve just been told they “need video.” Put in place the correct strategy for your needs, targeting the correct audience with the right message. And if video is the way to go, create beautiful and engaging content that inspires people to take action. But strategy first.”

I’ve always believed in a “strategy first” approach to all marketing, not just video. You can save yourself so much time and money by “starting with the end in mind,” and understanding what content you need, as Brian Chin mentions. Also, by understanding the technologies that are available to you to help maximize your efforts. It’s not simply about taking video. Shooting videos is great, and it is something that data shows every dealership needs to be doing. However, videos need to be seen by the right audience at the right time to maximize their true value.

Here are three simple points to consider that can help your dealership when creating a highly effective video marketing STRATEGY:

1. How and where are you using that video?

Before making any video, it helps to know exactly how you plan to use it. Ask yourself the following questions: “Is the purpose of this video to inspire an emotional response and increase engagement on a social media campaign? If so, where else would it have that same emotional value? Should it also be displayed with a specific Make or Model (or even a specific vehicle) on my VDPs?” “Is it to build trust with high, mid, or low funnel shoppers? If so, what are the touchpoints where I know my shoppers will be throughout the buying cycle and how do I make sure that all of my shoppers are presented with this video content (without them having to look for it.) "Am I trying to increase recommended service repairs?” Having solid answers to the question “how and where” is a great way to start formulating a strategy.

2. What outcome do you desire for each video?

Once you’ve determined the purpose, now ask yourself what outcome you want from each specific video. Is the video designed to increase sales? Is it to increase conversion from an ad and drive more traffic to your website or landing page? Get leads to engage with your BDC or sales team? Brand your store? There are a lot of outcomes you might expect from a video marketing strategy. But, you have to know what to expect and how to make certain that your video content is presented to your shoppers strategically before you can measure it.

3. How can you use data to improve the effectiveness of each video?

Many video platforms only show rudimentary data such as views or likes, but fail to provide valuable information about the HOW, WHO, or WHEN. And that is what is needed to make your video marketing actionable.

Everybody gets excited about having thousands of video views. Of course, if it a branding video and that was the purpose and desired outcome, that’s great! But sometimes it is just that one view that turns a video into a sale. The point is that it’s not just data, but detailed and actionable data that matters.

If you make a video specifically for Mr. or Mrs. Smith, knowing that they watched it, when they watched it, and how many times it was viewed, and being able to see what OTHER videos they watched is invaluable information for creating a correctly targeted sales strategy. Having this valuable data allows you to get the right video in front of the right shopper at the right time of the buying cycle, while also allowing you to know the exact second that one of your leads or customers is live on a touchpoint and watching one of your videos. This provides you the most strategic opportunity to reach out to them with a follow-up call.

Make sure you use a platform that allows you to capture that data and archive it in case Mr. and Mrs. Smith are not ready to buy NOW. Then you are prepared for them when they are.

These are just a few quick tips designed to show you some of the basics of how to start to incorporate a strategy into your video marketing efforts. Having videos is great but, as Mr. Chin said: Strategy first.

According to a recent study published by Wistia, consumers watched more than 23,000 YEARS of video in 2020 alone. This means more video was watched last year than the entire history of modern civilization! And it’s almost certain to continue to break records. Why? Because video transfers more information to a consumer in the least amount of time, while also creating the greatest amount of emotion when compared to any other visual medium.

Perhaps even more interesting is HOW consumers are watching video content. According to an article in Forbes, about 72% of consumers watch video content solely on their smartphones. More so than on a movie screen, their desktop, or anywhere else. New video apps and features are infiltrating the current market offering an increasing number of ways for consumers to view this content. Even Pinterest, which has historically been a single image-only site, has started to adopt video into its platform. This is why your dealership must understand that video isn't just the future, it is the NOW.

Every industry has either begun the transfer to video or is fully engulfed in it, and the automotive industry is no different. Moving forward, high-quality and innovative video experiences on your dealership websites and in the different stages of the buying cycle will set your dealership apart from the rest when it comes to building relationships with shoppers.

Why do you think that nearly every business is scrambling to include video in their marketing strategy? Because it works, and the data is there to back it up!

Entrepreneur magazine recently featured an article stating that consumers want to, “See, Watch and Buy. In that Order.” How does this apply to your dealership website? When a consumer lands on your SRP or VDP, they are “seeing” your inventory. The next step is to “watch” the vehicle via a video. Whether that is a stitched photo video, a live video walkaround, or an interactive 360 spin, video content engages viewers and saves them from clicking through uninteresting photos and from having to read a large amount of text.

Consumers want to feel empowered to gain as much information about a vehicle as possible, as quickly as possible. Why has the test drive and product demonstration been a part of the basic steps to selling a car for decades? Because it works! And now, the technology exists to accomplish the same thing online.

The point is to make content consumers like, while also making that content in the form consumers want to consume. Then make it even better! Watching a video of a vehicle is great, but if you personalize that content and make it resonate with the customer in front of you, then you can move them further down the funnel.

It also helps to have trackable data you can use for your marketing. Use personalized videos on platforms that provide useful marketing data, and which integrate with your CRM for ease of follow-up. “Easy” doesn’t have to mean that quality suffers.

Make it easy to create videos that consumers desire, that they can view on their mobile phones, with data that integrates into your CRM so you can follow up with them appropriately. This will help turn your dealership into a marketing powerhouse that rules over any competition!

Dealers are increasingly adopting video in order to engage customers and win sales. Well, how about adopting this strategy in the F&I department as well?

As front-end margins decrease, many dealerships are placing more emphasis on F&I to make revenue. With digital retailing on the rise and customers shopping from home rather than in the showroom, how does a finance department sell F&I products in the absence of the dealer?

Going under the assumption that home delivery means that the entire deal has already been done as the paperwork must be printed in advance, dealerships are probably finding it difficult to present finance products in the most convincing way.

And that is where video comes in.

Most companies that offer various F&I products have product videos available for your use. The first step to increasing your F&I profit is to package these videos along with your dealership’s value proposition (Why Buy) videos, testimonial videos, and other finance FAQ videos on your website where they are easy for the consumer to find. Consumers know these “upsell” product offers are coming. Provide them with the opportunity to educate themselves on the various products higher in the buying cycle. 

The next step is to strategically re-introduce these videos to the consumer as they continue through the buying cycle. After you have used “video messages” when following up with inquiries (leads) and setting appointments, include these F&I videos in the “video experience” that you send to your leads to confirm appointments.

This provides the shopper with another opportunity to view the various F&I videos, and, with the right software, you can enjoy real-time reporting on the exact video content they view. When your shopper shows up for their appointment, you have insight into all the F&I videos they have watched (or haven’t watched). You know if they watched videos about purchasing with bad credit, lease vs. purchase, the impact of a divorce or bankruptcy, and all the extended warranty and other F&I product videos that you offer. Armed with this information, your team can provide a significantly better experience for each consumer, while helping them with any questions they may be afraid to ask. Both your profits and CSI Scores go up. 

For the best results, I would suggest having the finance manager make multiple videos of products on an individual basis. This personalization will increase the informational and emotional value of your videos and reward you with an even larger success ratio.

For example, your finance manager could create a video explaining why paint & fabric protection is a worthwhile investment for the consumer. Then another video explaining wheel and tire protection. Then continue to create short videos “selling” products as if the customer is sitting right in front of them. In addition, you could also create a short video with the finance manager summarizing all of the finance products.

Regardless of if you use stock product videos, or your own personalized videos, be certain to include some testimonial videos for each product.  Consumers constantly hear how they don’t need the various “upsell” products. Let them hear a few success stories from other consumers who found the product valuable. 

As the finance manager is the correct person to explain and adjust payments based on product and accessory choices, it is important for them to have that engagement and to have these product videos handy should the customer prefer to do everything online. The finance manager can then engage the customer with video via email or even live over a “one-click” video call, whatever the customer’s communication preference may be, while the vehicle paperwork is being created and sent to the customer.

Video can be used in every department to increase brand loyalty, vehicle sales, F&I product sales and service revenue. It is a highly effective tool that should be added to your marketing toolbox. However, to truly maximize the benefit of your videos, utilize your video content across multiple touchpoints as an end-to-end video marketing strategy that combines video content with video data. Then you will realize the true value of video.

Personal URL Links and Conferencing Features are Designed to Boost Customer Response Rates and Close More Sales

Urbandale, IA—March 23, 2021—Two new features in Flick Fusion’s StreaMe live video calling application are designed to boost customer response rates, increase the number of customer conversations and make it easier for sales and service teams to close more sales.

“StreaMe is quickly becoming the auto industry’s preferred app for video calls, because it utilizes WebRTC technology that enables any person on any device to instantly connect live with dealership employees,” said Tim James, COO of FlickFusion. “Based on customer feedback, we’ve added these new features to further enhance the app’s ability to engage and connect with more customers.”

With StreaMe, a car shopper can easily initiate a live video call right from the dealer’s website or Vehicles Details Pages (VDPs), simply by clicking on an embedded video call button. The customer is instantly connected with a dealership team member in a round robin system, regardless of the device or platform the customer is calling on, and no special apps or downloads are required.

The first new feature in StreaMe allows dealership employees to text or email customers a personal URL link that can be used to initiate a live video call with the employee who sent the link. When the customer clicks on the URL link, a one-way video call is instantly established, where the customer can see and hear the employee but the employee can only hear the customer. If the customer desires a two-way call, they can easily activate their camera so that both parties are live streaming their video. The ability to text and email customers a personal URL link increases response rates while ensuring your sales and service staff that their customers and leads won’t engage with someone else at the dealership who isn’t familiar with them. The personal URL also allows for more detailed tracking of each individual who has been sent the link. 

The second new feature in StreaMe is a conferencing feature that allows dealership employees to add a third person to an active video call. This feature will be helpful in many cases when additional expertise or an approval is needed. For example, let’s say a customer video calls a salesperson and asks for a video vehicle walkaround. After the vehicle walkaround is finished, the customer asks for a trade-in appraisal. The salesperson can instantly add the used car manager to the video call while the customer does a vehicle walkaround on their own vehicle, so an estimate can immediately be provided.

In the service department, when an advisor sends a service recommendation to a customer, that customer often has questions or needs visual proof to feel comfortable approving the repair. With StreaMe’s new features, the service advisor can first text the customer a URL link and ask them to establish a live video call at their convenience. When the customer calls, the service advisor can add the technician to the call to explain the repair or show the worn part, thus increasing service recommendation approvals.

“I predict the conferencing feature will be the greatest feature you’ll never use,” said James. “I know that sounds strange, but the main reason most additional repairs aren’t authorized is that the consumer doesn’t understand what the repair is or why it is needed. They think you are just trying to squeeze some extra money out them. Offering the consumer the opportunity to Live Stream with their mechanic first hand, see why the repair is needed, and ask any questions that they have demonstrates complete trust and transparency. In many cases the service customer will just go ahead and authorize the additional repairs without taking you up on your offer to Live Stream, just because your team has the confidence to offer the customer this level of visibility. That is why it’s the greatest feature you’ll never use.”

Additionally, with CRM integration, all StreaMe video calls can be captured and stored in a dealership’s CRM, eliminating any "he said, she said" scenarios, and providing sales and training managers with access to every video call exchange.

To see a short demo of StreaMe, click here.

To learn more, contact sales@flickfusion.com or call 515-333-4337.

About FlickFusion

FlickFusion offers a full-solution video hosting, marketing and distribution platform to automotive and other inventory-based industries. The platform delivers automated, integrated and rule/behavior-based, including geo-targeted, video content in real-time, across multiple touchpoints and throughout the entire purchase cycle.

FlickFusion makes it easy for dealers to create desktop and mobile-friendly vehicle inventory videos, video email and customer engagement videos such as testimonials, service department overviews and more. Videos are proven to capture more buyers' attention, advance organic SEO rankings, generate leads and increase conversion rates. The FlickFusion system builds emotional value and customer loyalty for more than 3,500 brands and preferred partners.