In uncharted waters, the Indiana dealership is leaning heavily on its virtual presence to navigate it through the COVID-19 pandemic.

By Gregory Arroyo

Emily Spellman serves as director of digital marketing for Circle Buick GMC and has been a driving force in the dealership’s digital push.

This March marked Emily Spellman’s first year as director of digital marketing for Highland, Ind.-based Circle Buick GMC. She’s been a driving force in the 39-year-old dealership’s digital push, but she admits that nothing in her more than 10 years as a marketing professional prepared her for COVID-19.

“We’re all learning as we go,” she says. “The biggest thing I’ve learned is to focus on what I can control and zeroing in on what really matters, which is taking care of the community and our employees and translating that in our messaging in a way that connects with people.”

Deemed an essential business, Circle Buick GMC’s showroom and service department remain open.

Circle Buick GMC’s showroom and service department remain open despite Gov. Eric Holcomb’s March 23 executive order directing all Hoosiers to stay home. Thanks to local officials, who personally requested that Circle remain open, dealerships operating in its Lake County market were deemed essential. Spellman’s challenge is to strike the right balance when it comes to the dealership’s messaging.

“You don’t want to encourage people to leave their home, but, at the same time, you need to show you’re available to people who need us,” she says. “People are still buying and servicing their cars.”

Digital Readiness

Spellman feels fortunate to work for a dealership that has taken several forward-thinking steps that are helping during this uncertain time, such as adopting DealerSocket’s full platform of solutions. They include the software provider’s CRM, RevenueRadar data-mining tool, and the company’s DealerFire website and PrecisePrice digital retail platforms.

For the three months ending on Jan. 16, RevenueRadar generated 33 store visits, 23 open appointments, and 21 sold units, while PrecisePrice created 40 new leads, 33 store visits, and 16 sold vehicles. Total gross on PrecisePrice deals was $684 higher than units sold via internet leads.

Emily Spellman says DealerSocket’s PrecisePrice digital retail tool is generating a lot of engagement. She notes the dealership is currently working on new F&I product descriptions, videos, and infographics for the tool’s F&I presentation page, as well as F&I-related SEO content for the website.

Spellman calls that snapshot conservative in terms of PrecisePrice’s true impact, noting a definite uptick in customer interactions with the tool. “People are sending us that info, which comes to the CRM. And we’re pretty proactive about setting those appointments,” she says.

“But really, it’s been a mixed bag in terms of the traffic we’re getting,” she adds. “I was looking over some of the data today, and we’re getting walk-ins, return customers … So, digital retailing is one piece of it. The big difference I’ve noticed is between our current DealerFire website and our previous site. We’re getting more leads overall.”

Stay the Course

Sales for the 130-unit-a-month dealership remained on pace with last year through the first two days of April, but Spellman predicts a slowdown for the month. For now, General Motors’ interest-free financing for 84 months with deferred payments for up to 120 days is what’s influencing buyers, who she believes are taking advantage in case their job situation changes.

Circle Buick GMC is using its Facebook page to collect supplies and donations in support of first responders and the local St. Jude House.

“It’s definitely influencing people,” she says.

It’s why the dealership has adjusted a couple of in-house sales procedures to keep customers and employees safe and to abide by the state’s social distancing mandates. The dealership is also using the moment to collect supplies for first responders and the local St. Jude House domestic violence shelter.

“We’re trying to take advantage of the captive audience we have by sending a positive community message,” Spellman says. “People always remember the businesses that stood up to help, were positive and didn’t feed into the crisis mentality.”

As for the road ahead, Spellman’s advice is don’t panic. “Don’t sacrifice the permanent on the altar of the immediate,” she says. “The dealerships that will survive are the ones that have a cool head and a long-term strategy.”

Session Description:

A Modern Retail Experience provides the customer an easy, efficient, digital option to purchasing a car without ever stepping foot in your showroom. Now more than ever before, delivering a positive experience online can truly help sustain a dealership during these difficult times. By holistically mapping out the customer’s entire experience, you can avoid the pitfalls of a poorly performing website and customer experience.

Join Subi Ghosh and Cavan Robinson as they come together to share best practices and provide templates and examples to help you think through the steps to deal with the increased virtual shopping. Our goal is to collaborate to provide a roadmap whether you have a Digital Retailing Tool or not.

As an industry, we can move forward together through collaboration and a free exchange of ideas.

About the Presenters:

Subi Ghosh, VP Marketing and OEM Relations, Stream Companies

Subi Ghosh spent her first 6 years in Automotive working her way from Internet Assistant to Sales and E-Commerce Director of Dealer Groups. Her passion for the industry and drive to be an advocate for dealers, aligns perfectly with her roles VP of Marketing and OEM Relations at Stream Companies and Founding Board Member of Women In Automotive. Subi has become a respected speaker at major Automotive Events including NADA, Digital Dealer, Driving Sales, and more. She keeps actively involved in the community to share knowledge, grow within her profession, and improve the way the industry sells and markets cars.

Cavan Robinson, Director, Product Marketing, DealerSocket

Cavan Robinson was the very first website director of accounts at DealerFire, working with some of the largest dealer groups in the country on enhancing their digital presence through content marketing and digital advertising. Now, as Director of Product Marketing at DealerSocket, he leads a team of specialists in go to market strategies.

DealerSocket’s First Pencil blog offers a peek into discussions taking place in dealer showrooms everywhere. At-home test drives are top of mind, as is digital retailing.

By Gregory Arroyo

It hit me like a ton of bricks. I drove to my son’s school this morning to pick up his tablet for virtual learning. I was excited to get out of the house, but the reality of today’s situation hit me when I saw masked and gloved teachers approach my vehicle to hand me his tablet.

Great leaders always seem to rise to the occasion, and those teachers were doing just that.

I’ve also witnessed great leaders emerging in dealer showrooms. We’ll be featuring them in our new “Inside the Dealership” series, but I’d like to share some tidbits from those interviews as well as notes I’ve jotted down from the social media groups to which I belong.

No Plans to Scale Back

You got to love car people. No matter the situation, you’ll never hear fear in their voice. I say that after listening in to a call between DealerFire’s design and content team and Kristopher Nielsen, who serves as eCommerce and guest experience manager for Kansas City’s Aristocrat Motors.

“We have no plans to scale back our ad budget,” he said firmly. “A rising tide lifts all boats. Only when the tide goes out do you discover who’s been swimming naked.

“We’re not going to have any knee-jerk reactions,” he continued, “because I think there are real opportunities to gain market share in a difficult situation.”

What he was referring to is the shopper conveniences his group offers, including the group’s fully online purchase process, online service scheduling, and at-home test-drives. All three of those offerings got calls to action in the group’s email, landing page, and other marketing pieces detailing the operation’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Top-Down Leadership

Then there’s Honda of Cleveland, Tenn., which had an action plan in place the day before Tennessee Gov. Brad Lee declared a state of emergency. That plan was delivered by Brad Cobb, president of Bowers Automotive and owner of Honda of Cleveland. He first shared it with the dealership’s general manager, who shared it with his managers, who shared it with their teams.

“The key has been the communication from the top,” Hailey says. “We’re respecting what’s going on, but we’re not fearing it. We just want to keep things positive.”

Mixed Reports

Overall, it seems at-home test-drives are top of mind, at least on social media. While I try not to plug my company’s products, I feel compelled to share that DealerFire will offer free use of its test-driver delivery scheduler for 100 days to owners of a DealerFire website who also use DealerSocket’s CRM. Click here for details.

News regarding showroom traffic seemed mixed. Some car people reported a business-as-usual sales weekend, while others reported cancellations and empty showrooms. Things seemed to turn a bit as the week progressed, as I began seeing posts about dealers adjusting employee schedules. One post indicated that the dealer was letting employees walk with the promise that the dealership would hire them back once the crisis subsides.

It’s only been Week One of this social distancing, and I can’t fathom what’s to come. My heart and thoughts go out to my commission-based friends manning showrooms and F&I offices. Hey, we got this.

As my friend “Mad” Marv Eleazer likes to say, good luck and keep closing.

Gregory Arroyo is the former editor of “F&I and Showroom” and “Auto Dealer Today” magazines. He now serves as senior manager of strategic content for DealerSocket. Email him at [email protected].

The business has navigated unprecedented hardships before, and DealerSocket’s First Pencil blog believes there’s no reason it won’t do it again.

By Gregory Arroyo

Remember the period between late 2007 and 2009, when the housing crash that caused the credit crisis led to the Great Recession? The market was tough to read, and the used-car guides were all over the map.

Dealers that bulked up on big trucks and SUVs were stuck with a lot full of them, as gas prices reached $4 a gallon and finance sources tightened up. Any car buyer with below-prime credit couldn’t get approved, as banks weren’t sure where car buyers — particularly those with investment properties — would land and finance companies were dead in the water.

The good news right now is we’re not experiencing any of those market dynamics. But news surrounding COVID-19 (a.k.a. the Coronavirus) has certainly heated up in recent days.

Hearing about Tom Hanks was disconcerting. So was hearing about the National Basketball Association’s decision to suspend the season, after Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert became the first major professional athlete to test positive for the virus. Now his teammate, star Donovan Mitchell, has tested positive.

As of March 10, there have been at least 116,000 coronavirus cases worldwide. About 64,000 people have recovered, and 4,000 have died. Here in the United States, multiple states are under a state of emergency.

With all that said, the one thing I love about this business is how opposed it is to doom-and-gloom talk. In fact, just yesterday, the founder of a car dealer Facebook group I belong to urged all admins not to allow panic to take over the group.

“I don’t want negative talk about this affecting us,” he wrote.

It made me think of this great line from the first Avengers movie: “Until such time as the world ends, we will act as though it intends to spin on.”

Hey, consumers who need a new car (or used) today will still need it tomorrow. Still, it’s not business as usual, so preparation is vital.

So, if you’ve loaded up with inventory the past couple of months to take advantage of tax season, monitoring aging will be key. And if you’re part of a group that engages in group trading, it’s time to dig into your inventory management systems to ensure vehicles are on the right lots. It’s not time to panic, but you should have exit plans in place.

I recall a story told to me back in 2009. A dealer in the Northeast took on a bulk of pickups in trades just before things got bad. Having dumped $5,000 to $7,000 into the vehicles, he refused to take a loss at auction when things did — even though he was losing money each day those vehicles sat on his lot. His patience was rewarded, however, as he ended up grossing $2,000 to $5,000 by waiting out the storm for a couple of months. Americans do love their trucks and SUVs.

You also need to fire up that CRM. Hey, you know you have customers reaching the end of their finance, lease, or warranty term. Vehicles also need to be serviced. Maybe it’s an excellent time to offer free service pickup and return.

And if you’re a dealer that dipped your toe in the digital retail waters — or maybe offer test-drive deliveries — today’s uncertainty represents an opportunity to really test those strategies.

So, start promoting those customer conveniences, and make sure your digital retail button stands out. In other words, remove any conflicting calls to action on your vehicle details and dedicated landing pages. Banner promotions on your search results pages and VDPs are a must.

Now, when it comes to your employees, I suggest not sticking your head in the sand. Management teams need to get educated on this virus, and communication will be critical. Care also needs to be taken when it comes to the cleanliness of your showroom, employee offices, and common areas.

With all that said, here’s what I do know in all this uncertainty: Every time this business faces a severe hardship, it always seems to come out the other side a better industry. I’m sure that will be the case once again.

Gregory Arroyo is the former editor of “F&I and Showroom” and “Auto Dealer Today” magazines. He now serves as senior manager of strategic content for DealerSocket. Email him at [email protected].

Admitting he’s having a midlife crisis, DealerSocket’s head of corp. communications shares why other 40-somethings with kids in tow make great candidates for digital retail.

By Patrick Mendoza

There’s no way to hide this…nowhere to run. I have to admit it…I’m having a midlife crisis.

I’m 42 years old, have a two-month-old baby (who is incredible), and I find myself craving the cars I used to drive in my youth.

Sounds familiar, right? I’m not the only guy going through this; in fact, it’s a bit cliché.

But what’s different from when my father experienced his midlife crisis (he bought a 924 Porsche in 1982) is that I’m able to look for my midlife crisis car online.

I spend hours online looking at Mustangs, usually while waiting for the little dude to fall asleep. I’ve had three Mustangs in my life, two 1998s (one of which I rolled down a hill in Austin) and a 2011. I also find myself dreaming of owning an Aston Martin from our friends at Aston Martin of Dallas.

I pour over listings, looking at the interiors, making sure it’s a manual transmission while contemplating either the V6 or V8 Mustang — they’re both superfast — and also comparing what one dealership has on its website vs. the others. I watch YouTube videos of guys taking their cars up to 160mph on the Autobahn, or listening to the ear-rattling exhaust notes coming from the Aston Martin Vanquish I can’t afford.

All this online viewing…what does that mean? Simply put, I’m one of the first millennials going through a midlife crisis. I love to shop online. I buy our groceries from Amazon, and most of my clothes I buy online, too. Let me tell you, it’s not easy to buy jeans online. Lots of free returns on those. I’m a millennial through and through when it comes to digital retailing.

But what’s the difference in my midlife crisis car shopping?

Buying a car is a lot different than buying bananas or a shirt online. I want to sit in it. I want to hear that exhaust note. I want to feel those horses throw me into the seat. I want that new car smell to fill my nose before I take it home.

That’s why the dealership will never die. People want to touch, feel, smell, and hear their car before they commit to buying it. It’s the second biggest purchase people make in their life, after their house, so they aren’t going to roll the dice with it.

But what is essential is to have that seamless, easy-to-use, online-to-showroom experience. We call it PrecisePrice here at DealerSocket. Does your website show all aspects of the vehicle and allow the buyer to opt-into F&I products? We found that when shoppers can self-select F&I products, the dealership sees an additional $300 in gross profit! Why? Because they like it when opting-in on their own, they like the ability to click and choose, researching on their own time. I like it when looking at GAP and extended warranties. It helps me see what the cost will be when I blow the transmission…

Also, when that buyer comes into your dealership, are they seeing the same features and the same price they saw online? You’d be surprised how often those items didn’t match up during my online searches.

The dealership will never die. However, online shopping is a great way to convert shoppers into buyers and increase sales and profits, especially when you have a midlife crisis guy like me showing up at your dealership.

Patrick Mendoza serves as director of corporate communications for DealerSocket, Inc.

• Features
• Download E-Book

PrecisePrice ™

PrecisePrice Proof: A Case Study

Learn more about PrecisePrice by DealerSocket and download the e-book by filling out the form below.

Download E-Book

Drive sales with our integrated features.

Desking & DMS Integration

PrecisePrice integrates directly with DealerSocket’s Desking, so that shoppers get the exact same price whether they’re at home or your dealership. DealerSocket CRM customers get the added benefit of the entire deal being seamlessly integrated into the DMS to finalize terms.

Learn More

Increased Efficiency

Your sales staff doesn’t have to desk deals from scratch. PrecisePrice deals are synced in real-time with Desking, so they have all the information they need for the next steps.

Learn More

Customer First

PrecisePrice puts the information in the hands of customers and gets them excited about the shopping experience because they can see their actual payment. Greater transparency leads to greater trust in the purchasing process. And you can deliver the call to action at the right time and in the right way – there are no requests for personal information until the shopper is ready.

Learn More

Access Anytime, Anywhere

Our “Save and Finish Later” feature, the first in the industry, allows shoppers to pick up where they left off on any device without having to provide any personal information. They can simply email or text themselves a shortcode to continue with their deal.

Learn More

Download E-Book

Thank you!

Click below to instantly download the PDF - "PrecisePrice Proof: A Case Study".

Download PDF

Kyle Ritola was less than a month into his new role as general manager of Walnut Creek, Calif.-based Dirito Brothers Volkswagen when he made the decision to test the digital waters. Touting an affluent clientele with credit scores that reached into the 800s, the dealership is the perfect candidate for digital retailing. However, that’s not the reason for Ritola’s bold decision.

Behind a reputation of fair and honest dealing, Dirito Brothers Volkswagen owned the northern portion of San Francisco’s East Bay region early on in its 25-year history. Also known as Contra Costa County, the population there has grown by 200,000 people over the last decade, with competition growing just as quickly. 

The dealership remains one of the top Volkswagen outlets in the area, averaging well north of 100 new Volkswagens a month and around 60 pre-owned. But with about dozen dealerships competing for the attention of the nearly 70,000 residents living in Walnut Creek alone, Ritola believes digital retailing will restore that customer-satisfaction edge that once propelled his operation to the top of national sales ranks.

 

“People come here because it’s an easy place to do business, which is why we have a lot of repeat business,” says Ritola, pointing to the dealership’s 4.9-star ratings (out of a possible five) on Cars. com, DealerRater, and Cargurus. “So we said, ‘Let’s capitalize on what we already have,’ which is a familyrun store that’s been here a long time, has employees who have been here a long time, and is easy to do business with. So, to me, digital retailing is just another thing that makes it easier to do business with us. It’s more transparent.”

The rub

Transparency does have its challenges, as Ritola is discovering. The biggest question he’s wrestling with these days is whether a move to digital retailing means adopting a one-price, no-haggle pricing strategy. Then there’s the question of whether to promote incentives on the dealership’s website, a practice the organization has stayed away from to avoid customer misunderstandings and any regulatory entanglements.

More importantly, Ritola is wondering how to get it all done while keeping the metal moving over the curb. Giving him some comfort is his decision to turn to the dealership’s longtime software provider to guide him down that digital path. The Volkswagen store has been using DealerSocket’s CRM since 2011. It has since added the company’s Inventory+ tool and a website provided by DealerSocket’s DealerFire line.

So plugging in DealerFire’s PrecisePrice digital retailing tool was a no-brainer, especially since Ritola and his management team are big fans of the platform’s integrated desking software. That means the website module actually creates a writeup directly within the desking tool and adjusts pricing in real time as shoppers adjust deal terms, appraise their trade, or add F&I protections to their deal. The fact that the platform fully integrates with DealerSocket CRM also means his showroom sales team can easily pick up where customers left off online, saving them time and increasing that transparency Ritola is after.

 

The work

Ritola had just entered the business when Dirito Brothers Volkswagen was dominating San Francisco’s East Bay market. He was working for a Mercedes-Benz dealership in nearby Oakland, Calif. When he became a sales manager there in 2002, he became known as the CRM police because of his insistence that every breathing soul who walked onto the lot be entered into the CRM. He’s not that strict anymore, but he makes clear how critical the CRM is to his dealership.

“I have it on my phone. In fact, I get in trouble for looking at it when I’m on vacation,” he says. “I turn it on first thing when I get here, and I expect my sales managers to do the same. I told them, ‘The first thing you do when you get to work is turn on DealerSocket. Check your emails on your phone after and get to your phone calls."

DealerSocket CRM’s Daily Checkout is how Ritola makes sure those calls are being made. He reviews the accountability report with each individual salesperson at the end of the day; the CRM flashing a green, yellow or red indicator when Ritola’s expectations for emails and phone calls are met or not.
“Everybody checks out at the end of the night,” Ritola says. “You have to have a certain amount of phone calls and emails to get a green light. If you don’t get green lights, you don’t get spiffs.”

The CRM feature Ritola has been toying around with the most of late is Business Rules, which will automatically reassign a lead if it’s not responded to in a set amount of time. Ritola is trying to figure out what the optimal lead response time is, an exercise he believes is critical as the dealership works to digitize transactions.

“We watch over untouched leads all day. We’ve changed our process with leads and how long they stick before they bounce to a manager,” he notes. “So we’re experimenting with that right now.”

 

The opportunity

Ritola, who still plays an active role in the dealership’s inventory sourcing activities and will even roll a few deals each morning, now has his hands in the store’s digital marketing efforts and web presence. It’s an area in which Ritola, a 20-year industry veteran, admits he’s not well versed. But with his DealerFire account manager being a text away, he believes he’ll be a quick study.

In fact, thanks to his DealerFire rep, traffic on the dealership’s website was up 113% through May on a year-to-date basis. Even more interesting is that 66% of the site’s activity is generated by mobile iOS devices. Lead form submissions are also up 22%.

What’s most impressive to Ritola is that organic site traffic was up 176% on a year-over-year basis through May. A big driver of that is the DealerFire-managed blog, the highlight being an entry with the headline, “Turn off Volkswagen tire pressure management light.” As of May, the writeup had surpassed 32,000 pageviews since it was posted in January 2019. It now appears as the No. 1 organic search result out of 11.5 million results.
“When I first called my DealerFire account manager, I said, “Hey, my name is Kyle. I just got promoted. We’ve never really spoken, but there are some things I don’t understand,’” Ritola recalls. “Well, he’s gone along and made improvements to the website on his own accord that he thought would help — things he knows people are looking for.”

“Look, I’m not an IT guy. I’m just a guy trying to run a dealership in a business that’s changing,” he says. “So, with this digital stuff, I’m just trying to get to the meat and potatoes of the whole deal. Then we’ll figure it out as it goes on. My vision is it’ll probably be more of a hybrid. I think people still want to come here. I think people still want to test-drive a car. I think people still want someone to show them how it works.”