PEDDLE TO THE METTLE

CONFESSIONS OF A MYSTERY SHOPPER - PT 10

2011-08-07T19:35:00.002-05:00

They are tired of doing so much work.

After 250+ mystery shops I think I can safely speak for the group when I say that my mystery shoppers are exhausted. Their eyes hurt and their heads ache.

And all just because they try to launch buyer/seller relationships with car dealers.

If you’ve ever tried researching and selecting a new car or truck online you know that it’s not as easy as one might think. A typical outing starts with a Google search the leads you down a labyrinthine path through dozens of sites and pages. Eventually you reach a vehicle (or a retailer, or both) and are given the opportunity to type in your name and contact info with the promise of getting something of value in return. You comply; hit “Submit” or “Get Your Free Internet Price Quote” or “Make An Offer” or “Get More Information” or whatever, then sit back and wait to see what happens.

We think this is the end of the hard part. But it's not.

The first response emails that land in my eager mystery shoppers’ Inboxes can range from a few lines of painfully pecked-out plain black & white text to big, bulky HTML pages that scroll on forever and contain so much info they can’t be read on a smart phone screen.

Big or small, HTML or text; the emails are usually difficult to read, and often amateurish in appearance and execution. Rarely does my shopper get a first quality response (FQR) email that is concise, informative, attractive and professional-looking. Why is this? Why do we make our customers work so hard for the information they request?

If you are online and send a request to Home Depot, L.L. Bean, Target, Amazon, Cabela’s, J.C. Penney or any one of hundreds of other retailers the email you get in reply is likely to be clean, understandable and pleasing to the eye. Even if the item you inquired about only cost $2.99. Do the same at a car dealership and the email you get in reply is likely to be fugly – and the product you inquired about this time probably cost $29,999. Or more.

Of course, the difference here is that Home Depot, L.L. Bean, Target, Amazon, Cabela’s, and J.C. Penney are big, national retailers with big national media departments. And your dealership is just one little bitty local store. Agreed. But the thing is, in this amazing new world of Internet communications, a world in which all the word and image creation and delivery tools one could ever need are attainable somewhere for cheap to free, the hard cost to produce concise, informative and attractive FQR emails and the cost to produce amateurish and hard to read emails is exactly the same.

It’s not a money thing any longer. It's a people thing.

The future belongs to the communicators.

CONFESSIONS OF A MYSTERY SHOPPER - PT 9

2011-07-24T10:24:00.001-05:00

They don’t trust you.

We both know it’s largely unfair, but they don’t trust you.

You’ve seen all the polls where buyers say if they could bypass the dealership and buy directly from the manufacturer they would. They trust the OEM, but they don’t trust you.

A couple weeks ago, I heard a Ford maven say this (I’ll paraphrase): “The more your outgoing emails resemble Tier 1 emails, the more prospects trust you.” By gawd, he’s on to something.

Ignoring, for the moment, issues like quality of content, font selection, correct spacing & spelling, etc. etc. what is the simplest and most powerful thing we can do to make our outgoing emails resemble Tier 1 emails?

Shared graphics, right?

For example, this month www.Ford.com has “The Best Place To Be” sales event plastered all over the home page. “The Best Place To Be” is a simple graphic; easy to copy, easy to manipulate, easy to paste into numerous settings.

What happens if a Ford dealer incorporates that image into the graphic header on all its outgoing emails this month?

- The store piggybacks on all the $$$ Ford is spending driving that message home on the web, on TV and in print.

- Prospects, consciously or unconsciously, now align the dealership with the trusted manufacturer.

In the prospect’s mind, the dealership is now perceived more to be an authorized extension of the trusted national brand. The gap between Tier 1 (OEM) and Tier 3 has just been narrowed. And the cost to the dealership to accomplish this? $00.00.

You are already thinking, “This idea Ordiway is proposing is so simple, and so obvious that’s it’s almost no idea at all.” And you are right.

So how come (to my knowledge) none of the stores in my region are employing this stunningly effective little trick?

Shame on me.

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www.ordiway.com/BestPracticesBlog.html

CONFESSIONS OF A MYSTERY SHOPPER - PT 8

2011-07-10T20:06:00.002-05:00

Our team’s official Ford Motor Company job title is Digital Marketing Consultant. Sounds cool. I like it.

But it’s actually a misnomer as it suggests that we want to sell you SEO/SAO, website development, lead generation and other services. And we don’t.

For some time now I’ve been telling people that our real title should be Best Practices Consultant: Internet-based Retail New Car Sales. But besides being too long, it’s also inadequate because it suggests (to me, anyway) that the job entails walking into a dealership and pulling out a new car Internet sales best practices playbook. If there is such a document, I’ve never seen it.

At the end of some dog tired days I think we are really a combination of things:

- eCommunications skills teacher +

- eProspect management practices instructor +

- Art of salesmanship coach and trainer.

Isn’t Internet-based new car sales really all about those three things?

COMMUNICATION: Many of us in the car sales game consider ourselves to be excellent communicators, and when we’re facing a prospect one-on-one this is often true. But when we switch from face-to-face communicating to computer-to-computer communicating, we usually come up short. Here’s an email template communication effectiveness test: print out your templates (if you don’t use them, print out some recently sent email examples) and, pretending there is a prospect sitting across the desk from you, read the templates aloud, in sequence. How natural do they sound? How sincere do you feel reading them? Did the content help you in your quest to meet + greet + qualify the imaginary prospect sitting across from you?

PROSPECT MANAGEMENT: In my region, on average, 35% - 50% of the eProspects who buy do so within 5 days of submitting their lead. But without a viable, formal eProspect long-term follow-up process built into your CRM, staying on top of last week’s eLead is as difficult as locating last week’s Facebook post. Here’s an eProspect management success test: log into your CRM and locate all the new car eLeads that came in 6 days ago. Now look: how many received phone and/or email contact from your store in the past 24 hours? Past 48 hours? What scheduled futurecontact activities are shown in the prospects’ profiles? Any at all?

SALESMANSHIP: If you’ve been in the sales business very long you know that you can never attain perfection in that discipline known as salesmanship. It’s equivalent to the yogi’s quest for nirvana. Yet constantly working to improve one’s salesmanship skills is the one guaranteed thing a salesperson can do to insure that his/her sales continually increase. Which means if your BDC and Internet sales department people are hamstrung by flawed communications and poor prospect management they have no time to improve their salesmanship skills. Here’s a third and final test: how happy are you with the results of the communications and prospect management tests above?

‘nuff said.

www.ordiway.com/BestPracticesBlog.html

CONFESSIONS OF A MYSTERY SHOPPER - PT 7

2011-06-26T11:40:00.000-05:00

Imagine that you run a restaurant.

Out in the dining room it’s nothing but surprises: you open each day with no idea how many people are going to come through the doors, what they are going to order, whether you have too much or too little staff or food on hand, etc. etc. etc. Anything goes, and that’s what makes it fun.

But back in the kitchen there must be order and process: if the kitchen is not systematically organized and operated the dishes will not make it out to the dining room on time (if at all) and the restaurant will crash.

The dining room makes money out of chaos (and the more the better), the kitchen makes money out of order.

I think the dining room is analogous to a dealership’s sales floor. And Internet-based car sales is the kitchen. An Internet department (whether it is standalone, integrated, BDC, or whatever) requires process, method and consistency in order to supply the dining room (new and used car sales departments) with qualified customers.

One of the most difficult things I have to do is tell DPs, GMs, and SMs that, if they want to establish a bona fide Internet-based sales program for their store, they must first 1). Make the commitment to embrace system and process, 2). Put these systems and processes into place, and then (and this is the really difficult part) 3). Leave them alone!

I tell them, “Do NOT, under any circumstances, change the plan, rip out the process, restructure the department, gut the program or otherwise re-org in any way for a minimum of 90 days.” For many guys this part is the hardest because it runs so contrary to their nature and culture. But experience has taught me time and time again that it is absolutely essential if their freshman Internet-based sales effort is to take root and grow.

Which is why it is so gratifying when we see a store actually make a plan, stick to the plan, and succeed with the plan. I have one in my Region right now that, with great difficulty, resisted the urge to upset the apple carts during the critical first 90 days. They committed to change, launched the program and steadfastly stuck to it. Today, less than 180 days into this noble experiment, their average lead response time is well under 30 minutes, their closing ratio is already up 1.1%, and their share of eLead RDRs (leads to this store closed by this store vs lost to a rival area Ford dealer) has jumped 15%.

I love happy endings. :-D

CONFESSIONS OF A MYSTERY SHOPPER - PT 5

2011-05-29T11:02:00.001-05:00

I just discovered that in the past sixteen months I have launched more than 225 mystery shops. Wow. I didn’t realize there had been so many.

You’d think after 225+ mystery shops a guy should have some profound observations and conclusions to share about mystery shops, right? I don’t know about the profound part, but, yeah, you’re right, it seems that a person should have some observations and conclusions to share.

So I’ve spent the last couple hours ruminating and writing down things that currently stand out in my mind. Here they are, in no particular order of importance. Feel free to add some of your own or challenge these.

1). The view from out here in shopper land is way different from your view down in dealer land. I thought I was a pretty good template writer and process builder when I was an Internet salesman; I now see that I wasn’t nearly as good as I credited myself for being. It took this new outside perspective to show me that. My advice: seek outside opinions when tweaking your process and content. Our industry is famous for singing only to its own choir.

2). When a fresh eLead arrives we don’t and can’t know what it is.
- Is it a new car inquiry from someone who actually wants a used car?
- A person whose lease isn’t up for a year and is just window shopping?
- A 14 year old kid building his fantasy Mustang on your OEM’s site?
- Someone hopelessly upside down in their current vehicle, still hoping for a miracle rescue?
- Someone who thought they were registering online to win a free iPad?
- A buyer? (Yay)! But also a grinder? (Boo).
- A “Get me bought” with a 500 Beacon?
- Someone who is actually bona fide ready willing and able to buy something today?
- Or one of at least 1,336,749 other possibilities that can be to added to the list above?

Until a connection with the sender is established (if it ever is), we can’t know what that eLead represents. Therefore, doesn’t logic say that the only smart way to respond is to attack the lead from all sides using every tool in our arsenal?

Very, very few (maybe 2%) of the dealerships I have shopped do this. Instead, most make some timid outreaches for a day or two and wait for the lead to reveal itself. Meh.

3). You’ve heard this before: He who responds the fastest wins. He who responds most often wins. He who responds using the greatest number of media (email, phone, text) wins. He who responds using all of the above wins big.

4). Let’s say this is a pretty typical Day 1 – 5 Internet response schedule:
- Day 1 – Send a first quality response (FQR) email, make a phone attempt, maybe send a text.
- Day 2 – If lead is unresponsive, send a quality email, make a phone attempt, maybe send a text.
- Day 3 – If lead remains unresponsive, send a quality email, make a phone attempt
- Day 4 – If lead remains unresponsive, send a quality email, make a phone attempt.
- Day 5 – If lead remains unresponsive, send a quality email, make a phone attempt.

With some variations, we all agree that’s pretty much how it should be done, right? So how come my shopper almost never, ever gets follow-up that even closely resembles this?

If your current Internet salespeoples’ workload and/or work schedule prevents them from being able to accomplish the above, you have a problem with your workload and/or work schedule. If your workload and/or work schedule provides them the time needed to complete these tasks and they are not completing them – you have a problem with your people.

Bonus info: Ford Digital Team consultants have access to new car days-to-the-sale data for each of our stores. In my region, 35% - 50% of all sales take place within 5 days of an eLead’s arrival. Doesn’t logic say, then, that making sure your people are giving prospects complete coverage Day 1 – 5 is primo importante?

5). We still think we are selling cars via the Internet. We are not. Whether we realize it or not, we are in the eCommunications business instead.

6). It doesn’t seem to matter if a store has a BDC, a dedicated Internet sales department, or just hands eLeads out to the sales floor. My shoppers get equally bad service from all three!

CONFESSIONS OF A MYSTERY SHOPPER - PT 4

2011-05-15T19:41:00.002-05:00

Are you still debating whether to employ text messaging in your eLead response process? This story may get you off the fence.

One day a couple weeks ago, as I do most days, I was sitting in a General Manager’s office reviewing his store’s recent mystery shop.

When I told him the Lead Response Time (LRT) was a disappointing 5 hours 36 minutes he immediately went to his CRM to verify. To my surprise, the CRM said the response time was 41 minutes.

Hmmm, OK. So, was the First Quality Response (FQR) an email or a phone call? (In Ford-world, only an email stops the clock). It was an email, and a manually written and sent email at that. (In Ford-world, autoresponders and other auto-sent emails do not stop the clock). So everything checks out to support the 41 minute LRT story.

Then the problem is on my end.

My mystery shoppers always have gmail.com or yahoo.com email addresses and I have all mail to these addresses forwarded to my main Inbox in MS Outlook. When I opened the mystery shopper’s Gmail account in a browser I discovered that the LRT was indeed 41 minutes! So, either Google did not forward the email to Outlook for 5 hours, Outlook did not pull down the email for 5 hours, the email floated in cyberspace for 5 hours, or some combination of these events took place.

All of us have experienced occasional problems with our electronic communications: the email that appears in our smart phone but never makes it to our PC, the email forwarded by a friend today that doesn’t arrive until tomorrow, emails from trusted senders that unexplainably go into our Junk/Spam folder and escape detection for days/weeks/forever. It happens every day.

With a fast Lead Response Time being so critical (is there anybody reading this who does not believe that LRT is critical?) a 41 minute response time perceived by the customer to be a 5 hour 36 minute response time can be fatal. So why not take an easy preemptive step to insure that your prompt LRT is recognized?

Send a text message.

In the example above, imagine that the salesperson, after sending his FQR, sent a quick text message to the shopper saying “Hi ________, Joe at ABC Motors here. Got your request, already replied. Check your email. Let me know if you do not receive. Thanks.”

What a difference that could have made!

At the very least I would have seen that text (and how do you NOT see a text message?) and made a mental note that the dealer had contacted me promptly. At most I would have gotten the text, immediately checked Outlook, and when no email was seen, called/emailed the dealer or checked my webmail to hunt down his missing response.

Granted, not all leads come to us with a cell phone number (or a phone number at all). But when we do get a cell number, why not utilize it?

Here’s some quick tips:

- If you don’t know if the prospect’s phone # is a cell phone or not just go to www.whitepages.com/reverse_phone and find out. Takes 20 seconds.

- If it is a cell number, and your CRM is incapable of outgoing text messaging, go to www.joopz.com and send a free text-message from your computer. Now you have a record of the text that you can copy and paste into the prospect’s profile in your CRM.

You can do the same with Google Voice but I prefer the way Joopz messages appear in the smart phone’s window. Experiment with it a little bit until you get things to appear the way you like. And did I mention that Joopz is FREE?

At last November’s Digital Dealer Conference I heard a presenter state that the average email receives a reply in 48 hours – and the average text message receives a reply in 4 minutes.

Which do you like best?

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http://www.ordiway.com/BestPracticesBlog.htm

CONFESSIONS OF A MYSTERY SHOPPER - PT 3

2011-05-01T09:28:00.000-05:00

This week a wonderful thing happened. I got to see real salesmanship in action.

Here’s the set-up: I only mystery shop Ford dealers, and I almost always mystery shop for an F-150. But this week I got the wild urge to do something different. I had two stores to shop so I sent the same request to both: the female shopper clicked the “Get Info” button on a specific 2012 Ford Focus in the dealer’s inventory and, in the Comments/Questions box, wrote “Does this one have a sunroof?”

Here is how Store # 1 replied:

Mystery Shopper,

This particular Focus doesn't have the sunroof. There are only a couple hatchbacks in entire country with sunroofs right now. Is there any other design that you want, or did you want me to notify you when we come across one?

Dealership Salesman

Ouch! He pretty much shut me down, didn't he? He said “No” to my question (This particular Focus doesn't have the sunroof), then told me “No” again (There are only a couple hatchbacks in entire country with sunroofs right now), then drove the ball back into my court (Is there any other design that you want, or did you want me to notify you when we come across one?).

In this situation, the shopper’s path of least resistance is to simply hit “Delete” and walk away from both this dealership and further interest in the 2012 Ford Focus. :-(

So imagine my utter surprise and delight when, a few minutes later, Store # 2 replied like this:

Good morning Mystery Shopper!

Thank you for your inquiry on the 2012 Ford Focus. I did check the availability on this unit and as of now it is available. We do however have customers looking at it, but no strong deals as of yet. You asked if this unit had a sunroof, but it does not. It is a beautiful vehicle and very well equipped for an SE. I don't think you will be disappointed with the new Focus. Have you have the opportunity to drive one yet? If not, can you stop in this morning for a full demo and test drive or would this afternoon be better for you? Please give me a call and I'll answer any other questions that you may have. Thanks Mystery Shopper and I look forward to hearing from you.

Dealership Salesman

Wow! Same car, same shopper, same exact situation but two completely different replies. Salesman # 2 is so upbeat and smooth and has so much forward momentum going that I’ve already forgotten about the sunroof. He is selling urgency (…it is available. We do however have customers looking at it) , he is selling the product (It is a beautiful vehicle and very well equipped…) and he is selling the appointment (Have you have the opportunity to drive one yet? ). A three pointer!

In this situation, the shopper’s path of least resistance is to go with the salesman’s momentum and accept an offer for a test drive. (In fact, I’ll bet if she was too busy to come to the store that day Salesman # 2 would bring the car to her home or office instead).

If I can find any fault in this letter (and, sadly, I must) it’s that there is no reference to price or price range. So he loses a point for that, but otherwise, I think this is a great FQR (First Quality Response) letter. Anyone agree? Disagree?

I know without question that Salesman #1 was trying to be helpful and did not intend his reply to come off the way it did. But, unfortunately, it did.

So here’s an idea: before we hit the “Send” button, let's pause and ask ourselves, “After he/she reads my email, what will the recipient’s path of least resistance be? To bail on me? Or to go with my momentum?”

As my friend Ronnie Cohen used to say, “Are we making it easy for people to buy a car from us?”

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www.ordiway.com/BestPracticesBlog.html

CONFESSIONS OF A MYSTERY SHOPPER - PT 2

2011-04-17T10:45:00.000-05:00

Last week, while at a dealer client, and while reviewing the mystery shop I had just done for them, I flashed on a story told to me last year by one of my teammates. First know that this was a pretty typical mystery shop – the shopper received 2 emails and 1 phone call before the store stopped contact attempts. Now the story:

Bob was 13 years old, in middle school for the first time, and faced with having to ask a girl to an upcoming school dance. Like a lot of 13 year old boys he had no experience in this area and had no idea what was expected of him. So, summoning up his courage, he walked up to the girl he wanted and asked if she would go to the dance with him.

She said no.

Dumbfounded by this unexpected setback, he retreated, concluding that he would either have to find another girl to ask, or forgo the dance altogether.

The next day her best friend pulled him aside and said “Bob, you putz, you don’t give up after the first ‘No.’ You’re supposed to ask again. And again if necessary. She wants to know that you really want her to go with you. She wants to be courted.”

The best friend was right! And to my surprise, I've discovered that’s also exactly how an e-shopper feels.

The dealership that sends my shopper a killer 1^st response email and/or phone message earns the shopper’s undying respect – until the next day, when I hear nothing from them. Then it’s, like, out-of-sight, out-of-mind. A few days later, when clearing out the bottom of my Inbox, I come upon that dealer’s responses and think, “Huh – oh yeah, I remember that shop. Whatever happened to those guys?”

Remember the prospect you accidentally forgot about? (We’ve all done it, right)? The one you apologetically called or wrote days later in a panic hoping to save the relationship, and the one who responded with those cruelest of words, “I guess you guys aren’t very interested in selling a car.” Yep, that’s how it feels out here on this side. Ouch.

Another true story: on two and only two occasions this year, I have had to call a dealership’s sales manager and ask them to please remove my shopper’s info from the CRM. The salesperson had been calling & writing and calling & writing so much that, not only did I feel courted, I felt guilty knowing that my prospect was really a shopper who can’t buy anything to reward this salesperson for his/her efforts. Now, that’s follow-up.

Last year at Digital Dealer Conference I attended a session on e-shopper behavior and one of the presenter’s concluding bullet lines was, “They want to be courted.” Wow! There’s that word again

So…it turns out that the store that displays tenacity, the one that is willing to ask for the prospect’s business, again and again if necessary, is the one that gets a “Yes” to the dance invitation.

Ask Bob.

www.ordiway.com/BestPracticesBlog.html

SECRETS OF INTERNET SALES SUCCESS – REVEALED!

2011-03-21T07:07:00.002-05:00

OK, the title of this story is intentionally cheesy, but the rest of it is real. I mystery shopped some Dallas Region Ford-Lincoln eCommerce Elite (Top 100 stores in USA for new Ford-Lincoln Internet sales) stores recently and was surprised to discover that their response processes are similar. This piqued my curiosity, so I called my DMC teammate in southern California to ask him how the #1 new Ford Internet sales store in the country does things. Turns out they work much the same as the top Dallas Region stores do. So what is the #1 Internet new car sales secret of the eCommerce elite 100 stores that I shopped? They call. And call. And call. And call. That’s pretty much it. I must admit, by the time a pleasant, friendly salesperson leaves four voice messages for my mystery shopper I have to answer or return the call, if for no other reason than I feel guilty ignoring them. You can’t shut four phone messages out of your mind and pretend they never happened. (Especially if they are compressed into a 4 or 5 day period). I also now understand something a presenter said at a recent DDC: “Internet shoppers want to be courted.” He was right. When a salesperson is tenacious in his/her attempts to get through to my mystery shopper it earns my respect. When I was an Internet salesman I hated leaving repeated voice messages. One, maybe two calls and I was done. I see now that I was also wrong. Will blowing up a customer’s phone still be in style ten years from now? It’s hard to say; though I doubt it. But for today, while we are in the transition phase, it appears we have to cover our bases and employ all mediums, new and traditional. Just the other day our program head in Dearborn told me recent studies say it takes four phone calls to get through to most prospects. So there ya go. The simple secret to Internet new car sales success: email + call + email + call + email + call. (Let's save the text messaging discussion for another day).

A TALE OF THREE SALESPEOPLE

2011-03-07T12:28:00.000-06:00

This is a true story told to me in 1996 BC (Before Computers) by sales trainer extraordinaire Diana Ball Cooksey.

Diana was a busy working professional and single parent with little time for projects outside her day to day work and home responsibilities. But she needed to buy some health insurance. So she left voice messages after hours (this is the days before PCs, remember) with three agencies, requesting an estimate/quote and providing her name, the ages of family members she wanted to insure, her insurance purchase goals and explaining that she had little or no time to devote to insurance shopping during the work day.

Agent 1 called the next day during business hours with a message to call him back during business hours.

Agent 2 called the next day during business hours with a message to call him back anytime.

Agent 3 called the next day during business hours and in his message gave her some estimates and a deadline after which these numbers would have to be re-figured.

Diana was busy and did not return the agents calls.

Agent 1 never called again.

Agent 2 called back a few days later during business hours with a message to call him back anytime.

Agent 3 called twice that week with messages offering to meet Diana after hours and/or at her home, if necessary, so she could purchase before the rates deadline.

Diana was busy and did not return the agents calls.

Agent 2 did not call again.

Agent 3 faxed a proposal plus an application and a note offering three times he was available to meet (during or after business hours) with Diana to close the deal before the rates deadline.

Now armed with a proposal/quote from Agent 3 Diana called Agent 2 and asked for a quote for the same type policy. Agent 2 replied the next day that he would need to go over the numbers with her in person in his office and when would she like to come in?

Can you figure out the rest? A few days later Agent 3 was sitting in Diana’s office, after 5pm, selling her the policy.

Oh, and a couple weeks later Agent 2 called to ask if she was still in the market.
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Are we doing everything possible to make it easy for people to buy from us? Or are we Agent 1 and Agent 2?

BEST FIRST QUALITY RESPONSE EVER?

2011-03-07T12:24:00.000-06:00

I think I just received the best FQR (First Quality Response) email my mystery shoppers have ever seen. My shoppers always select a specific vehicle from the dealers’ inventory, click on the “Get Your Free Internet Price Quote” button and write a little something in the “Comments” box. In the examples below the shopper was inquiring about a specific 2010 F-150 and under “Comments” wrote “2010 incentives?” That’s it.

Most FQRs I receive read like this actual reply:

I received your request for information on a 2010 Ford F-150. I tried to reach you by phone, so I could get a little more information from you and what we are trying to do. I can be reached by email or phone to better assist you at ....

This doesn’t really provide anything at all that the shopper requested, does it?

Now, here is the FQR I received from another dealer yesterday. And notice that it is not a template! Wow.

Thank you for your inquiry. My name is XXXXXXX, I'm the internet sales manager for XXXXX. I would like to be your sales person and help you from point A to Z with your purchase.

I see that you’re in the market for a new 2010 F150 and would like to know about current incentives. The rebates right now are very high on the remaining 2010's available. The 2011's will be out in December or January so now is the best time to get the best deal on a 2010. The rebates depend on what cab size and series you’re interested in.

The super cab 4x2 STX F150 that you inquired about is available and it's window sticker is pasted below my contact info. This truck has $XXXX in total rebates available and an additional $XXXX rebate if you trade in a 1995 or newer vehicle making it $XXXX. However I would provide you with more discounts then this even. The supercab STX below MSRP's at $XXXXX but your sale price after all rebates (including financing with Ford and the additional trade-in rebate) would be $XXXXX!! This is really cutting to the chase and I can only offer this until the end of the month because the extra $XXXX trade-in rebate will go away on the 2nd of November.

However If you would be interested in a crewcab XLT then there is a total of $XXXX in rebates plus the trade-in rebate making the total $XXXX before my discounts….

As a potential buyer I now feel totally informed, educated and illuminated. This guy just removed all the mystery and obfuscation surrounding pricing and incentives. I trust him, and I am ready to put myself into his hands. Now, whose phone call am I going to return? His, or the guy in the 1st example above who gave me no information up front?

POSTSCRIPT: You know what’s sad about the mystery shop above? The fantastic 1st Quality Response email above is all I ever got from that salesperson. No more emails, no phone calls or text messages at all.

ARE YOUR TEMPLATES SENDING THE INTENDED MESSAGE?

2011-03-07T12:21:00.000-06:00

How effective are your email templates? How are they received and perceived by the general public? It’s very hard to know the answer to these questions when you are in the business – we are just too close to the material. However, only yesterday I discovered an invaluable (and free) resource right under my nose – my wife! Unlike me, she is not in the car business. She does not read car magazines. She is only interested in cars for their ability to get her from point A to B, for their safety and their reliability. When her lease is up and it’s time to pick out another car she wants that to be as quick and effortless as possible. Sounds like an average customer, right? I was printing some recent mystery shop results in her office and she began to read them. Some letters she liked. Some she didn’t. And some puzzled her - she couldn’t figure out what they were trying to say! I realized then that, because she is not in the business, all of her reactions were valuable. (Favorite comment: “What is this? No woman would read this.” The email had the car’s Ford window sticker copied and pasted into the center of it). But don't listen to my wife; if you have a spouse, or cousin or friend or whatever, male or female, who is not in the car business (and is not impassioned about cars) ask them to mystery shop you and give you their subjective impressions. It beats paying money for an outside focus group. And you might be surprised by the results.

ADVANCING THE SALES MOMENTUM

2011-03-07T12:17:00.000-06:00

We’ve all seen (and sometimes used) phone scripts. A good call script helps you maintain and advance the sales momentum - and does it by asking the targeted questions that get the answers that help you keep your prospect on the critical path to closing. Why don’t we employ the same logic with our email templates?

The F/U emails sent to my mystery shoppers usually say “If you have any questions or concerns I am here to help” or “Our goal at ABC Motors is to make lifelong customers” or “We want to provide you with a truly ‘hassle-free’ purchase experience” or something similar, which is all fine and good, but do these messages advance the sales momentum? I think not.

However, there is a challenge; email and phone are different media. Most e-prospects are unresponsive; how can we ask the right questions and keep them on the critical path when there is no interaction?

Consider this: there are 3 key elements to the sale: 1). The vehicle they want to buy, 2). The vehicle they want to trade-in, and 3). The money they will acquire to pay for it. Isn’t it safe to think that the prospect is interested in at least one of these three things? So why not lead him/her down the critical path by offering opportunities - opportunities to get answers and information to these critical components of the sale?

EXAMPLE: “Do you have a trade-in? Want to know what it is worth today? A free, no obligation appraisal at our store takes only minutes.” Or maybe “Would you like to know in advance what kind of financing you can get at ABC Ford? Just click this link, fill-out the credit app and we’ll get right back to you with answers” etc. etc. etc.

Write your F/U emails so that they advance the sales momentum – you can do it by giving the prospect value in each email - value in the form of opportunity.

THE BETTER TEMPLATES CHALLENGE

2011-03-07T12:16:00.003-06:00

Love ‘em or not, templates are a necessity in this business. Good ones are rare, and bad ones can be damage inducing. What’s the secret to creating effective templates? There isn’t one. But if you want to challenge your brain, try this experiment: pretend that every eLead you receive has no phone number. You are now denied the opportunity to get ‘em on the phone and get ‘em in. You must make your impact via images and the written word. Can it be done? What do you say in your emails? And how do you insure that they cut through the clutter and noise? Consider this: Amazon.com, L.L. Bean, Home Depot and the hundreds of other companies who email you regularly have to impact you with email only – they can’t call all 1,000,000 people on their prospects list. They send template-based emails that cause people to take a course of action. Why can’t we?

WHAT MAKES FOR GOOD CONTENT?

2011-03-07T12:16:00.000-06:00

Creating good content requires a wee bit of talent for expressing thought and personality through images and the written word. And, in truth, there are no rules for creating good content, only principles. Good email content is composed of equal parts communication and salesmanship skills, mixed with an eye for graphic design, and assembled with an awareness that “the media is the message.”

COMMUNICATION – The “style” of the email goes a long way toward pushing the message across. For example, technology (email, chat, text) has caused our communications today to be increasingly informal, personal and brief. So, whereas ten years ago formal-sounding business letters were the accepted response to customer inquiries, today short, informal email or text messages do the job nicely.

SALESMANSHIP – Every good floor salesperson working a customer knows that it is his/her job to direct and maintain the sales momentum. (The only person who can stop the sales momentum is the customer, right?) Similarly, our email follow-up letters should be designed to continually advance the sales momentum.

DESIGN – A clean layout will also go a long way toward getting your message across. Fonts and spacings that are easy on the eyes, and tasteful graphics that push the brand message are simple design elements that will give your emails a professional appearance.

MEDIA – People today are very media literate; if you are sending them an email, for example, they have expectations as to how an email should look and behave. Being aware of how people perceive media messages enables you to control your message so that it scores effectively with its intended audience.

SAMPLE 180 DAY eLEAD FOLLOW-UP PROCESS

2011-03-07T12:14:00.000-06:00

If you don't like your curent process feel free to try this one. This all-purpose 180 Day example assumes that the dealership has 10 templates to use in addition to the Auto-Response template and Day 1 First Quality Response templates (if any).

Day 1 – Autoresponse Short and to the point: “I got your inquiry, I’m on the case, I’ll be back soon with your info.” That’s it.
Day 1 – FQR (First Quality Response) template-based. Personalize it! (Can be based upon a templates appropriate to the four types of leads: New Car General Inquiry, New Car VIN-Specific, Used Car Inquiry or Credit App First inquiry).
Day 1 – Call attempt (if phone # provided) acknowledging receipt & reply; if no answer leave a brief V/M
Day 1 – Text message (if cell # provided) acknowledging receipt & reply – 140 characters max.

Day 2 – 2nd Quality Response Email – template # 2.
Day 2 – Call attempt (if phone # provided) “Did you get yesterday’s reply?” if no answer leave a V/M
Day 2 – Text message (if cell # provided) “Did you get yesterday’s reply?” – 140 characters

Day 3 – 3rd Quality Response Email – template # 3.
Day 3 – Call attempt or text msg (if phone # provided). If no answer leave a v/m

Day 4 – 4th Quality Response Email – template # 4.

Day 5 – Call attempt (if phone # provided). If no answer leave a v/m.

IF PROSPECT REMAINS UNRESPONSIVE AT THIS POINT OK TO GO INTO ROBO FOLLOW-UP MODE (below). IF CRM CAN BE SCHEDULED TO SEND THESE EMAILS AUTOMATICALLY THEN LET IT DO SO. IF NOT, SCHEDULE BULK MANUAL TASKS TO SEND THESE SPECIFIC EMAILS ON THESE SPECIFIC DAYS.

Day 6 - Email – template # 5
Day 8 - Email – template # 6
Day 10 – Email – template # 7
Day 12 – Email – template # 8
Day 15 – Email – template # 9
Day 18 – Email – template # 10
Day 21 – begin to repeat email templates, starting with #3
Day 25 – Email – template # 4
Day 30 – Email – template # 5
Day 40 – Email – template # 6
Day 50 – Email – template # 7
Day 60 – Email – template # 8
Day 70 – Email – template # 9
Day 80 – Email – template # 10
Day 90 – Email – template # 3
Day 100 – Email – template # 4
Day 110 – Email – template # 5
Day 120 – Email – template # 6
Day 130 – Email – template # 7
Day 140 – Email – template # 8
Day 150 – Email – template # 9
Day 160 – Email – template # 10
Day 170 – Email – template # 3
Day 180 – Email – template # 4

BULK EMAILS - 5th day of each month send targeted email – and/or - 20th day of each month send targeted email

WHAT MAKES FOR GOOD PROCESS?

2011-03-07T12:06:00.000-06:00

The more contact attempts you make, the more cars you’ll sell. Everyone knows this is true. Therefore, logic says you want a follow-up process that has your salespeople calling and emailing every prospect in their database every day. However, this is impossible; if a salesperson is receiving, say, 75 fresh eLeads each month, and a hypothetical 10% of them buy each month, then it takes only 90 days for that salesperson to have 200+ working leads in the CRM. Nobody can call and write 200 people every day. It gives them no time to sell.

About 1/3 of your buyers are going to do so within 5 – 10 days of submitting their lead. Therefore you want your salespeople free to devote lots of personal attention to fresh prospects. However, a majority (60% - 70%) of your buyers won’t come around until well after 5 days – and as many as 25% of the buyers won’t do so well after 30 days. We can’t devote the same amount of attention to these late-comers as we must to the hot fresh prospects – but we certainly don’t want to ignore them, either.

The practical solution is to write a Process that tasks salespeople with devoting personal attention to prospect leads who have been in the CRM from 1 - 5 (+/-) days while automating (as much as is possible) an email follow-up schedule that puts your name and face in front of all of the unsold/uncontacted prospects who have been in your CRM for 6 days or longer. In other words, devote lots of personal attention to those folks who are new to your database, but rely upon your CRM to automate (as much as possible) the long term follow-up that your salespeople cannot effectively do.

HOW TO SEND A CORRECT 1ST QUALITY RESPONSE

2011-03-07T12:05:00.000-06:00

A lot of dealers have difficulty understanding how to prepare and deliver a good 1st Quality Response (FQR) email. You can’t just wing it – you’ve got to have a defined procedure in place. If you don’t have a defined procedure at your store feel free to borrow this one. We broke it down into 5 easy steps below. Do all 5 with every lead that comes in (in combination with phone calls/attempts) and you will sell more cars. We’re serious.

    1. Respond Quickly. Responding to a fresh lead via email in less than one hour greatly multiplies your chances of a reply. Internet shoppers want info NOW, not 5 hours from now. If an hour or two has passed and they haven’t heard from you they move on – and you are toast. He who responds fastest wins.

    2. Read the Lead. With few exceptions (Autotrader T.I.M., Sam’s Club program, USAA and/or other special purchase programs) all eLeads fall into one of 4 categories.* Take the time to read each lead, determine which of the 4 categories it falls into, then send the appropriate response. Don’t send the same response to all leads; one size does not fit all.

    3. Fill-In the Blanks. If you are using a template be sure the correct sections have been filled-in and any non-applicable wording removed before sending the email. 1st Quality Response templates usually have sections that must be completed by the salesperson before sending. Take the extra couple of minutes and tailor the template to each customer’s request.

    4. Personalize The Email. We can’t stress this enough; your efforts will fall flat if the prospect feels that he has received a form letter 1st response. (Day 1 prospects are looking for a relationship 1st, and a car 2nd. Form letters do not create relationships). Find some way to add a personal line or two to the email, even if the lines are unrelated to the car deal. Say something/anything to let the prospect know that a real person has taken the time to read his inquiry and is replying with a personal touch.

    5. Give A Price. If you withhold info the prospect wants unless he agrees to come in he won’t come in. But, there is good news: 80%+/- of new car leads are non-VIN specific, therefore, we only need to give them price ranges for their vehicle of choice. You can’t get in trouble doing that. Also, when a prospect asks our price on a specific VIN he is often just trying to understand how we price the cars. (Most people do not end up buying the car they 1st requested a quote on anyway). And, of course, price is a compelling factor for the used car buyer. So never be afraid to send a quote via email.

*4 types of eLeads: 1). New Car General Inquiry, 2). New Car VIN-Specific Inquiry, 3). Used Car VIN-Specific Inquiry and 4). Credit App First.

THE SIMPLE 6 PART FORMULA FOR INTERNET-BASED NEW CAR SALES

2011-03-07T12:02:00.000-06:00

The steps to success are few – and they are not that hard. Really. You just have to do them – everytime.

Paste the list below on your computer monitor and refer to it every day. If you consistently complete all six items below you will sell more cars. Simple as that.

1). LRT (lead response time) of <1 hour. Respond quickly to every elead.

2) LRR (lead response rate) of 90%+ Reply to 90%+ of the leads you receive.

3). Follow-up multiple times, using every media available to you: email, phone, and text message.

4). Consistently send follow-up emails to non-responsive prospects; once every week or two – for at least 180 days.

5). Send a targeted bulk email to all prospects a minimum 1 time each month. Do not underestimate the importance of this one.

6). Review your fmcdealer.com portal and other e-business metrics reports at least once each month – you can’t know where you’re going if you're not measuring.

To paraphrase an old saying, “Success in Internet sales is simple – but not easy.” All the steps you need for success are listed above. Doing them consistently is the hard part.

CONGRATULATIONS: YOU ARE NOW IN THE ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATIONS BUSINESS

2011-03-07T12:00:00.005-06:00

For more than 100 years people have been witnessing news and entertainment on movie screens, and for over 50 years now Americans have had television screens in their homes. Then, in just the past 10 -15 years, the computer monitor has become ubiquitous. And with the recent release of high quality flat screen monitors an explosion of text and images has taken place; today you can’t go into a bar, bus terminal, grocery store, airport, classroom, hotel lobby, doctor’s office, restaurant, bedroom, office or dealership lobby without encountering a friggin’ flat screen monitor! The result of this 24/7 bombardment of electronic text and images is this: people today are exposed to so much high visual quality electronic media that they now expect professional looking content on their screens. Any screen. To successfully communicate with today's online car shoppers we must accept that, like it or not, once you put text and/or images onto a screen you are in the professional electronic communications business. And your content had better be of professional quality or the audience is going to think you are a loser. Or worse yet, a car salesman.

DO YOUR E-PROSPECTS SHOTGUN THEIR INFO? REALLY?

2011-03-07T12:00:00.002-06:00

What percentage of your leads also send their info to your competitors? Are you sure about that? Some dealers I’ve met say “All of them!” Most have no idea. You can get this number every month from your fmcdealer.com Lead Details Report. In the Dallas region, most dealers get shotgunned by approx 15% - 30% of their e-prospects. That's it. What does that say? I think it means that most people just want to find one dealer with whom they can establish a trusting relationship. Then they can stop dealer shopping. So they send their info to one dealer, giving him the opportunity to delight them - or disappoint them. This is great - if you delight them, they are yours for life. However, if you disappoint them, you are toast. They move on immediately, and you have very little chance of recapturing them.

WHEN DO THEY BUY?

2011-03-07T11:59:00.000-06:00

I find that most dealers are confused about this. Some say that Internet shoppers all buy within 3 days, others say they take 2 weeks to buy, another says they take 30 days to buy, or whatever. Every person I ask has a unique opinion and not many get it right.

Using Ford OEM new car leads data from fmcdealer.com, we can piece together an accurate "Days To The Sale" analysis for every store. A typical 2010 Dallas Region store results might look like this:

    34% sales (sold by dealer or lost to rival dealer) = Day 1 – 5
    25% sales (sold by dealer or lost to rival dealer) = Day 6 – 10
    16% sales (sold by dealer or lost to rival dealer) = Day 11 - 30
    25% sales (sold by dealer or lost to rival dealer) = >Day 30
    Average day to buy for those >30 days: Day 70.

This is valuable data. For example; most dealerships get their majority share of the Day 1 – 5 sales, and that makes sense. These are the people with urgency and are, therefore, the low hanging fruit. But starting Day 6 many dealerships start losing majority share to other Ford dealers - and usually the farther out we track it (Day 30 and beyond), the more the market share drops. This is a clear indicator that the store being analyzed does not have a viable long-term follow-up process for eLeads. Fortunately, this is a problem that can be fixed.

In the example above 66% of the buyers did so after Day 5. And a full 25% did so after Day 30. Don’t we all want our fair share of this additional 66%? We can get it - all it takes is a long term follow-up process and somebody willing to insure that the process is worked.

GATHERERS VERSUS SORTERS

2011-03-07T11:56:00.002-06:00

All prospects, when they first encounter you, are in one of two stages: 1). Information Gathering, or, 2). Information Sorting.

The Gatherers are in the early shopping stages and are likely not yet committed to a specific vehicle brand or model. The Sorters are farther along – they now have a short list and are ready to go to the next level.

I believe showroom closing rates today are so high because people can do the majority of their information gathering without having to set foot in a dealership. Therefore, when they walk in the doors to your store a great proportion of ups are already in the Information Sorting stage. This was not possible in the days before the internet. (Think about it, when's the last time you had a person walk into your showroom and say "I just came by to pick up a brochure"?)

However, prospects can’t get everything they need from Edmonds.com or the OEM site; matters of inventory and local incentives (to name but two) have to be discussed with a local dealer. And this is where you come in.

With showroom closing rates averaging 35% - 50%, but Internet closing rates averaging 10% - 15%, I have to believe that a lot of our leads come from people who are still in the Information Gathering stage. These people can be weeks away from becoming Sorters.

Gatherers are often immune to hard selling offers - instead, they are seeking 1) information/education, and 2) a dealer with whom they can establish a trusting relationship.

AN eLEAD IS AN UP. BUT WHAT KIND?

2011-03-07T11:55:00.000-06:00

Is an eLead just a phone up that sent you an email instead of calling? I’ve met a lot of dealerships that say “Yes.” And they are right. And then again, they’re wrong. When prospects send their personal contact info to a store or other business they are stating their case and asking for a response. In most instances the prospect is sending you one of the following two messages:

- 1). I am using the Internet to speed things up by giving you what you need to know about me in advance via email. Please read it over, utilize what I have given you, and respond via most appropriate method with the info I requested.

- 2). I am using the Internet because either I do not have time to talk on the phone or do not yet want to get close to you and talk on the phone. Please just respond as best you can via email with the info I requested.

The problem is, when we receive the eLead we often do not know which category it fits into. If it is scenario # 1, then, yes, it’s possible that this prospect is a phone up who sent an email first instead of calling. If it is scenario # 2, then, no, it is NOT a phone up who sent an email first instead of calling. But if we don’t know which category the prospect falls into we have to cover our bases and respond to both scenarios at the same time.

Therefore, our 1st response the majority of the time must be to reply using all available media: 1) Email, 2) Phone, and, if possible, 3) Text Message.

ALL NEW CAR eLEADS ARE NOT THE SAME

2011-03-07T11:53:00.000-06:00

With few exceptions (Autotrader T.I.M., Sam’s Club program, USAA and/or other special programs) all of your incoming new car eLeads fall into one of 4 categories:

- 1). New Car, General Inquiry (Provides name, contact info, name of make and model vehicle desired - and little else. I call this a"'WTF?" lead)

- 2). New Car VIN-Specific Inquiry (Here is my contact info. What’s your price on this particular car?)

- 3). Used Car (Here is my contact info. Is this car still available? and/or What’s your price on this car?), and

- 4). Credit App First. (The prospect begins everything by submitting a credit app).

Each lead type requires its own unique 1st response. Failure to send the correct response can result in a disgusted prospect. Example: the guy who sends you a New Car VIN-Specific Inquiry might be offended if your 1st reply is “I need more information before I can help you. Please call me at….” He already gave you his contact info and told you the VIN or stock number of the specific car he desires. Therefore, your reply could be interpreted as a ploy to get him on the phone without providing any information upfront. There’s a strong chance he has already branded you as an “old school” car salesman who just wants to get him into the store and hose him. If so, you will never, ever hear from this guy again.

SPEED KILLS? NOT HERE. SPEED WINS.

2011-03-07T11:50:00.003-06:00

In Internet time, a minute seems like an hour and a few seconds wait time is unbearable. (Think about it; how long do you allow the little hourglass to spin before you give up in disgust and move on to something else?). Although the Internet prospect may not respond quickly to you (if at all) he/she nonetheless expects you to respond at lightning speed. This means that a slow response is only slightly better than no response at all. All the studies in this area conclude that he who responds fastest has the overwhelming advantage toward getting the sale. That lead that came in this morning, around 5 hours ago? The one you have not yet responded to? They started shopping your competition 4 hours ago.

YOUR CRM IS ONLY AS GOOD AS WHAT YOU PUT IN IT

2011-03-07T11:50:00.000-06:00

Many dealerships assume that, since they have a CRM, they now also have good Process and Content. Not true! While all commercial CRM software systems come out of the box with some semblance of Process and Content included, it’s unlikely you want to use it. Good Process and Content are the responsibility of the dealer. Surprise!

INTERNET NEW CAR SALES vs INTERNET USED CAR SALES – AS SIMILAR AS NIGHT & DAY

2011-03-07T11:49:00.000-06:00

I had two dealer visits this week in which we came face to face with the fact that marketing and selling new cars via the Internet is much harder than doing same with used cars. Much harder. The key differences are fairly obvious: 1). A used car is a one-of-a-kind item and must be purchased today before it’s gone – vs - there's no rush on a new car; buyers can always locate another one if necessary. 2). Thanks to cars.com & autotrader.com (and others) there is an existing online used car marketplace where you can offer your wares – vs - there’s no successful equivalent for new cars; you have to market and merchandise them yourself via your websites, banner ads, paid search campaigns, etc. If you have the used car or truck they want, at a price they like, and can make it happen today they will probably buy. Slam dunk. However, there is no equally simple formula for success on the new vehicle side; not only is there no slam dunk, there isn’t even a playbook. Which means there is tremendous upside yet in Internet new car sales; nobody has figured it out! Do you hear that sound? It’s opportunity knocking.

IT ALL STARTS HERE

2011-03-07T11:37:00.000-06:00

If you write out the core formula for Internet car sales it looks like this:

Content
Process

Yep, that simple. When broken down into its most elementary ingredients Internet-based retail automobile sales turns out to have just 2 primary components.

Listed in order of importance they are: 1). Process, then 2). Content.

PROCESS: As used here the word Process means a logical, timeline-based prospect follow-up system that cues the salesperson to which prospects need a follow-up call or email each day and what message needs to be delivered to each.

Some of you reading this might remember back to the day when we tracked our prospects on 4 X 5 index cards kept in a small box on our desk. We separated the cards with tabbed dividers that read “Monday” “Tuesday” “Wednesday” (etc.) or maybe “1” “2” “3” (days of the month, etc.). Consistent, high achieving salespeople relied upon this card system to organize their prospects so they would know (you guessed it) who needed a follow-up call each day and what message needed to be delivered to each.

Today, your CRM (Salespoint, VinSolutions, ADP, Reynolds & Reynolds CM, Dealersocket, and many, many others) takes the place of the index cards and box. It does everything the cards did and so much more. If set-up correctly, your CRM successfully mates a logical, prospect follow-up Process (like the index cards and tabbed dividers used to provide) with email (and sometimes phone) scripts (i.e. Content) you can employ when making the follow-up attempts. Plus, the CRM maintains prospect activity histories, enables you to send bulk email blasts to the database, and allows us to run reports that we couldn’t even dream of before technology arrived. But the tool is not the Process; the CRM is the sophisticated software system that manages your Process for you. The Process itself is something that you must provide.

The trick to Process is that it must be followed daily; a Process that is not enforced is no Process at all. There are no “days off” from Process.

CONTENT: This is the information you are giving to your prospects via email and/or phone. Some or all of your email replies might be hand typed and personalized. Others, for the sake of timeliness and efficiency, might be “canned” (pre-written) email messages commonly called Templates. If your prospect responds to your initial replies you may have no use for templates content at all. But if the prospect is non-responsive (and the majority are), templates will allow you to stay in front of him/her without having to hand type a personal letter every single time.

Note that Process trumps Content: you can have a good Process and bad Content and still sell cars. But if you have good Content but no Process you will have mediocre results at best.

IF CONTENT IS KING, WHAT AM I?

2009-12-24T06:52:00.003-06:00

Vincent: How about a dog?
Jules: I don't eat dog either.
Vincent: Yeah, but do you consider a dog to be a filthy animal?
Jules: I wouldn't go so far as to call a dog filthy, but they're definitely dirty. But a dog's got personality. Personality goes a long way. *

*******************************************

If you immerse yourself in the discussion topics and blogs on the popular Internet car dealer sites (Dealer Refresh, ADM, Driving Sales, Kain Idea Exchange, etc.) you might soon believe that the solution to all your puzzles and frustrations lies in acquiring more site apps, buying more vendor services, and devoting your all to mastering the conundrum of social media sites.

Meh.

I think our collective obsession with outside solutions comes about because, as an industry (and as individuals) we forget to remember that, in order to communicate with people, one must first have a message. Of course, if Marshall McLuhan is to be believed, the media is the message. And since our media is websites, web apps, emails and IMs, it's understandable that we should fall into believing that the more websites, web apps, email and IM products we buy the more successful we will be at communicating.

But this is not always so. What most of us end up with is a well intended but, ultimately, clumsy collection of sites, apps and services that, in the end, does not add up to a very compelling message. Yes, the media is the message, but we overlook the fact that mediums by definition must have content to convey. And that takes us right back to that popular declaration from the dot.com days; “Content Is King.”

But what is content?

ALL THE SAME, JUST DIFFERENT
There are core content components required of every dealership's Internet presence. (Your website must feature your inventory, for example. Map and directions to the store is another). These things are imperative and all dealer sites have them. But the true content solution is not the physical features described above. These items are not really content, they are simply store fixtures. True content is your differentiating message.

Your differentiating message emanates from two sources. The first is your business model: what do you do that other dealers in your area do not do? (If anything). The second is where media comes into play: how are you presenting and expressing your store's story to the public? Put another way, 1). you've gotta have a story to tell, and then 2). you've gotta tell it in a memorable way.

Example: my own employer prides itself on being an atypical car dealership. We have a no-pressure straight-up type of store that treats customers with intelligence and respect. According to company lore, that’s what we do that makes our business different from the other same-brand franchises in our area. This is a key component of our differentiating business model.

But does our store tell its differentiating story to prospective and current customers via our websites, emails and IMs? No! Nothing in our online presence conveys that we are a no pressure straight-up type of store that treats customers with intelligence and respect. This is a huge disconnect and a huge opportunity lost. We have three websites and all three have store fixtures aplenty, but no actual content, i.e. there is no differentiating message. Our Internet Sales success derives from the fact that we have a large inventory and an experienced, hard working sales staff. Imagine how good things could be if we also delivered our differentiating message online!

TWO WHO DO
Here's two courageous examples of dealers who 1). have a differentiating business model, and 2). tell that story to the public in a unique and engaging way.

Check out this site: Suzuki of Wichita.

Are these guys having fun? Do we like them? Do we want to go to their store and be with them? Do we want to buy a car from them? I know I do! (BTW - they are now the highest volume new Suzuki dealership in the USA – and they are only 2 years old. So it must be working, eh?)

Now, put on your eye safety goggles and try this one: Ling's Cars.

Is this lady fearless or what? Have you ever seen a dealership site as outrageous as this? Is it ugly? I guess so! Graphic design professionals on both sides of the pond are racing to be the one who condemns Ling's site the loudest – but they totally miss the point. Ling’s business model is unlike any other in Europe or the US and her website is unlike any other on the planet. Oh yeah, and her business is booming.

We are not all meant to be wild and crazy like the dealers above. But we do all have something to say and the opportunity to say it. The goal is not to be like somebody/everybody else, the goal is to be like nobody else. Just forget everything you know or have been told about how a car dealer should look, act, and behave on the Internet and ask yourself, “How would I want my store’s information presented if it was being presented to me?” If the answer that pops into your head scares you because it doesn’t look, act or feel like anything you have ever seen others do before, do it now! You might be touched with genius.

As Jules said, personality goes a long way.

* © 1994 Miramax Pictures

ESCHEW OBFUSCATION

2009-12-07T14:27:00.020-06:00

I have been avidly following an ongoing discussion thread on ADM entitled “NEED HELP - Templates for the first 8 Days - No Contact.” Wow! Get out the boxing gloves! It began over a month ago when a dealer, feeling that his email templates were not up to the task, asked ADM members to share their own successful templates with him. The topic and the responses it has generated highlight the wide range of individual takes on this touchy subject, proving once again that, while few in the industry question the correct process for showroom Meet/Greet/Qualify/Presentation/Close, nobody in our biz is in agreement on how to do the same with Internet sales leads.

Some of the thread’s respondents, many of them ISMs trying to helpful, others vendors trying to drum up a little business by offering a free taste of their products and/or consulting services, have put forth examples of the templates used by their stores or businesses. Putting myself in the mindset of a curious but uninformed Internet customer I read them all and, sadly, came away feeling only bored, patronized, insulted or ignored.

Whatever happened to K.I.S.S.?

HUMBLE PIE
I recently mystery shopped my own store and six area VW competitors. Every responding dealer (including my own employer) used an automated template-based email of some kind as their 1st response, and some continued to use them for subsequent attempts to contact me. Now, I don’t have a problem with that, and I can’t believe customers do either. In real life I am an online shopper too sometimes, and as long as the info I am getting back from the seller is relevant to my curiosity, I don’t care if the store uses robo-templates or not. Do you?

But, with the exception of one or two responses the template-based replies I received during my mystery shop were terrible, IMHO. So were many of the personally composed replies, frankly.

I realize I have to be able to back up my potentially arrogant and presumptuous conclusions above. So, with your permission, let’s analyze the content of what I believe is a fairly typical automated template-based 1st response email. For this exercise let’s use the 1st response template preferred by my own employer. To my mind it is no more nor less awful than any other 1st response template I’ve run across lately, so why not?

Here’s the text:

****************************************

Dear #CLIENT_FIRST_NAME# #CLIENT_LAST_NAME#,

Thank you for your request on the #DESIRED1_YEAR# #DESIRED1_MAKE# #DESIRED1_MODEL#. I am pleased that you have considered Acme Volkswagen to assist you and your family with your present or future automotive needs.

I want to make sure that your request is processed properly and that your internet experience is an enjoyable one.

It will be my pleasure to assist you in purchasing your new vehicle. Please be patient while specific vehicle details are gathered and a search for the vehicle to match your request is made.

If you would like to see our monthly specials or in stock vehicles, please visit our website at www.acmevw.com.

Acme Volkswagen offers all clients a comprehensive program of amenities and privileges which include:
- Complimentary Shuttle Transportation
- Complimentary Car Washes during Business Hours
- Client Lounges with Wireless Internet Access Hi-Definition Flat Screen TV’s
- Complimentary Beverages
- Online Service Scheduling and Convenient Saturday Hours

Looking forward to speaking with you and thank you for contacting Acme Volkswagen.

Proud member of the Acme Auto Group.

Sincerely,

#PRIMARY_SALESPERSON_SIGNATURE#

****************************************

OK, what is wrong with this letter? Oh, man, where to begin? Let’s examine it line by line:

Dear #CLIENT_FIRST_NAME# #CLIENT_LAST_NAME#,

Thank you for your request on the #DESIRED1_YEAR# #DESIRED1_MAKE# #DESIRED1_MODEL#.

– We haven’t gotten through the first sentence and already the word “on” doesn’t feel right. That’s not the only thing wrong, however, as poor sentence construction makes the whole line seem clumsy and awkward. Maybe it should say “Thank you for your recent (desired year/make/model vehicle) inquiry.” Isn’t that faster, cleaner and more to the point?

I am pleased that you have considered Acme Volkswagen to assist you and your family with your present or future automotive needs.

– Egad, this is an overly long and passive sentence; it has no energy at all. How ‘bout this instead: “Thank you for considering Acme Volkswagen for your automotive needs.” I just condensed 23 words into 11 and gave the sentence more immediacy (”Pleased” takes place in the past. “Thank you” takes place in the present). There is more sales energy in this version.

I want to make sure that your request is processed properly and that your internet experience is an enjoyable one.

– Um, OK, that’s nice, but, who cares? Can we please get past the introductory remarks? I’m getting pretty bored, buddy. Keep it moving. 86 this paragraph.

It will be my pleasure to assist you in purchasing your new vehicle.

– Isn’t this basically a repeat of what was said in the sentence above? Why is this here? Cut it.

Please be patient while specific vehicle details are gathered and a search for the vehicle to match your request is made.

– “Please be patient…”! What? So at this early stage of the relationship you are already telling me to go sit down and wait? This is the Internet, man. I want instant answers!

- “…while specific vehicle details are gathered and a search for the vehicle to match your request is made.” You mean, like, you need some big Univac computer to collect my specific vehicle details (didn’t I just give you those in my inquiry????) and next you need to comb the earth to find a car like the one I requested? Aren’t you a VW dealership? Isn’t that why I chose you? Aren’t you supposed to have these things in stock?

Can we try this instead? “I will reply promptly with the exact information you requested.” That simple. Instead of asking the prospect to be patient, I told him/her that I will be replying with lightning speed and providing him/her the very thing he/she requested. I also condensed 21 words into 10. The new sentence is quicker, cleaner and far more energetic.

If you would like to see our monthly specials or in stock vehicles, please visit our website at www.acmevw.com

- Huh? Now you are telling me to go somewhere else? Who said anything about monthly specials? I’m still waiting for a quote! Now you’ve gone off topic and changed the subject of the letter! 86 this paragraph.

Acme Volkswagen offers all clients a comprehensive program of amenities and privileges which include:
- Complimentary Shuttle Transportation
- Complimentary Car Washes during Business Hours
- Client Lounges with Wireless Internet Access & Hi-Definition Flat Screen TV’s
- Complimentary Beverages
- Online Service Scheduling and Convenient Saturday Hours

- OK, this is nice and all, but, again, you’ve changed the subject. One letter = one topic. The purpose of this letter is not to sell me on the dealership. (That comes later) I am still waiting for a quote – and I’m beginning to suspect that I’m never going to see it. 86 again.

Looking forward to speaking with you and thank you for contacting Acme Volkswagen.

– Not only is this an incomplete sentence, but it also tries to say two things in one sentence. Remember: one sentence = one thought. Suggest instead: “Thank you again for contacting Acme VW. I look forward to replying soon with the info you requested.” Drive home again that you are the salesperson who is going to give the prospect what he/she asked for.

Proud member of the Acme Auto Group.

– Um, sure, I guess. Whatever. It’s another incomplete sentence but at this point I’m too weary to care.

Sincerely,

#PRIMARY_SALESPERSON_SIGNATURE#

*****************************************

All we need and want to do with the 1st automated response letter is tell the customer
1) I got your email inquiry
2) I’m on the case
3) I’ll be back soon with the goods.

That’s it! If you want to say more say it in another email. I’ll repeat again: one email = one topic.

So, by taking the original 1st response letter and doing some major surgery, a better 1st response template email might read something like this:

*****************************************

***ATTRACTIVE, PROPERLY SIZED HEADER GRAPHIC HERE***

Dear #CLIENT_FIRST_NAME# #CLIENT_LAST_NAME#,

Thank you for your recent #DESIRED1_YEAR# #DESIRED1_MAKE# #DESIRED1_MODEL# inquiry. I am pleased to be of service.

I will return promptly with the exact information you requested.

Thank you for considering Acme VW for your automotive needs. I look forward to communicating with you again soon.

Sincerely,

#PRIMARY_SALESPERSON_SIGNATURE#

*****************************************
Short, sweet, and to the point.

WAS BLIND, BUT NOW I SEE.
When I was starting out in Internet car sales I wrote and employed some email templates that, frankly, embarrass me today. My 1st reply auto-responder thanked them for their inquiry, extolled the virtues of the product, extolled the virtues of the dealership, gave fail proof directions to the store, included a vehicle price quote PLUS an explanation of how I arrived at that price. And then my contact info. I just didn’t want to leave anything out ‘cause I knew this might be my one and only chance of making an impression on the prospect. But it was too much; the email printed out at a page and a half long single spaced in Arial 10 pt. Yeow. Not cool, not cool.

Take it from one reformed word abuser; the next time you sit down to write a few words, write a few words. And the fewer you write, the better.

Your customers will love you for it.

NOBODY KNOWS ANYTHING

2009-11-23T06:22:00.003-06:00

The title of this piece comes from a quote attributed to the screenwriter William Goldman. He was referring to the fact that, although the motion picture industry has been in existence for more than 90 years, no one in the movie business can accurately anticipate the public's taste or predict how well a picture will do in the theaters. In the end, a picture's success or failure is to a great degree just luck.

Is that not true of all retail? How many of us have held a big sale to which nobody came? Our found ourselves in a momentary sales surge for which there was no ready explanation?

I think the reason dealership websites are such a conundrum, and therefore the reason we dealers devote great amounts of money to miracle diet aids, herbal healing balms, organic peyote powders, and 100% natural Phytoplankton tonics (I'm sorry, I meant SEO management vendors, 3rd party lead providers, talking website avatars and industry best practices seminars) is because, at core, we don't understand what we want our websites to do for us. Or what they can do for us. Or how to get them to do it. And if that is not bad enough, deep down we fear that, even if we did know these answers, a lot of a website's success is just luck.

KEY COMPONENTS OF SUCCESSFUL CAR DEALER WEBSITE
Nevertheless, I have been on the path of discovery these past couple of weeks and, while I believe there is no single prescription for building successful dealership websites, I believe one can isolate a formula that greatly improves one's chances for getting there. To each his own; however, my version is this:

1). Engaging Look & Feel (the subtext)
2). + Smart Functionality/Features (the delivery)
3). + Business Differentiators (why you stand out)
= Successful Dealer Website!

Number 1 is the scariest component because you start with a blank page. If the medium is the message, then the text and images you put on the screen are delivering an irreversible message about you and your store. Whether it is the message you think is being sent, or want to be sent, is a whole 'nuther matter.

Number 2 is where you display your Internet merchandizing savvy. What does your site do that others don't? Can you harness the technology of the web to deliver information in a way that creates a refreshingly original online shopping experience?

Number 3 is where you display your retail creativity. Who are you? How are you different from other stores? Can you show it? Say it?

TWO TYPES OF CAR SHOPPING SITES
For the sake of argument I think there are two distinct car shopping website types.

The first site type will allow you to buy online. Right now. I call that a "True eCommerce" website. eBay Motors is the most obvious example of that type of site: you see a car, you want it, you buy it. Online. The site will take your money.

Most car shopping sites, however, cannot and will not take your money, and are instead designed with a three-step goal in mind:
1). Cause Internet prospects to generate email inquiries (or better yet, place phone calls)
2). So the sales staff can get these prospects on the phone and make appointments
3). So that once in the store the sales staff can convert them into sales.

I call that a "Git 'Em In" website. It doesn't want to sell you a car (not right now, anyway). It wants you to come to the store. As such, it is no different in intent than a newspaper ad, television commercial, radio spot or direct mail piece. Except that, being a website, it presents your inventory in something close to real time, plus it contains a few additional interactive features.

Few of us can or want to operate true eCommerce sites. Most of us own “Git ‘Em In” sites that make us unhappy because they only advertise our goods and fail to make that important next step; creating commitment.

TWO WEBSITE EXAMPLES
In her comment to my last essay Donna Ransdell (perhaps unwittingly) said it all when she made this declaration; "My favorite website? www.amazon.com - they provide a great informative shopping experience that converts."

Converts. There's the key word. Amazon.com converts you into a person who just spent money, right then and there. (And if you don’t or can’t, you’ve likely parked some item on your Wish List so you can easily come back to it and buy it later). We all envy the Amazon.com or iTunes.com (or whatever) model and wish we could create websites that contain a strong call to action. But the retail car industry is not yet ready for true ecommerce car dealer websites. So how can a car dealer website convert?

I believe it can.

Since Donna was so kind to compliment my last essay I went to her website to see what it's all about. Donna's store is Patty Peck Honda. To my mind this website is better than most car dealer sites I've seen:
1) Bright, engaging color scheme.
2) Readily available live chat.
3) Easy to find inventory.
4) Photos of the actual vehicles (new and used).
5) Online credit app.
6) An “About Us” page with photos of the staff and a clearly stated store mission.
7) An online service scheduler.
8) And more.

The site has a somewhat “homemade” look to it but, in her small market (Jackson, Mississippi) that may play OK. I came away from my visit to Donna’s site feeling like I had found a friendly car dealer who will be folksy and pleasant to do business with. And I’m sure in person they are all that.

Unfortunately, I did not feel a commitment to do business with them. What was missing? Why did I not feel the call to action after visiting their site?

Let’s try another ADM member’s site: Joe Pistell's Sun Auto Warehouse. This store is also located in a smaller market (Central New York State) and looks a bit homemade. But, again, let's assume that that plays fine in their market area.

SAW's site has every feature seen on the Patty Peck Honda site except a robust "About Us" page. But it has some other things that put it way ahead of the pack IMHO.
9) Video walk-arounds of select vehicles.
10) An Amazon-style “Wish List” (they call it My Garage) where prospects can “park” a car they are eyeing and come back to it later.
11) A “My Account” feature so prospects can register their name, address, phone # and email address, on the site. (Now SAW has their permission to be contacted. And SAW didn’t pay a 3rd party vendor to get it).
12) And my favorite: the ability for shoppers to sort vehicles by down payment + estimated payment. What a great idea! Is there anything that makes people feel that a coveted car is within their grasp better than that?

Then, all of the above is pushed over the top by SAW's corporate customer service policies;
13) Lifetime Car Washes,
14) Lifetime Inspections, and a
15) Free Birthday Oil Change.
Does it get any better?

After visiting www.usedcarking.com I wanted to do business with Sun Auto Warehouse. Today. They clearly stood out against all the other dealers and dealer websites that I encountered on my Internet research this particular Sunday afternoon.

KEY COMPONENTS OF SUCCESSFUL CAR DEALER WEBSITE - REPRISE
Look back at the 3 component website success formula described earlier:
1). Engaging Look & Feel
2). + Smart Functionality/Features
3). + Business Differentiators
= Successful Dealer Website!

Did the Sun Auto Warehouse site deliver on all three? I think it did. The bright and cheerful look and feel of the site, combined with the exceptionally friendly navigation and vehicle search features, combined with their unique after-the-sale customer service programs made a customer out of me. As a result of my online visit to their site I converted into a person who has made a commitment to do business with Sun Auto Warehouse.

Does that mean you must agree? Of course not. You might be reading this article right now and thinking "That guy's an ass. He doesn't know what he's talking about."

You are probably right. Remember: Nobody Knows Anything.

THINK OUTSIDE THE (BLACK) BOX

2009-11-15T10:03:00.002-06:00

It seems to me that, as a community of Internet Retail Car Sales professionals, we devote a lot of discussion to the success or failure of the online software tools and services that we employ. However, very little is said about the success or failure of our dealer websites to successfully merchandize our products and services.

Yikes, was that a dry opening paragraph or what? OK, let me phrase it another way. I want to talk about the first thing prospective customers encounter when they seek to know us: the front end of our websites. The architecture, navigation, text content and graphic design. The part that does the selling.

I'll be blunt; I think (most) car dealer websites suck.

CONFORM TO THE NORM
When confronted with something new, original, uncharted and undefined (and does that not describe the Internet ten year ago?) early adopters revel in it, stand in awe of it, and then let their imaginations soar as they discover its unexplored opportunities and potential. Following this brief initial development period a second wave of people come onto the scene: those who find ways to harness this new and wonderful thing by putting it into identifiable boxes, categorizing it, defining it and setting recognizable parameters for it. This is a necessary second step for growth, unfortunately, it also has the unwanted aftereffect of pretty much snuffing out the newness and originality of the thing. Overnight, what was once amazing and new and unlimited becomes charted, prescribed and defined. Conformity sets in.

I don't know when or where the playbook was written, but sometime in the past 10 years, the industry collectively agreed that car dealer websites must pretty much follow a look-alike and behave-alike formula. Why? Who says a car dealer website has to look like A Car Dealer Website?

FORM FOLLOWS FUNCTION
Any discussion of dealer websites' merchandising capabilities has to start with a discussion of the sites' pure functionality. The medium may be the message, but this medium must also deliver the retail goods.

By now pretty much everyone agrees that the mechanical features and qualities below are can't-live-without items for a car dealer website.
1). Easy to find merchandise.
2). Photos of the actual merchandise for sale (not renderings)
3). Features and specifications of each car, including any options/upgrades particular to that vehicle.
4). Prominently displayed dealership department phone number(s) and email addresses.
5). Easy to find dealership hours and directions
6). Some type of posted price for each vehicle (MSRP, "Suggested price," "Internet price", whatever)

What else makes for a good dealer website? IMHO the following additional items are also essential:
7). "Wish List" (car locator) feature
8). Live chat (for sales and service)
9). Online credit application
10). A panel or panels synched to the manufacturer's current month incentive programs. (New car dealers only, obviously).
11). Ability for customers to make service appointments online (and not just appointments for 2 weeks or more in the future - duh)
12). A robust "About Us" page. (This one item could be an entire essay in itself. See related Dealer Refresh story here: http://www.dealerrefresh.com/dealership-website-about-page/)

BUT FORM AND FUNCTION ARE OF EQUAL IMPORTANCE
Now that the agreed upon mechanical functions are in place we must turn our sights to the merchandizing aspects of the site. When people go to your site for the first time you've probably got 1, maybe 2 seconds at most to impact them with that all-important first impression. What emotional messages does the site deliver? What does it "say" about your store exclusive of the words on the page? What kind of car shopping experience is your site promising to deliver when it first greets their eyes?

In that regard I'm going to add what I feel is the all-important 13th item to the above list:
13). Bright, friendly and attractive color scheme and graphics.

Hey, I never said this piece wasn't subjective.

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF COLOR
Let's go shopping online. What are you in the mood for? Clothing? Jewelry? Household items? Electronics? Discounted merchandise? OK, let's visit some sites. Try these for starters:
www.neimanmarcus.com,
www.dillards.com,
www.zales.com,
www.target.com,
www.bestbuy.com,
www.wal-mart.com,
www.macys.com,
www.nordstrom.com,
www.bedbathandbeyond.com.

That's nine major retailers' websites. What one thing did all these retail sites have in common? (Other than items 1 - 6 above). Anybody? OK, here's the answer: each site's page background color is white! Nice, clean, bright, cheerful, optimistic, easy-on-the-eyes white.

Now let's go car shopping:
http://www.napletonmercedesbenz.com/,
http://www.vwoncentral.net (my employer),
http://www.thinkewing.com/,
http://www.checkeredflag.com/index.htm (sorry, Alex),
http://buffwhelan.com/indexhome.html
to name but five selected at random.

What one thing did all these retail sites have in common? You got it: they are dark. Moribund. Somber. Some are almost funereal. Really gets you in an upbeat mood to go buy a car, eh?

Granted, not all dealership websites are dark and dreary like the examples above. And some of the sites above have commendable layout and functionality. And I know some of the younger guys in my office claim to prefer sites with dark color schemes. (The Goth or heavy metal band influence?) But it remains a basic principle of color psychology that extremely dark blues, grays and blacks suggest power, authority, humorlessness and conservatism. While bright colors (whites and pastels) suggest happiness, optimism and relaxation.

When polled, most Americans admit that they love cars but dread going into a dealership to buy one. As an industry we have a public image comparable to that of personal injury attorneys, bill collectors and Bernie Madoff cohorts. So why do we publish dark, authoritative websites when our goal should be to cheerfully entice people into our stores? I'm flummoxed.

My personal theory is that most dealership websites (those not provided or forced upon the dealer by the manufacturer) look the way they do because they personally please the eye of the dealership principles. Little thought is given to what message (apparent and subliminal, surface and subtext) the site delivers and whether the general public will respond to it!

COLOR IS BUT THE BEGINNING
Obviously, simply painting a website white or in a cheerful pastel does not alone make it a great site. But once you agree that upbeat, positive color schemes are essential to creating a great dealership website first impression, then we can examine how graphics, text and ease of navigation combine with color to deliver the total website message.

To be continued....

YOUR BABY IS UGLY - PT 1

2009-10-25T16:07:00.013-05:00

How do you tell someone that their child is ugly? Is it possible to tell a parent that his/her baby is homely? And even if you do, will they hear it?

The baby above is a metaphor for something that I believe vexes the Internet-based retail car business. It certainly does me. It is this: as an industry (retail automobile sales) that suffers from a somewhat low regard by the populi, a regard that we all want to see improve, it behooves us to put on our most professional public face. And now that the quality of a dealership's web presence has become as or more important than its physical presence for establishing that professional face, it especially behooves dealers to have pro-quality websites and issue pro-quality bulk emails. And yet, as an industry (but on the local level), we remain stubbornly committed to publishing bad websites and issuing embarrassingly bad bulk emails.

The tools to do right are there; the vendors have done a pretty good job of creating widely available template-based websites and bulk email programs. So I don't think we can blame the technology any longer.

So how do we get today's Internet Directors, eCommerce Managers and/or General Managers to understand that the amateur-quality content they put on their websites and in their mass marketing emails is not only ugly, it also makes their dealerships look unprofessional in the eyes of the very customers their stores are trying to reach most; well qualified buyers?

Right away I want to say that I don’t mean to sound arrogant, and I realize that there is a great danger of that with this piece, so I will attempt to measure my words carefully. My interest in this subject is both professional and personal. It began a couple years ago over the Christmas holidays. Our extended family was at a restaurant having dinner when my dealership sent an email blast to its prospect database promoting an end-of-year new car sale. My then twenty one year old son was a recipient of this blast as I had earlier used his personal email address for a test and kept it in the system. He pulled out his iPhone, read the email, and in front of everyone at the table turned to me and said, "Geez, dad. Can't the people you work for write or spell? Isn't your dealership embarrassed, sending out emails that look like this?" Ouch. That ruined my dinner. But he was right. The layout looked very homemade, and the text featured poor sentence construction and grammatical errors. I was embarrassed.

Was the incident atypical of our industry? I think not. I no longer work at that store, but I receive copies of emails from my current store plus competitors stores whom I have mystery shopped. And a clear majority of the pieces I get suffer from the same amateur assembly.

Why does our industry, one that sells the 2nd-to-most-expensive big ticket retail product on the market, freely tolerate websites and email marketing pieces of such less-than-professional quality that you have to turn to spam to find something that looks worse? Is it because we don't care? Of course not. Everyone's intentions are the best; nobody sends out a sloppy piece or uploads a crappy web page when they could send out a good one. And since it generally takes just as many hours to make a bad piece as it does to make a good one we know that time constraints cannot be blamed.

I have to think there can be only two answers:
1). For budget reasons many dealers must compromise and do their stuff in-house, using whatever talent is available on staff. Unfortunately, oftentimes the "talent" isn't very talented.
2). Some dealership managers simply can't tell the difference between a good piece and a bad piece. So they think the stuff they're putting out is just fine.

I empathize with both 1). and 2). above. They are business and human realities. The problem is, customers don't give a flip about our compromises and shortcomings. They just know that they expect professionalism. And, the more sophisticated customers think our unsophisticated efforts are reason enough to continue their belief that all car sales people are rubes.

Just because you or I can't tell the difference between good (effective) online communication and bad (ineffective) online communication does not mean customers can't also. They can, believe me.

So how do we get our industry to understand this? It's like having a balding uncle with a bad comb-over. Everyone in the family knows it looks ridiculous - except him. How do you help him to see it the way others see it?

YOUR BABY IS UGLY - PT 2

2009-10-25T15:45:00.019-05:00

Car dealers are legendary for their ability to produce unbelievably bad TV commercials; why should we be shocked when their Internet content is no better? But why does this phenomena - seemingly unique to our industry - persist? I think it's pretty easy to explain.

One of the great things about the car business is that anybody can get into it. Walk through enough dealership doors and eventually you will get hired. What you make of it after that is up to you. It’s rock n’ roll, baby! Anybody can play: from the street smart person with only a high school diploma and a lot of aspiration, all the way up to the guy with a Masters in Asian Studies and no hope for a teaching position in his field; anyone who is willing to do what it takes can
be a success (in theory anyway) in the car business.

Let's say we have a talented, hardworking person who ends up in showroom sales where he/she becomes a top salesperson. Then one day this talented, hardworking person gets asked to join (or run) the dealership’s nascent Internet Sales Department. Now you have a person who may not be
particularly skilled at writing and/or who has no special eye for graphic design, and he/she is suddenly working in or running a department that relies upon the written word and graphic design to brand itself and connect with its customer audience. It happens every day.

My personal hunch is that the eternally optimistic and confident car guy mentality, the one that makes the car biz so attractive and so intoxicating to the people who rise to the top, is the same
mentality that also puts people unqualified to be in charge of websites and bulk emails in charge of those very things.

Car sales superstars often see themselves as great communicators. And people who see themselves as great communicators often make the mistake of assuming that if they are great communicating in one venue, then they must be great communicating in other venues as well. But that ain't often the case.

The smart stage actor understands that film acting is a very different art. The smart classroom instructor understands that putting his/her course into book form is a task unlike live teaching. The reason is simple; the first one (stage, classroom) is communicating via live performance,
while the second one (film, book) is communicating via recorded media.

Showroom sales is live performance. Internet sales is recorded media. The two are not the same. And he who excels in one is not always going to excel in the other.

For more than 100 years people have been witnessing news and entertainment on movie screens, and for over 50 years now Americans have had television screens in their homes. Then, in just the past 10 -15 years, the computer monitor has become ubiquitous. And with the recent release of
high quality flat screen monitors an explosion of text and images has taken place; today you can’t go into a bar, bus terminal, grocery store, airport, classroom, hotel lobby, doctor’s office, restaurant, bedroom, office or dealership lobby without encountering a friggin’ flat screen monitor! The result of this 24/7 bombardment of electronic text and images is this: people today are exposed to so much high visual quality electronic media that they now expect professional looking content on their screens. Any screens.

To successfully communicate with today's online car shoppers we must accept that, like it or not, once you put text and/or images onto a screen you are in the professional electronic communications business. And your content had better be of professional quality or the audience
is going to think you are a loser. Or worse yet, a car salesman.

However, honestly, I think this problem will take care of itself over time. As we advance through the next 5 to 10 years more young Internet-generation media-savvy people will enter the retail car business and the old "We'll Beat Any Deal! Just come on down!" guys will fade away. We're already seeing these young people do a great job of social networking their businesses on Facebook and elsewhere.

Me? I guess I'll just accept the fact that I'll shudder every time my store sends out a bulk mailer, and take comfort in the knowledge that this too shall pass.

So, is your baby ugly? Absolutely. But even ugly babies can grow up to be handsome adults someday.