IM@CS Web: The Better Way To eComm And Process

Tipping The Scales. Against An 800 Pound Gorilla...

Have you ever tried skiing? Uphill? Are you one for SCUBA diving? In a wading pool? Do you get your kicks running marathons? On a treadmill? How does this grab you: are you a fan of water skiing? On a dry lake bed? It seems that the more you try to distinguish your dealership today, there's someone from the factory telling you that all of the franchises in your brand should be the same. Nice. There's nothing better than showing up to a gunfight with a knife, right?

Know that we understand completely the advantage for the OEM. The level of standards, compliance and requirements shows more (not necessarily better) knowledge and what's happening with endorsed vendors shows that there may be a desire for (less than acceptable) results. "But they're the factory and I don't want problems". Well, Dear John, that train already left the station and you're the one who gets to sell the customers...right? Don't look now but the factory guys, umm, they don't know how to sell cars and neither do their bosses. Shhh, it's a big industry secret!

So how do you win at the "I want to get ahead and they want me to be behind some imaginary digital line that they don't understand" scenario? With more effort, time, cost and resources you can get 'er done! Welp, that's the short, hard to swallow answer. Can it get done? Yes, the same way you eat an elephant.

Look, they're the 800-pound gorilla (or, if you've been to counseling, the "white elephant in the room") and it's usually ugly if you don't take the extra cars they're shoving down your throat. How can the conversation about why the website vendor is failing them or the fact that the social media/reputation management company actually doesn't do what they say they do with any competency go better? It can't...not until there are real conversations at the headquarters. And folks, they've not even started yet. And the people in the digital posts at your OEMs facilities? Yes, they were selling factory replacement parts to you, at best, six months ago. No, everyone with a smartphone, a Facebook account and knows that CMS is content management system doesn't understand digital. Newsflash: SEO is alphabet soup to them.

Our 800-pound gorillas (read: all of them, not just the "big 6") need a major intervention from you right now. If you're reading this, you're in the top 5-10% of progressive dealers in the country. And don't think for a second that by having them out for a heart-to-heart or flying coach back to the OEM HQ for a fireside chat is going to take the covers off your website, CRM and marketing secrets because we still don't have over 17,000 dealers on mobile-optimized websites yet. However it's a step in the right direction and then 90% of your brand brothers won't have to scream that they don't know what their digitalmarketingleadmanagementpaidsearchretargetingonlinereputationconsultinggurus actually do (yes, please hashtag that!).

Did you hear the feedback from NADA? Yuuuuuuuuup! We're sure you did. Are the OEMs the bad guys? Not in the least. However the combination comes from vendors constantly selling (and them buying, BTW), relationships winning over logic and thousands of dealers fighting the "digital machine" for way to long. When a franchise gets over 50% of their traffic from sources they've not looked at in over a year, someone has to get involved. So they're not public enemy #1, they're just one massive speed bump that wrote a blank check to the wrong address.

Tip the scales in your direction, one pound at a time. (No gorillas were harmed in the creation of this post, but some will be offended - and so will many endorsed vendors)

 

Best Practices: Professional Insight, Powerful Results

 

The Year 2012 In Review? (What's An Automotive Industry Nutshell?)

(Warning, 1000 words below!)

OK, who's got their 2013 game face on? Nobody? Good, let's make things difficult!!! 2012 was one heck of a year: consumer demand is still up and growing for cars (although demand still outstrips what sold), mobile use is skyrocketing (albeit not remotely matched by dealers providing strong solutions), digital demand is still growing at a breakneck pace (while use of traditional media by dealerships is up), vehicle technology, especially in-car, is amazing and overwhelming (while we still can't truly get a MPG sticker correct without driving like we're dying) and quality is better than even with IQS improving (hand-in-hand with more "media" coverage of massive recalls). Yup, 2012 was quite the year...

So ask a car dealership what they're doing and about 16,500 answers will flutter around "more _________ and less ________ while focusing on our key strengths in _____________". And that, by the way, will be the answer around January 5-15th because, unlike other industries that revolve around retail, we seem to be focused on a date non later than January 5 to close the year. Newsflash: 2012 is done. Make more calls, send more emails, offer more dealer cash/rebates/incentives/consumer cash/financing discounts and leases and you're still not going to sell more. Hello?!?! The "Oh, we pulled 10 more from our competitor" crap doesn't fly. You'll sell what was essentially already in the hopper and be happy with it.

Over the last twelve months we saw highs and lows in the automotive industry, mostly driven by International factors like economy, emerging markets, regulation, partnership and bankruptcy. As a matter of fact, we are more tied than ever to what happens in Europe and Asia, even considering how insular as we tend to be. Whether or not we get to see a new Cadillac in the States depends more on what happens in Germany than ever while BMW's success likely depends on what happens in South Carolina. 2012 saw the continued demise of storied as well as soft brands everywhere.

In the passing of this last year, it's important to reflect on how we actually invited people into showrooms while not making it any more enjoyable (except for the new showrooms which mostly made the factory happy while getting better looking floor tiles and slightly better tasting coffee to customers and some of those neat kids' play rooms we desperately needed). We switched website CMSs, dealership CRMs, DMSs, SMSs and POPs but did satisfaction with dealerships actually go up as much as 2012 IQS? Jaguar is still tops (well, 2nd behind Lexus for 2012 models) on the list and they can't seem to sell the damn cats...

What did 2012 deliver to your business? If you've not asked your customers more than your factory reps, your salespeople and your accountant, you will miss the boat by a larger gap in 2013. Yes, you will continue to sell cars next year and maybe, fortunately more again, but where does that stop based on solely looking back or not at all?

Where your concentration needs to be, right now, is around March 2013 because your next 6-8 weeks are already figured out for the most part. No matter how many "cycles" we have, after 100 years of automobile sales most think that there is some magic to the last few weeks of the year. Bullhooey.

If you want to succeed starting next Tuesday, there is no other way to do it than be steadfast in every aspect of your staff, processes, facility and follow through. Your greatest efforts need to be put into place around the touch points (hint: it's not the cars!). Those are showroom (real and virtual) and people. Nothing else matters without those. We are asked regularly how to "jumpstart" sales to the effect that many talk about in the industry. If you've not been bombarded by spam marketing and videos, it usually sounds like "100 to 500 cars overnight with our processes" and "our sales events will have people driving in from everywhere" and don't forget "our websites will optimize so well (or drive leads so easily), no other dealer will be able to touch your numbers, you'll dominate and just have to deliver cars". Rat dung!

Get the best assets in your business today that understand how everyday people use technology and expect to be communicated with. If that means more green peas, then do it! Training?!?! Tearing down your salespeople to build them back up means you have the wrong people and wrong processes! It's not "that Internet thing" any more than your cars are "those things that have engines and tires". It's time to grow up and look forward. If you 15-pounder 15% of your customers, expect 50%+ of your reviews to scream you suck.

If you want to look at things in a nutshell, read another whitepaper about how great a solution is (6- to 12-months after it's relevant while you signed up to get marketed like mad by the same company) and look backward. Our industry is depending on people who look forward with only what's needed about past performance as indicators, nothing else. Improve incrementally prior to making the huge, sweeping changes like we hear about so much and maybe, just maybe, you'll see about 3-4 months that the big stuff is not so big after all because you were able to move the needle consistently. Overnight success is a short-term facade over impending disaster. Count on it.

2013 can be great for many, even amongst the raising concerns about economic and other pressures. The best always raise to the occasion, it's just that it needs to be done in newer ways more consistently. And remember to make changes with anything that you do by benchmarking and recording first because so many will pull the wool over your eyes and scream "we did it for you!". We see it every day. There are some great dealership partners out there. Remember that opportunity is missed by most because it comes dressed in overalls. It's work and most of the time it's slow.

So relish in the success you've had in 2012, you deserve it! At the same time try not to look back all that much. It will take longer to catch up than you realize. The automotive world moves at the speed of retail. That is the only truth. So stop slowing yourself down more than needed.

Much success in 2012 and thanks for continuing to read...

 

Best Practices: Professional Insight, Powerful Results

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It's A Time For Thanksgiving (Automotive Style)

It's that time of the year again.... Well, actually not. Let's be completely honest. It's that one day of the year again. The one day where everyone around the automotivesphere expresses their public thanks: letters from the manufacturers' chief/department executives to their staff, dealers/general managers to their staff, vendors to their staff and maybe, just maybe, expressions of thanks between companies and their staff.

What are you thankful for? The fact that 2012, for the most part, is better than 2011? That the last couple years beats the two before that (and who isn't)? Are we all in a state of fiscal thanks or personal thanks? Who went out to the lot to deeply thank the porter who always takes care of the customers, never takes even a penny from a floor board and smiles as he closes the door for a customer about to leave? A gift certificate for a complimentary 10 pound turkey is not the same as a hearty handshake or chest bump and looking them in the eye and saying "thank you".

Were all of your clients welcome at your store or office simply to talk, network and share a story? The website, CRM, mobile or search marketing vendor contact that always makes things right before the 11th hour...did you write a thank you letter or tell their boss in an email?

You all saw that manufacturer's ad that ran this morning thanking their customers for making the choice to buy their product, right?! Yeah, I just called hell and it hadn't frozen over yet...the ads I see still scream about Curesomethingian leather, diamond-encrusted door handles, and de-magnetized drive control. AS a matter of fact, when is the last time an OEM publicly thanked their customers?

Giving thanks should be a warm-inducing, blush-creating, pit-of-your-stomach humbling experience. At a minimum it should happen more than we all hear "sorry", which for most people has lost it's meaning. But "thank you" shouldn't. And rather than "thanks", make it "thank you" because it actually talks about the person in front of you, or on the phone or that receives the email. Make it about someone else.

So take a moment today (and the following days) to heartily thank the people who make a difference in your business, for your customers and in your life. Thanksgiving is a great day if the thank yous that are giving are complete.

 

OK, now go out and make Black Friday more important and spend all of the money that you're thankful for....

 

Best Practices: Professional Insight, Powerful Results

Wake Up! A Call To Arms...Legs, Hands, Feet, Real Products and Decisions

The more things change, the more they stay the same. There are no shortcuts... Car dealers, when it comes to websites, SEO, reputation management, SEM and social media stop simply buying services blind or going co-op “approved” to save a buck. Stop buying enterprise solutions because it's one check or everything comes on a "proprietary dashboard" and start getting effective results with accountability. Start being your own dealership online rather than being like all of the rest. The same is what enterprise solutions get you. It doesn't work.

Some quick examples: Redundant SEO doesn't stand out and as a matter of fact it’s penalized today by Google and Bing. Copied press releases don't get clicked, read or acted upon. Facebook posts (even though, yes, Google and Bing don't crawl them) that are identical to every one of your competitors don't gain reach or go viral. And PPC ads that aren’t set up properly and don't have unique content don't convert.

It is time to drop the vendors that are endorsed by your brand/OEM that 450, 700 or 1,600 other stores are on; and time to invest properly, get involved with what YOU put online under your name and get real about understanding and results. And for business sake, reputation management and social media are not things you just turn over and don’t watch and discuss, period. Paying vendors to get reviews and paying someone to put up pictures of goldfish in adjacent bowls starting at each other with "caption this" was not acceptable in 2009, let alone 2012. And even if you're not up to speed with what Google or Yelp are doing (and you need to be), don’t pay for reviews from someone that’s not a salesperson, service writer or other employee. Your reputation is your responsibility, not a vendor’s for a couple thousand dollars a month.

Your OEM-certified vendors don’t understand social media and for most brand headquarters, the people making the decision don’t know much more when they sign the purchase orders or endorsements. Most eCommerce heads had stints in other areas of their brand operations and have no experience or understanding.  It’s time you knew that because you are trusting your largest traffic generator, which most dealers flinch at spending $1,000-1,500 a month for…let alone more appropriate, higher costs, to a decision someone made based on a relationship, a pitch and/or promises of non-dealer-centric benefits.

Take ownership and yes, you can and must do and be responsible for every single thing that has your name on it: advertising, fliers, sell sheets, hang tags, pictures, video, templates and online marketing...all the way down to your business cards. If you aren’t on your way, or at least starting, down your digital comprehension and betterment it is only a matter of time before you are absolutely, positively passed up.

You will hear this from very few people and places because it flies in the face of convention. And it disagrees with what you hear in ads and presentations. And it is an about face from what nearly all of the OEMs want and believe. And because it’s hard to beat the 800 pound gorilla (vendors); the gorilla that has no idea what any part of the funnel in their traffic report is, how to properly maintain website optimization, how to set up a legitimate Facebook or Google Plus page and just can’t get its hands around how to actually answer a lead.

Welcome to being back in business for yourself and with the right frame of mind. Yes, that means the herd you leave just may be heading the wrong way…

 

Best Practices: Professional Insight, Powerful Resutls

Go Ahead, Keep Rebuilding The Mousetrap. Tip: You're Trying To Catch A Cheetah

Stop what you're doing. Right now! Look back, quickly. Look back for a while. No, not over your shoulder silly. If you've been at least somewhat involved in the digital realm over the past 3-6 years, take a hard look back. What have you done? Where did your advice come from? How much time have you lost? How much momentum have you gained? How many wins have you had? And how many losses?

Everything changes, we know that. We also know that one man's garbage is another man's treasure. So in your looking back, what have you really learned? This is a little beacon asking you to close the door (or if you're in a cube or BDC or somewhere without a door, pretend to) and think about who, what and to where you were following. This is not a call to go back to basics, which is garbage, however it's a call to think. For yourself.

Too often we go with those that have been penned as the thought leaders, gurus, experts, published authorities, subject matter experts, pros, top of their gamers and the like. So that begs a question: what has been constant in your digital presence for the last three years? Four? Five?

Chances are, not much.

Fact is a lot of people, namely business owners and executive management, are scratching their heads over the past months asking themselves "why did we go down the (fill in initiative here) road?". Is SEO alive or dead? Does social media work or not? Did the new close work or deter customers? Was mobile marketing right or wrong? Great questions. Think about it this way: did your last tent event sell lots of cars? But....that's not digital, right? A tent event or massive offsite lot sale is not, true. Neither should your thinking.

All those things promote traffic, sales, new customers, conquest, retention and more. Of course they do...you can ALWAYS sell. Digital strategies are no different than picking up a good book. They're cause to make you think. Not copy! Short term gains never win over long term thinking. And to think you need to know or be on the path to knowing better.

Sometimes it's funny how operators operate. There's a lot to be said about how dealers are afraid. They're afraid to spend or try new things or go off into unchartered territory. Not to defend them, the truth is they're bombarded. And by everyone that has something to sell from $.02 pens to $20M facilities. And the shiny new thingamabob fits squarely somewhere in between.

So in your reflection, look as specifically as possible at what was done over your foray into the digital world, and what was not done. You see a lot of people are selling new mousetraps and reworking the old ones. Yes, for the most part they work better. You can only be a judge, just like with a book or white paper or study at a conference, after the fact. And quite a few have benefitted over the past years due to their desire and ability to win in the digital realm and congrats to those who have.

Just a heads up that you're trying to catch a cheetah, not a mouse. A cheetah can still run at over 60 miles per hour with a mousetrap clipped onto its paw. That is until it gets smashed to smithereens and the cheetah goes on as if nothing ever happened. There are so few mice in the digital realm today and most have mousetrap detectors.

There are some big things coming. Here is a heads up that the next big thing is not in hardware, software, advertising, marketing, mobile apps, CRM, retargeting or templates. You'll have to think about it. For those that do get it the remainder of 2012 and 2013, as well as going forward, will be easier.

If this was a hard one to understand, keep reading and coming back. And thank you.

If you got this, see you at the DrivingSales Executive Summit October 21-23 at Bellagio in Las Vegas...and please keep reading. We'd love to hear from you, you're our kind of business.

 

Best Practices: Professional Insight, Powerful Results

 

The Difference Is One Letter...And What It Gets You Is Much More

Many times people ask me why IM@CS is not a training company, even though plenty of people call what we do by the "T" word. The response every single person receives, for the last five years - and emphatically - is that people despise being trained. People, more successful ones for sure, love learning. In short, we've never had a staff member at a client that ever deserved such a low pat of the attention span.

Education, however, is what people and businesses that want to succeed tune into. There are plenty of trainers to choke 17,000 new car franchises to death, and then some. There are so very few educators, especially in the digital space. That aren't beholden to vendors they recommend (read: if you take a fee from a client and a commission from a vendor, that's called a conflict of interest). That don't work at a store 40 hours a week (read: that's an employee, not a consultant). That learn from outside the industry (read: recirculating existing data, quotes, white papers and results from others is simply an affront).

Education, for the few that want it, is the only thing that moves our industry forward. "Getting back to the basics" and "blocking and tackling", while called for and part of daily operation especially when things drop through the cracks, is needed. However, you can't increase results from eCommerce, increase your SEO footprint, establish social media signals, improve your email lead response rate or conquest a new market or brand by "doing what has always worked".

This week brought a great opportunity to share what might be considered as more "digitally savvy" dealerships and vendors in a conversation with an industry colleague. He happens to be someone that I respect, having OEM, portal and agency experience including outside automotive. He asked, among other items, what we're most proud of that we were able to do with a now, more-successful client. My response was that he should ask them, not me...

You see, training is something you do everywhere for everybody that "needs it". Education is something that you provide with varying degrees of success, seeing the results later through your clients and only for those that absolutely want or will kill for it.

One thing I've always been passionate about in providing services to different business over the past twenty plus years is watching their growth. By providing turnkey services or an enterprise-wide platform, as needed as those services are, the baseline is so muted. That doesn't get me or the team of people I get to work with up in the morning. What does is making a difference through education and then supporting the education. Anyone call sell or buy a widget. And many will tell you their widget is better or drives better results. Bulls**t. The people using the widget to their best capability win. Remember who people buy cars from? The least educated one, right?

So what's the difference between training and education? Education is one letter longer. And likely the only thing keeping your dealership back from excellence...

 

Best Practices: Professional Insight, Powerful Results

 

If You're Going To Do It, Do It Right...

The special time of the year is nearly upon us, again. From September through February: conferences, expos and 20 Groups with the veritable sales crunch of "you have to get this or you'll be left in the dust!" pitches. You can feel dealers' and general managers' certain body parts tightening up now (not that they aren't pitched every day of every week of every month or every year already).

With very little assistance, which is by choice, direction or information, vendors are chosen and deals are signed. Does that mean dealerships make decisions without "data"? Not necessarily. However decisions made with vendors' own calculators (remember when lead estimating in your market at certain NADA website booths was the fix of the day?????), skewed analytics/search results and by recommendations (you know, what works for a dealer with half the competition and market size one of their 20 Group buddies has should work the same for someone else in a major metro with twice the stores and massive gross degradation?).

What generates results are a combination of relevant data, unbiased information, support, updates and consistency. However what we still see dominating today are dealers using:

Websites:

• Without any SEO (and sometimes even basic optimization), micro-sites/landing pages and SEM with no/poor call-to-action, heavily redundant non-inventory based content (which Google LOVES! right?!) and the like...

CRM:

• The "take it as it came out of the box" processes and templates that can't get a call back from a desperate buyer, no management notifications set up, and people with access sending out marketing messages to dealerships' database that are not proper, timely or accurate...

Social media:

• Left up to companies setting up personal profiles on Facebook, Google Plus, Foursquare, etc. for businesses and/or...
• Duplicating content on hundreds of dealership social networks and/or...
• Solely following industry people's accounts and them fanning/following back and/or...
• Simply buying audiences gaining thousands of eyeballs while most of the paid followers are in different countries (or simply spam accounts)...

...and the list just goes on and on and on. 

If you want to sell cars, you have to do it right. Meet and greet, the walk, the drive, the pencil, the close (yes, the road to the sale to many) that can't exist without process, checklists, audits and accountability. Yet most dealerships' entire digital presence has none of those!!

What we need to do is do things right. Businesses are responsible for everything they do. It's 2012. If you don't understand websites and SEO, get someone that does in your store. Don't think social media is right for your point? Ask your customers where they want you to be and then get someone that does it in your store. And get advice before you hire your person/people or bring on the vendor! You must own every part of your marketing today and not turn a blind eye. And no, it's not too much to do or to get someone in the store or close to you to provide reporting that is not from a vendor's proprietary dashboard (read: manipulation) that can't be validated by another unbiased source.

There are no excuses for businesses today to not know how to do things right and expect results. Sending texts from employees phones without permission based marketing and legal/opt-out included? Having a website for a 150+ unit store that has 800 inbound links and no +1's? Promoting a blog that has the same content as every other (fill in your brand) store within a 1,000 mile radius? It's NOT fine. It's NOT ok. Get real.

Act as if you're a customer to your own business! What are the chances you'd return to your own website if the home page never changed? Would you buy concert tickets from a site that never featured your favorite artists? Would you Like United Airlines on Facebook if every other post from them was two sea lions fighting or two mimes fighting with an intro of "caption this"? would you follow Morton's Steakhouse on Twitter if EVERY post was simply a push from their Facebook account and no interaction with diners? Would you continue to read Marriott's blog if all it contained was posts about awards they were winning from magazines rather than updates on their resort locations that you wanted to travel to? Look it's really simple, it's just not easy.

Own your marketing. The pisser is you've been hearing this for over five years now from a number of sources in the industry including this one. Quit cutting corners and believing everything that the large enterprise-level providers are feeding you. How can one provider claim to be the #1 vendor in an industry and charge half of what everyone else does? It doesn't work that way! You know that...

Look at it this way. McDonald's (as good as some of you may think they are) is not number one in hamburgers. They are number one in volume! Do they serve the best burger? No! Their burger is not the best...and neither is your website/CRM/Social Media if you don't know better.

If you're going to do it, do it right!

 

Best Practices: Professional Insight, Powerful Results

If It Were That Simple, You Wouldn’t Have Done It Yet…

Things are changing. So fast, they’re staying put, at least for the most part. It usually brings a smile to my face when they phrase “We’re doing well. Things could be better, but compared with (fill in competitor) we’re actually doing fine/well“, is muttered for two reasons. First, it’s part of our selection process and second, it’s part of the business’ selection process. “No, we’re not changing” is a great response, even though most can’t get it out of their mouths.

Recently one of our clients called to advise us that they were being pushed be their OEM to do some print advertising, their first in nearly two years. So they advised us that they’ll do it for two months, just to get the heat of their back. That made me think about what business owners and senior management do to simply make their business partners happy, or trying to make competitors worried, or to make a statement as well as a list of other, mostly ego-driven or self-centered, reasons.

Many businesses today are out of touch with their customers even though consumer sentiment and feedback is so readily available today, to the point of nausea. And we don’t ask. Heck, we can’t even get accurate sourcing at the point of sale today as “the fastest way around the system” is what most of those in sales will do because “I just want to sell a (fill in the blank) now”.

Logic tells us if something is easy enough, we should just do it! Logic also tells us most people won’t opt to do things that are deemed difficult so the few that do that harder work reap the greatest benefit. Most things that can increase results relatively quickly, given the proper attention, will absolutely give an unprecedented advantage. Yet most fall short. Well short.

Take, for example, call tracking. Why would you want to use your cell, at your desk, when you can kill two birds with one stone on the business’ land line (unless you have a more advanced CRM that can append a cell call to a customer record)? Convenience is not a reason, that’s called an excuse. Sure, there are reasons to have your land line forwarded to your cell, however it makes sense to get the most out of each contact, being somewhere you can easily take notes and/or check something online and more, simply by making/taking the call at your desk on a tracked phone. (Using this example due to the fact that for most car dealerships this is a huge pain point in accountability and tracking.)

Do we really think the top producing salesperson will drop 20-70% of their sales when pressed to follow a process versus letting them “do it their way” since nobody wants to “rock the boat”? That’s not likely to happen and,  better yet, it’s more likely to provide a boost in production.

More than ever we need to stretch the rubber band if we expect to succeed, not just get along. There are so many simple things that we can get done offering huge benefits in return. They may not always be easy, but they are worth it. The salesperson chatting on the front line may just be able to reach five more people today on the phone. But it won’t happen..

Because if it were really that simple, it just won’t get done. That, ladies and gentlemen, is a big issue.

 

Best Practices: Professional Insight, Powerful Results

Leave A Number, Maybe We'll Call (And Other Customer Service Fables)

"I'll get right back to you". The biggest one we all hear, almost every day. As if the caring dried up as fast at the ink on your signature. Customer service has fluctuated as much as marketing dollars over the years, with the marketing dollars typically winning.

Simply put, while customer service is more important than ever for every website, marketing and CRM company, and "statistics" show more outbound calls than inbound calls, proactive support is just not what it should or could be. And with automotive retail moving at the speed it is, anything less than complete customer service is completely unacceptable. And commonplace.

The issues are more about mentality, approach and operation over that of scale, overhead and resources. Customer service is a mindset, not a skill set. One way to know what to expect is get things in writing. If you are signing a contract for deliverables (be it hardware, software, applications, etc.) you, as a business owner or operator, are entitled to a service level agreement. You can always demand things such as average resolution times, limit of billable hours for modifications, response time expectations and more.

Another oversight is the process of signing, through implementations, to operation. Too often, the business falls victim to a vendor's protocol, rather than the business being in the driver's seat. First have a single-point of contact. Next ensure that there is an understood "live" date that needs to be approved by both parties for billing to commence. Third, ensure support is in lock-step with both process and time requirements. More often than not, from cradle to grave you'll deal with more people than a presidential candidate will kiss to get into office.

Customer service is Kung Fu in a MMA world, a lost art. Businesses are counting on getting the type of attention and service that is deserved, especially based on claims of unparalleled practices. Number one, by the way, simply means in more stores. Not customer satisfaction. Not hours on phones. Not dedication to community. Maybe vendors should start being rated on outstanding/open tickets, measured on response times like businesses are for lead management and penalized for each time they nickle and dime their clients.

So leave your name and a number. Wait for the call back. More importantly, wait for the customer service you expect. Some day, your operation will be as important to your vendors as their is. Until then get what you deserve and nothing less.

Best Practices: Professional Insight. Powerful Results

Searching For The Digital "Leg Up"? Jump All In!

The mad scramble to do the crawl, walk and maybe run is still in full force. Yes, more are shifting toward digital but 2012 is nearing half way through and we're likely still under 20% of budgets going to true online and integrated strategy across 17,000+ franchise dealerships. We're talking the talk, ladies and gentlemen, but we're not walking the walk...

As a matter of fact, you might just say that the "Leg Up" everyone is looking for is only one jump away. But while you're looking at (and impressed with) your knee moving up, you miss the view of the real goal is a good leap away. And at the same time, our indsutry is being bombarded with new vendors, software and services along with the current ones continually trying to reinvent themselves. And for what?

What moves results? Sustained efforts. On top of solid education. Supported by execution. Surrounded by measurement. Without the entire package, not just the slick sale pitch that got you to buy, you might as well cut yourself off at the knees. No digital leg up for you! But why????

Because, for the most part, we allow vendors to pull the wool over our eyes. It's not about having the newest and greatest or even starting from scratch for your first time. It's outlining what success looks like, making enterprise commitments for training and utilization, how technology gets us there, insights to customers' technology use, understanding how people find us and so, so much more.

It is 2012, you're not in the game if you're simply buying a new website! Your website has to be completely integrated with your inventory. The dealership's CRM has to allow you to work remotely. Salespeople must enter data about their customers. You will not get a leg up in digital marketing or eCommece results if there are workarounds of any kind. This goes for everyone on the showroom floor to executive management.

One out of 100 customers are drive-bys today. There shouldn't even be a "drive-by" in the sourcing options of your CRM. Fudging a prospect's email or driver's license number to get a key for a test drive "just do to it later" is as effective as not having a customer sign the purchase contract but letting them drive off the lot. Having a website without real SEO, integrated incentives down to VDPs, model (and if called for) trim landing pages that are not copied from or framed in from your OEM, future models and everything people actually come to websites for is also unacceptable. Everything that you want to make easier with a digital leg up is real work. Yes, it takes real work. And it never, never, nover ends.

And here's a newsflash: It's not all about the acronyms:

SEO - Shove Everything Overboard
SEM - So Everything's Mobile?
PPC - Perpetually Perform Catastrophically
CRM - Can't Review Monthly
SME - Social Media Euthanasia
SMO - Senseless, Mindless, Objectiveless

Now you're left with one thing to do...SOS! 

SOS - Shiny Object Syndrome

You can't and won't win the digital marketing war purely by spend while staying immersed in traditional media or by making incremental movements while the world is forging forward in digital consumption at 200 MPH. Dealers and managers, don't excuse yourself or your staff because that is followed by your customers excusing you to go down the street.

A digital leg up is going at your entire presence all the time, both online and offline. On the web and in the store. If you're not making the experience the same, don't ask an app or a CRM to save you.

Last weekend I participated alongside roughly 13,000 cyclists to raise money for Multiple Sclerosis in a ride form Houston to Austin, TX called MS150. Most finished. Some quickly. Many slowly. For those that didn't finish, some had mechanical issues due to their bicycles not being properly ready. Some had accidents which took them out, which is to be expected when thousands converge on a small area at the same time. And finally some just couldn't make it, their hearts completely in the game but their bodies not. They wanted to. But they didn't get the results they expected due to the fact that they didn't jump in. 167 miles is a long way in two days for most people, period. And my hat's off to everyone that participated. But to win, you can't just get a leg up or start "training" the week before. You have to jump all in.

Digital marketing and success online as well as in your store doesn't happen by will power alone. There needs to be a plan, equipment, partners, inventory and more. Make sure that your multi-million dollar investment doesn't have a nickel-and-dime presence online. And take the time to understand what it takes to go all in. If your vendors only want to give you a leg up and are not willing to jump in with you, you might as well stick your head between your legs and kiss your store goodbye...

 

Best Practices: Prefessional Insight, Powerful Results