Digital Retailing: Lessons from the Winners Among my regular duties over the last several years, I’ve been working with OEMs and dealers to fine tune their digital retailing efforts. Throughout this time, I’ve seen everything from utter failures to smashing successes. The failures were most often due to a lack of buy-in and (believe it […]
Is Selling a Vehicle Above MSRP “Price Gouging?” (Don’t worry, you won’t have to read this entire post to learn how I feel about calling this practice “price gouging.”) Ugh. I am truly sick of seeing post after post about some new car dealer “price gouging” because they added a $6,000 “market adjustment” to a […]
Just Don’t Screw It Up: The Key to Delivering a Great Customer Experience in 2022 I’ve written before about how Chick-fil-A’s reputation for delivering a great customer experience is not about solving issues, it’s about avoiding issues in the first place. Add in some manners, speed, and efficiency, and you’ve got Chick-fil-A’s secret recipe for […]
Attack of the Karens: Irrational Humans and the One-Star Review Movement Perhaps it’s the result of lockdowns and restrictions; maybe it’s what we should’ve expected from social media; perhaps it’s the result of everyone getting a trophy; or maybe it’s an offshoot of screen addiction, where everyone now has a shorter attention span (and less […]
The Great Car-Buying Experience: Telling is Only Half the Equation Even before the pandemic, many dealerships were beginning to focus their marketing and messaging away from low prices toward providing a better customer experience. Certainly, the lockdowns and resulting (now fading) rush to at-home test drives and (still in its infancy) online buying sped up […]
Managing Expectations: Going from Happy Customers to Raving Fans A 5-minute wait. Is a 5-minute wait short or long? Of course, the answer depends on the circumstances. Waiting five minutes for a waiter in a busy restaurant to bring the pre-dinner drinks to your party of six is nothing. Waiting five minutes for a hotel […]
Our Sales are Through the Roof, So Does Lead Response Time Really Matter? Today, most dealers are selling every piece of inventory they can get their hands as desperate consumers willingly pay more for a new or used car, truck, or SUV than they would’ve paid a couple of years ago. This supply and demand […]
Priorities for the Modern Automotive Salesperson Are you an automotive salesperson managing not just Floor Ups, but also Phone Ups, Internet Leads, and perhaps Website Chats? If so, then you likely encounter times when multiple opportunities appear simultaneously, each requiring your immediate attention. The simplest idea, the one where you prioritize the person in front […]
The Future is Not Online Car Buying; The Future is Omnichannel Digital Retailing I dislike the term “omnichannel digital retailing” because it’s a smash-up of buzzwords meant to make vendors sound cutting edge and smart. Of course, “omnichannel digital retailing” certainly rolls off the tongue easier than saying, “using a tablet or kiosk in-store to […]
Should You Buy an Extended Warranty When Purchasing a Used Car? I know there are lots of online opinions written by “experts” telling you whether it’s a good idea to purchase an extended warranty. Add my opinion to this long list. However, understand that mine is an opinion I would give my children if they […]
Customer and Employee Safety Doesn’t Have to Equal a Bad Experience Despite the long post, I’ll start with a quick tip to businesses small and large regardless of the market conditions: Make it easy to do business with you! Oh, and to that end, your messaging should reflect this! Despite the continued, often confusing government […]
Playing Real Moneyball in Automotive Retail Carvana is playing Moneyball. CarMax is playing Moneyball. All the other publicly traded dealer groups are trying to play Moneyball (and a couple might actually figure it out). If your direct competitors start playing Moneyball, you’ll soon find yourself at a disadvantage you won’t even recognize. Besides stealing market […]
The Unwritten Rules of Travel As a regular business traveler, I adhere to my sworn duty to do my best to train the leisure traveling masses on proper travel etiquette. Of course, the tools at my disposal are usually nothing more than a condemning glance, an outright scowl, an audible “harrumph,” or an offensive Tweet. […]
Texting While Selling? Even I Was Shocked by This Behavior! This one is hard to fathom. Sure, I’ve been in an Uber while the driver carried on an extensive (and dangerous) text conversation with his friends. Of course, he wasn’t trying to sell me anything (though, perhaps, he should’ve tried to sell me on leaving […]
Duh Customer Service – How Thinking Improves the Customer Experience I’ve been there… you’ve been there. You enter the restaurant. You spy as many as 50 empty table and 6 tables with guests. They have two servers working. Where do they seat the guests? In clusters right next to each other. No spacing. No private […]
You Don’t Have to Hire Asshole Employees: Your Culture Will Create Them There’s a disconnect among those sitting in top leadership positions in some organizations. They want to create a Disney-Like Culture or become the Chick-fil-A of their industry. They’ve read about the terrific returns a great customer experience creates, so they mandate a great […]
For the Love of all Things Holy! Keep Your Frickin’ Word! A great customer experience – the kind that Chick-fil-A or Ritz-Carlton provides – involves just four things: Make “it” easy Manage expectations Keep customers informed Keep your word This simply means: Make whatever the customer wants (a chicken sandwich; a room for the night) […]
Delta Boarding Zones, Gate Crowding, and How the New, New, New Boarding Zones Might Be the Dumbest Alternative Yet Delta knew they had a problem. Their Delta Boarding Zone System (DBZS) was confusing and caused massive gate crowding. Inferior rivals, faced with the same issue (think United), didn’t wrack their brains solving it, they just […]
Stop Rewarding Your 8-Car Alans Every dealership has an 8-Car Alan (perhaps yours is a 10-Car Ted or even a 14-Car Phoebe). You know, that veteran salesperson who delivers an unspectacular, yet steady volume of units each month. Their sales primarily come from the owner base, though they do take a few Ups when they […]
Let’s Do This How Three Simple Words Can Move Your Buyer Through to the Sale The very essence of Assumptive Selling is knowing that everyone is a buyer… and that they want to buy from you… and that they want to do this today. Once you grasp this concept, internalize it and practice it with […]