New research by trusteddealers.co.uk reveals the dark secret of UK’s annual private car sales. These sales amount to 1.4M each year. It appears that the recession is driving UK motorists to become a nation of suspect dealers. Research found that 1 in 5 private dealers admit to telling porkies when selling a vehicle.
Over 1/3 of private sellers said they had diverted a buyer from a problem with a vehicle. 15% position the car to hide bumps, cracks and scuffs and 3% use air fresheners to hide permanent smells.
Dealerships should always be searching for ways to instil trust in customers. If you are from a franchised dealership, this will help. Yet there are other ways in which dealers can go the extra mile to ensure that the customer knows they are not going to have their arm twisted when coming to a dealership.
We work with dealers that are part of Trusteddealers.co.uk. It has been designed as a resource for consumers looking to purchase a used car that comes with complete peace of mind. The standards are set by used car dealers that are part of the scheme, highlighting to consumers that the dealerships are committed to delivering a ‘first class experience’ to used car customers. Trusteddealers.co.uk have compiled a 10 points of difference that they believe car dealerships should abide by regarding certain laws of practice. Here are some of the following practices these dealerships go by:
- Every car has theft and write off checks
- Full Pre-delivery inspection
- Car mileage checked and verified
- Warranty with every car
- Generous minimum MOT
We are not suggesting that dealerships would go to this length to deceive a customer from a stone chip. Think about how dealerships can help to instil trust in customers. One way to do this is to incorporate video presentations. It enables you to bring the customer to the dealership from the comfort of their own home whilst differentiating the level of customer service at a dealership compared to that of competitors. This allows a potential customer to feel at ease while at home, therefore more likely to ask the questions that they feel they couldn’t at a walk in appointment. Video is a brilliant way to disarm the customer; a live video presentation is even better. ‘If I show you everything about this car, if I listen and show you what you want to see, if I answer every question, if I remove every objection that you could possibly have – will you give me a deposit?”.
If the experience of the customer is enhanced an honest and dependable relationship is developed - Brand loyalty and advocacy is achieved at a dealership. Reichheld who is known for writing on brand loyalty stated that creating value for customers builds loyalty, and loyalty in turn builds growth, profit and more value.
Ultimately it’s all about trust. There is nothing more refreshing, more enlightening, more counter intuitive than to say to a prospective customer, let me show you what is wrong with this car.
Renault have adopted a new service which allows customers to share experiences at each of Renault's network of dealerships following the purchase of a new Renault or visiting an aftersales department.customers will be contacted by Renault’s Customer Satisfaction team and asked about the experience. Renault says the new “transparent system will allow customers to see the previous performance of the dealership and will promote the high level of customer experience enjoyed by customers”.
So how important are customer reviews for other prospective customers whether buying a car or needing a service?
90% of consumers online trust recommendations from people they know, 70% trust opinions of unknown users.
David Johnson of Persuasive concepts stated that one peer recommendation is worth 200 traditional media impressions.
The benefits of a customer review is that it helps other prospective customers make a more informed choice. If a customer provides a review saying the experience with this dealer was great, the trust builds with other prospects who read this. It is a psychological affect that people assume the actions of others reflect correct behaviour within a purchase situation.
Reviews provide social proof. We live in a time where we put a lot of emphasis on what other people are saying before doing business. Reviews are particularly important when we are uncertain what to do, for example when we find ourselves in unfamiliar situations.
A good example of advocacy is Ford’s Fiesta agents, normal people who act as brand advocates, carrying a positive message that they update on social media platforms. They share information about a brand and act as a resource for potential customers to engage with.
MINI have taken what Renault are doing a step further.
Halliwell Jones Southport MINI have included this customer rating scale on the first page of their homepage. It immediately enables the potential customer to view how this dealer is doing. It reveals comments that were made by the public, good and bad.
Dealers need to listen closely to what their customers say. It will help the dealership to identify the differences between customer perception of their service and what the dealer believes they are delivering. Managers need to make sure the organisation is communicating clearly the level of service it can deliver. Over promising and under delivering has been the failing of many businesses.
Dealers need to make it easy for their customers to leave information, whether that’s a form on the web site, a Facebook page, even a pen and paper in the dealership. Investing time in increasing the number of customer reviews will increase the number of advocates an invaluable benefit to the business.
How can a dealer listen to what is being said about their business outside of ear shot?
Google alerts is a good tool for this, it automatically notifies the user when new content is published that mentions the dealer’s name or manufacturer for instance. Links to these publications can then be sent directly to the user’s e-mail to read and review.
It can be particularly useful to follow reviews so you can engage a customer that posts a negative opinion and thank customers that left positive ones. Setting up a monitoring service means the dealer can react quickly to good and bad news.
If you want to start to encourage an increase in your customer reviews and harness them into your car dealer marketing strategy take these tips from David Johnson’s video by Next Generation Dealer Services.
Positive reviews ultimately helps sell more cars, a benefit that no dealer would want to discourage.
The days have all but disappeared when a customer’s car buying experience centred on magazines, brochures and newspapers for gathering information. The advent of the Internet with search engines like Google means no one is far away from all the facts when making a car purchasing decision.
Real time information at a customer’s fingertips means even less need to make a trip to the dealership until it’s absolutely necessary.
If you don’t believe me check out these facts from the Google Gearshift Report in 2010:
- Over half of all customers start their purchase journey online.
- 8 out of 10 people use the internet for research at some point
- Of the 78% who research online – 63% use manufacturers websites, 56% dealer’s websites and 21% blogs.
- Showroom visits are declining rapidly – in 2010 25% of all customers only went to one dealership.
Hands up who’s got a blog? No? Why not? One fifth of all customers have read an automotive blog before visiting a dealership.
Okay, so you don’t have a blog. But many dealers recognise that they need to deliver ‘an online experience’ of some description in order to engage with new customers. With many this stops at translating the rows of cars on the forecourt to rows of cars in a used car database.
But make sure that used car stock is really easy to find. A recent survey by I Perceptions concluded that customer satisfaction levels are highest when they can easily find the information they’re seeking.
“Making it easier to access detailed information online, such as inventory visibility, is paramount in order to secure additional visits to dealers, more requests for quotes and ultimately, a greater number of vehicle sales,” said Claude Guay, President and CEO of iPerceptions.
Easily accessible information is a great start, but it doesn’t stop there.
Live Chat is a sharper tool that encourages engagement with customers. So when a customer is browsing, there is now an opportunity to strike up a conversation if they’re ready.
This Honda example illustrates what can pop-up when a customer has been browsing a web page for a certain period of time. I don’t think this is too intrusive, the customer can simply dismiss it by closing the window, similar to an irritating web advertisement. Of course there’s a fine line between being available and therefore helpful and scaring the customer away, never to return.
We work with one dealer group that consistently generates 35% of their business from live chat enquiries. Chat gives the opportunity to nudge someone from ‘just browsing’ to ‘actively engaged’.
Given that most dealers don’t have a blog and have no aspirations to become content machines, there is a very real need for most to drive a consistent volume of traffic and leads from somewhere else. This has led to the growing importance of advertising portals such as AutoTrader, Pistonheads and many more which now consume a significant percentage of a dealers advertising budget.
The money is simply following the eyeballs. Online search continues to grow unabated at the expense of offline advertising.
The future success for all dealers is in part about rekindling the customer engagement that has disappeared, as the opportunity has risen for us to become anonymous researchers and shoppers.
Tools like C It Now that allow dealer’s to present cars remotely to customers is an ideal way to re-build trust and the all important customer relationship.
Car dealer software is also becoming steadily available for social media marketing.
The marriage between dealers and social media platforms like Facebook has, to date, not been a particularly happy one. Dealer investment is traditionally driven by short term results not long term strategy.
Facebook applications like StockBook (an inventory listing service) allow dealers to extend their used car marketing to another distribution channel outside their web site at little additional cost.
A useful article on Dealer Geek shows how to do this manually at no cost at all.
The change in consumer behaviour as a result of the internet does provide a great opportunity for dealers to think beyond their local market. I’m still surprised at the number of dealers who are satisfied with exclusively ‘thinking local’. Of course this is an important foundation on which to build a business but any dealer marketing strategy worth its salt in today’s market must include a share of remote inbound enquiries and sales.
As briefly demonstrated here, the tools are now available to make this transition a relatively seamless one.
A bold statement to make – we know.
But we believe that video can help sell the most mundane of products and we’re going to put our money where our mouth is.
We’ve launched a new eBay shop called ‘Sell-It-With-Video’ and the intention is to sell anything that we can get our hands on to prove our point.
And given that this is an experiment, we’ll be providing you with updates on how we’re getting on as a result of our video revelations/revolution.
So what will make our market stall standout and allow us to sell our products quickly and more profitably?
We know that video is a deadly weapon for our automotive customers to sell more cars; we have dealers converting over 50% of their inbound sales enquiries. We also believe the recent HPI research that confirms that customers put service and convenience above price.
We’ve seen automotive video improve the relationship between dealer and customer, the trust level is far greater and as a result the sale is no longer solely based on price.
We’re going to prove this with something far less emotive than a car. One of the items we intend to sell is SD cards. These are just bits of plastic with 8GBs of digital space available that can be used to store recordings on video cameras. A highly price sensitive commodity with plenty of competition on eBay from numerous international suppliers.
One of the challenges here will be what the hell to put in the video and assuming that there are some unique selling points, how can these be illustrated using video.
So what’s our strategy?
Firstly, every item listed for sale will have an accompanying video. This is in itself will be a novelty on eBay where most items have nothing more than a few photographs and a badly written description.
We will also be offering all bidders the opportunity to either have a personal pre-recorded video via an e-mail link or a live video presentation. And this will be available for every item, big, small, cheap, or expensive. Our service levels will be maintained regardless of what we’re selling and whom we’re selling it to.
So wish us luck on this voyage of discovery and we’ll report back shortly when we’ve started to make some sales.
If you have any thoughts on what you would like us to sell let us know and we’ll have a go. We’ll certainly knock those ‘would be entrepreneurs’ on Lord Sugar’s The Apprentice into a cocked hat.
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Metro.co.uk and the Metro free sheet reported that some franchise dealers are ripping their customers off.
Labour rates have risen by 7.5 per cent in the past year with franchised dealers charging an average of £95.83 an hour, compared with £90.59 in 2010.
At one end of the spectrum car owners pay £35 an hour at cheap, often independent workshops, whilst others have been forced to pay £202.21 – apparently the highest rate on record.
Having read this I decided to do a bit more research around the subject. This is what I discovered.
Warranty Direct’s survey revealed that franchised workshops were, on average, 57% more expensive than their non-franchised counterparts. With petrol prices close to an all time high, it’s no surprise that motorists are finding independent garages more attractive.
UK motorists spend £10 billion every year on servicing and repairs to their cars. This is big business and explains why a few dealers take advantage on occasion. Given the pressure on people’s pockets the necessity for consumers to find a garage that they can trust is even more important.
What sort of complaints do consumers raise towards service departments?
It ranges from unnecessary work done, charges for work that has not been done, poor repairs and bad customer service. The Honest John web site provides a number of examples where garages put their profits before their customers.
So here’s the rub. As a Service Manager or Dealer Principle how do you ensure that you’re not tarred with the same brush?
That’s not easy to resolve. Of course you have your on-going reputation to protect you. You’ll have many customers who have been loyal to you for years and trust you implicitly with their car and their children’s cars as well. But every dealer also has a fair share of difficult customers. And when something isn’t right the customer is much more likely to tell a lot more people.
Of course there are other options, like the Good Garage Scheme which provides an independent standard of service that your customers can trust.
Trust – now that’s an interesting word.
When you boil the Metro’s headline grabber down, you arrive at a point called ‘trust’. Do your customers trust you to do a fair and honest job on their car so that you keep them safe but only charge what is necessary at a competitive hourly rate?
Are there any other ways that a dealer can build trust in their service department?
Yes, absolutely.
Think about how the franchised dealer service process works.
Customer arrives with car. Speaks with Customer Service Advisor and discusses any specifics. Technician performs a VHC report. Red and Amber work is quoted and Service Advisor phones a customer with the good/bad news.
What if your technician had specialised car dealer software to create a car video presentation to explain what was wrong with the customer’s car and why it is important to have it fixed? Would this help?
It would certainly help the Service Advisor because he or she can then refer the customer to the personal pre-recorded video completed by the technician that has been forwarded to the customer via e-mail. The technician is also the voice of authority in this process. He knows what the problem is, can articulate it clearly on a video and he’s not responsible for setting the price.
The customer likes it because he/she, despite the cost implication, can see a very helpful bit of telly that clearly outlines why they need to spend the money.
Trust levels in this revised service process go through the roof. Customers love the transparency that the car video presentation provides. This is not just about selling up, this is about providing a great service that knocks all of those independents into a cocked hat.
Have you ever had an 'Amazon' experience? Many of us have, some of us swear by them. Although their price is competitive, they’re not always the cheapest, but I invariably choose them over cheaper rivals because I trust them.
Its not only trust they have instilled in their customers over time; my shopping experience has also evolved as they’ve introduced new functionality to their website, don’t I mean their ‘shop’, which has also kept me coming back.
They now sell second hand versions of books so I don't always have to buy new; and if I need it quickly they have express delivery, guaranteeing me next day arrival. They even let me read the book just like in a bricks and mortar store, so I can make sure it’s what I’m really after before I buy it. I can track where my parcel is, I can have multiple delivery addresses, multiple credit cards and free delivery, if I don't mind waiting. They send me mails when my parcel has shipped and their packaging is practical, efficient and I can't wait to open them when they arrive.
Once upon a time, Amazon didn’t exist; neither did the web, so buying a book was entirely the domain of the bookshop in the high street.
So how have car dealers changed to take advantage of the internet shopper?
Are there any that have risen to the same dizzy heights of delivering a great online customer experience similar to that of Amazon?
I don’t think so. Then I had a thought. Maybe the dealers and private sellers on eBay would come close. After all, you’re able to bid or buy outright, and my eBay shopping experiences have always been okay. I have also bought a car, but that was three years ago and the private sellers presentation was no more than 3 pictures and a description.
No, not much changed there then. 10 minutes of extensive research has revealed that they’re no closer to delivering an Amazon style experience.
Maybe it’s because a car is such a big ticket item and it’s simply not possible to replicate the ease and convenience of buying a book.
Maybe it’s because the franchised car dealers who have the potential to provide a great branded purchase experience just can’t translate that from the showroom to an online store experience.
One of the problems is the insistence of so many dealers to try and ‘appoint’ a customer when they first make contact with an inbound enquiry. “Bums on seats sell cars”, about 1 in 2 to be precise. Often the customer, however, isn’t ready to be sold to or is distracted by other offers; who knows, but ‘no show’ rates remain persistently high.
HPI’s latest survey had some interesting statistics about distance that people were prepared to travel to purchase a car:
“A majority of respondents will travel up to 100 miles to view a car with 17 per cent willing to go over 200 miles”.
With customers being prepared to travel there is a real opportunity for dealerships to re-think how they handle a distance sale enquiry and start to deliver something more inline with an Amazon customer experience.
How would it work?
- Stop appointing the customer.
- Be prepared to present cars remotely to customers at their convenience (appreciate that this happens with C It Now dealers already)
- Have one or two sales people available until 10:00pm during the working week
- Use live chat to give customers another option to communicate (already established with some dealers)
- Have real time finance quotes available 24/7 (already established with some dealers)
- Have a buy button – at least to secure a deposit
- Embrace social media marketing – it’s not just another advertising platform
- Invest in the right people to make sure your car dealer social media marketing strategy happens
What do you think - heresy or common sense?
Let us know your thoughts.
Here it is again, my top 5 automotive videos of the week. I hope you enjoy!
At number 1...
Audi have won top place this week. This video is really effective at making you believe that Audi go an extra step into ensuring quality in their cars. It is a clever and interesting way to emphasise all the features that makes it worth while becoming an owner of an Audi. Have a watch...
At Number 2...
So many types of Mercedes! I like this video as it nicely demonstrates the years of experience that Mercedes has. It nicely conveys the message that Mercedes are a well respected and knowledgeable car manufacturer. Also, clever use of celebrity endorsement.
At Number 3...
There is nothing that really makes this video stand out, except for the car itself. It’s simple with no distractions.
At Number 4...
At number 4 this week is one of our own videos. What a great way to present a car.
And finally, Number 5...
This video nicely shows all the asthetically pleasing aspects of the car, and all of its modern gadgets. Very simple and to the point, have a watch...
I hope you have enjoyed my top 5 Automotive Videos of the week. Please feel free to comment.
This week I have been searching the internet to find some fine examples of automotive video. Here is the list of my top five automotive videos for this week...
At Number 1...
This video is great! It’s a bit weird but creative. Amazing design!
Number 2...
It’s BMW again! I like this video as it seems to have a certain elegance to it.
Number 3...
I like this video a lot. It’s surreal and fun to watch.
Number 4...
This video is great for real car enthusiasts. It’s simple, no music, no voice over. The car does all the talking.
Number 5...
This video is great for product description. It’s informative and to the point. Also this is a fantastic car.
I hope you have enjoyed my Top 5 Automotive Videos of the week. Please feel free to leave any comments about what you have seen. Alternatively, if you would like to find out more about Automotive Video, click here to check out our linkedin group
I don't Know whether anyone has seen this advertised, but Quickquid is a quick and easy loan service to help you out before pay day arrives.
And also a small pointer, the interest rate is only 1734%. That's right, no decimal points missing. When I first saw this, I thought this was ludicrous, I'm sure you agree with me. How does a company like this make a living with such astronomic interest rates?
Well there are some factors that do believe it or not, override the interest rate. Convenience, speed of service, ease of use, desperation, distress purchase? They might all play a part.
What would happen for instance if you make it more convenient, easy, accessible for a customer to buy a car? The overriding concern over price diminishes, and could increase car sales. One way to increase convenience for customers is to make better use of your website.
The latest survey from used car data expert, HPI confirms the need for dealers to fully maximise their online offering. The survey found that choice (78%), convenience (62%) and good deals (51%) were the three most popular reasons for used car buyers to surf the web.
A good example of this is our recent Paddy Coppinger case study which can be found at zype.co.uk. Paddy Coppinger when looking to buy a new Land Rover was interested in a car he had seen on the Land Rover Conwy website via the C it Now system. However the car he wanted was sold before he had the chance to buy it.
Due to the C it Now system, trust had been built between Paddy and the sales team. This led Paddy into buying a car that price was competitive with the used car he wanted “I was so impresses that the video had been made especially for me...Even though the original car I wanted was eventually sold to another customer, they had impressed me so much I had to buy a new car from them!”
Like QuickQuid customers agree to take a loan with such a high interest rates for speed and convenience, Paddy Coppinger was persuaded to spend more money on a car due to the convenience that C it Now provided.
To hear the full story click here
by Lauren Coakeley
I live in the south of France but some of my family live in the centre. But the problem is that I don’t have a car, so if I want to see my family I have two main options: take the train or use a car sharing service. The train is very long, mainly between the centre and south of France since there is no direct line and we have at least one stop either to the east or west of France. It takes around eight to ten hours whereas we only need three and a half hour by car. Moreover, even with a student card the price still is high, especially when we compare with the car sharing…
So I decided to use a car sharing service and subscribed on one of the most famous French website www.covoiturage.fr It’s safe, people can leave comments to express their satisfaction and we can follow the experience of the drivers. However, I was very reluctant to travel in a same car than people I barely know, if not at all, knowing also that we could potentially be more than 2 in the car. But I decided to try it and my first experience was a success! Since this day, each time I can use a car sharing service, I do it.
For me there is only positive in all this. I’ve met very interesting people working and/or studying in different areas, I got contacts and kept in touch with some of them. And sometimes we can be surprised on how small the world is! Once, I was travelling with someone living in the centre of France and who was studying with a friend of mine when I was in high school!
I wanted to tell you that story so as to show you how we can get more out of experience…
How about, buying a car - it's a new experience for most people. They don't do it very often, so when they do it's potentially a stressful time, a special time, an exciting time?
How can you as a salesperson, who sells cars every day, make that dealer customer experience special for everyone?
Worth thinking about it.
By Aurelie Longo
