This week and next I'd like to share some examples of the type of video demos being done by C It Now dealers around the country. It's clear that no two salespeople or dealers are the same, each adopting their own particular style and approach.
1. CarShop Northampton - Robbie Warner
This is the way we originally envisaged C It Now being used. A live presentation to the customer which lasts 13 minutes and is a thorough inspection of the car, carefully identifying the flaws wherever he finds them. It's clear by the end of the session that Robbie has built up the customer's trust as they continue on the phone to discuss further.
2. Mercedes Benz Hertford - John Thompson
John has created a generic video presentation here for their web site. John's pretty handy with the camera. He also has an able assistant on this occasion to open doors which keeps the video running along smoothly. Unlike a live demo which can easily take 10 minutes or more, John aims to have his pre-records sorted in 3 minutes or less.
As a rule, the live video presentations with a customer are easier to do, primarily because you have interaction and feedback. At the end of a C It Now session, most customers are very pleased with the experience as they now have a pretty good idea about the condition and history of the car. All of which has been achieved without wasting time driving to the dealer unnecessarily.
A pre-record video, as John did is actually more difficult. It's effectively a monologue which needs to be concise, informative, helpful and definitely entertaining. That takes time and practice.
So what do you think of these C It Now videos? Can anything be done to make them more engaging for the customer - what would you do?
This week's C It Now video mailer comes from Budgen Motors in Shrewsbury.
We're seeing more and more of our dealers using the archive function of C It Now to create car dealer video. So if a live video presentation can't be done the option to send an archived video or create a generic presentation for the dealer's web site is a great alternative.
The challenge is to create an interesting and useful car dealer video on a very run of the mill car (fridge) which compels the viewer to then ring the dealership to find out more.
'Selling the Fridge' is my first attempt to do a 2 minute video which creates this effect.
What was my thought process?
I think people like to buy from people so I decided to start with me facing the camera. It's very tempting with something as complex as a car to feature dump all over the place. I preferred to condense all of the basic information up front before I tried to put my own personal spin on the live video tour.
What do you think? Am I on the money or do I need some more training? What could have been done better?
This week's C It Now video mailer comes from the Infiniti dealership in Reading.
One of the greatest opportunities for any dealer who has C It Now is in the service department. Delivering great car dealer video in sales might be where we started but there is a lot of money on the table in aftersales. This also fits in incredibly well with dealers who are already using a vehicle (visual) health check system.
A good example of the potential money involved comes from Ken Potter at VW in Crewe who was happy for me to share this. In April 2010, the amount of red work quoted was £80,000; invoiced value was £24,000, about a third of the total.
Using C It Now in conjunction with VHC now enables VW Crewe to illustrate why the work needs to be undertaken. The technician can create a personal video presentation, a link for which can be sent to the customer with the VHC report.
A 5% shift in invoiced work, for one month in the example above, would pay for C It Now for a year. The other great benefit is the opportunity to offer a level of service which is not available in the independent sector who have been stealing aftersales business from the franchised dealer.
Welcome to the first of our C It Now video mailers, which comes from CarShop in Swindon this week.
The aim is to provide you with a weekly video update, sharing information and best practice; hopefully, helpful information that you can put into practise at your own car dealership
This week is all about the new video archive feature and the way that Stafford Audi have gone about making the most of this functionality.
I wanted to share a video that was shot in the normal C It Now way, but is now stored on our server as well. This is the latest version of C It Now. As well as dealers continuing with live video presentations of cars to customers, the session is automatically stored for further use.
In the exit questionnaire, the customer can leave their e-mail address and a link to the video will be sent to them. Links can also be used on the dealer's web site. This means sales people can now run their own sessions, video a car and instantly attach a video to an existing stock item on the web site (with the help of their web company).
The new version will start to ship next week so we'll be upgrading all our dealers shortly.
Here at C It Now we're always delighted by a consumer's reaction to a live video presentation of a used car. The fact that they can view the car live from the comfort of their home or office with the help of the dealer salesperson is a great benefit. No wasted journeys, no hidden surprises, lots of detail inside and out; far more useful than the photographs we're all used to. It's no surprise that the C It Now service is yet to score less than 9 out of 10 on any exit questionnaire.
But it's not all been plain sailing. One of our dealers, Rybrook Jaguar in Warrington has been very smart solving some customer reaction. It appears that not everyone is always comfortable with the idea of a live video presentation service. So much so that the sales guys no longer use words like 'live', 'video' and 'presentation'; instead they focus on 'more information'. It seems that some buyers feel that accepting a presentation is a sign of increased commitment and is not the right signal to be giving off at that point.
By only making an offer of 'more information', the buyer feels more comfortable that this is still part of the fact finding mission and not a sign that they are ready to purchase.
The sales guys like it because it enables 5 minute conversations to develop into longer video based conversations; valuable time to build up some rapport with the buyer.
It also appears to be working as Rybrook's sales figures for September show a 42% conversion to sale.
At the end of the summer I went to visit some friends in Aarhus, Denmark with my three kids. It’s a great holiday for lots of reasons. The most important from my kids point of view, was the lack of queueing for rides at Djurs Sommerland, Denmark’s answer to Disneyland. Danish and German school holidays are well and truly over which means we can give Thors Hammer a good hammering.
I’m truly glad to get back to the car by the end of the day.
In this case we'd hired a Sixt hire car, a very pleasant Honda Civic. I hired it from Aarhus Airport booking it online when I’d arrived in Denmark the previous day. I have to say, the Sixt experience was far and away the best car hire experience I’ve ever had.
In fairness location did help as the airport is small and also empty when I turned up at midday to collect my car, so no queueing again. There was only one Sixt person to sort out the paperwork which was all done very quickly and efficiently. It was the way that he did it that was really good.
There was no mention of extra insurance; my driving licence was only needed for a moment and there was no discussion about the paper bit which was neatly filed back in the UK. Because I had purchased the car hire from a Danish IP address I was not offered unlimited mileage which he corrected once the contract was printed. He also upgraded my car; okay, probably because he didn’t have anything else, but it all added to my experience. He was a very personable guy who during the admin process talked about his school days in England and how much he’d enjoyed it.
By the end I felt like I was borrowing a car from him, not hiring from an anonymous car hire company.
The product was great and totally exceeded any expectation that had been created by a really good online booking process.
This had expectation levels similar to C It Now, our live video presentation tool. We consistently score at least 9 out of 10 on our exit questionnaire once car purchasers have had a live video demo.
C It Now is a start-up with a great product - a live video presentation tool.
Like most start-ups we don't have enough time to do all the stuff that we need to do. Take a look at this blog for instance - starved of fresh interesting content, even though we have plenty that we'd like to share.
We are a UK company whose focus is the automotive sector. This is going well and we now have dealers using C It Now to sell Volvo, Honda, Jaguar, Audi, Peugeot, Alfa and Mercedes cars. Our first bike dealer comes online on Monday and we'll soon be adding Saab to our list of car dealers.
We are looking to increase sales to UK car dealers and explore other vertical markets. We need help.
If you're looking for real responsibility in a start-up organisation that is making sales and has masses of opportunity for personal development, we'd like to hear from you.
There are no preconditions here. We'd be delighted to hear from experienced, seasoned professionals, semi-retired as well as students/graduates who potentially have something to offer our business.
We're looking for a diverse range of skills from copywriting and digital marketing to telephone sales activity.
There are no salaried positions at this time. Remuneration is based on results and we pay expenses.
If this sounds interesting we'd like to hear from you. In the first instance send us a one pager explaining what you can offer to donna.barradale@zype.co.uk.
Part of what we do is record what C It Now customers think of our service. It's an absolute privilege to meet and talk with real customers who have as a result of C It Now, purchased a car.
Thanks to Steve Holleran at Holdcroft Honda, who again was responsible for creating this extraordinary experience for our buyer, Robert on this occasion.
Much as we'd like to brag on about how great our live video presentation technology is, it's only as good the salesperson who believes in it, and as a result offers it to potential customers like Robert.
We're looking forward to interviewing more customers who have experienced the power of C It
Now as part of the decision making process, but before we do that, we're going to talk to Steve to get his
side of the story.
I recently caught up with James Newbold who had purchased a Honda
CR-V from Holdcroft Honda. I was interested to talk as James had
purchased the car using C It Now. Steve (Holdcroft) offered James the
video presentation over the internet as the dealership is in Stoke and
James lives in Kent.
C It Now is a live one to one video
presentation tool that car dealers are using to present cars to their
customers from the comfort of their home or office.
From the
interview, it's clear that James was delighted with the whole
experience, so much so that he's since recounted it to his friends and
now one of them has also purchased a Honda from Holdcroft.
I
really enjoyed meeting James and it was great to hear a 'real' customer
talk so encouragingly about C It Now. We know that a live video
presentation can create a great customer experience but it's really
rewarding to have that confirmed.