The internet is changing everything, and automotive sales are no exception. Already, 30% of all car sales take place on the internet, and in a decade they will likely make up the core of your sales.
As a result, many dealerships are adding a whole new position to their business: internet manager. Car dealership longevity in this day and age depends on having a tech-savvy individual driving your revenue in this fast-expanding portion of the marketplace.
As they say, you move with the times, or the times move you. How do you ride the wave? We’ve got some great tips to help you develop this side of your business and rule the competition!
Build Your Digital Showroom
In the past, dealerships have conceived of their webpage as driving toward the live showroom, but that’s rapidly changing. Especially with younger buyers, their cell phone is their showroom. People find internet shopping to be faster, easier, more familiar, and less stressful.
You really need people interacting with your website to create and develop leads, and that means creating a world-class online environment that is something of a playground for customers. Car dealership websites need to be big, bold, colorful, and easy to navigate. Your team needs to excel in these areas.
And the person to do it? Your internet manager! Their job is to help turn your techless vision of your dealership into an online presence. And if you’re not ready to make a full-time hire, an automotive consultant can often fill the gap while you grow your business.
People Connect With People
While your website is being designed or updated, don’t just sell your products; sell your people as well. As much as the internet is distancing us, human interpersonal relationships are as fundamental as our need for sleep, shelter, and food.
You already know how awesome your team members are. Share them with your customers! It’s a good idea to select someone to be your brand spokesperson, but don’t let them be the only star. This person could be someone you hire specifically for this role, a team member with a particularly magnetic personality, your owner or GM, or even your internet manager.
Car dealership identities need a human face, and a great spokesperson can be the difference between drawing in new customers and sending them elsewhere for a more personal experience.
What are the advantages of a great spokesperson? There are several:
- They engender trust with your customers.
- They bolster all your business efforts.
- A spokesperson is a human face people can connect with.
A great spokesperson should effortlessly display these qualities:
- A great public speaker who speaks clearly and reliably, and has a sparkle under the bright lights.
- Always tactfully honest and transparent.
- Knows how to effectively and clearly reduce complicated information to digestible basic points.
- Is a great listener. This one is often underappreciated, but it’s a key factor in connecting with customers.
Crunch Website Statistics
No matter how meticulously your website is planned, built, and launched, you’ll need to fine-tune it, and your customers will tell you how by how they use it. You can see from page visits what topics/products/people are most and least popular, and that can give you hints on future direction.
A key testing tool is a mystery shopper for evaluating your online purchasing process. After all, statistics can be murky, and it’s always worthwhile making sure they match the real-world customer experience. Data can take you a long way, but field testing is the crucible that burns away waste, leaving you with the unvarnished truth.
Leverage Social Media
Social media is a great way to get cost-effective advertising that connects with a lot of people and can deliver an incredible ROI. Internet presence and engagement is a primary job responsibility for your internet manager. Car dealership marketing is not solely accomplished through paid channels—it’s also through your YouTube, Facebook, X, Instagram, and other accounts.
Remember the website advice? It’s a customer playground. Entertain while you communicate, and you’re going to be a lot more successful. If you can make your social media fun and interactive, even better! Up to 97% of people found game-based learning to be more engaging.
Don’t Forget to Sell High-Margin Items!
Yes, you make money on cars, but make sure you don’t neglect other revenue streams with your internet presence. Highlight parts, service, and accessories your dealership offers—especially if these are things that are likely to be purchased online. Some dealerships forget to list them on their website, but these can be the highest-margin items in your inventory.
The last thing you want to do is to leave money on the table, and this is an easy way to boost revenue.
Prepare Your Team to Capitalize on New Leads!
With a slick new website, quality content, and an online ad campaign, you’ll be seeing a lot of new revenue streams developing through your internet manager. Car dealership success will depend on your team being ready to answer the questions these new leads call in with, and that means making sure they’re trained on every aspect of your online strategy.
The problem is that training is a huge time sink for any manager, and rarely do owners and GMs have the time. In-house training departments can be great, but they come with high and unchanging overhead.
This is where Phone Ninjas can help! We work with both your showroom and internet teams to make sure they deliver great customer service at all times. We can coordinate with your internet manager to help align your sales team behind their work with effective sales scripts and phone skills so they never leave a revenue opportunity on the table.
We back up our training as well: we do our own mystery shopping and follow up with shopped employees to correct any deficiencies, accentuate their successes, and polish their skills to a high sheen. We’ll even provide two free mystery shops to show you how we can improve your business both in the showroom and online.
Reach out today for a free demo. We can’t wait to hear from you!
As the COO | Partner of Phone Ninjas, Chris delivers leadership, coaching, and mentorship to 55 team members providing software sales and phone skills coaching. He fosters powerful partnerships and collaborations with leaders across various business sectors, establishing expectations, communicating vision, and escalating performance to maximize productivity and effectiveness.
Chris is an innovation-driven business executive with over 25 years of experience delivering leadership to teams of up to 75 overseeing development, launch, and sale of website lead acquisition, reconditioning process software systems, and technology that support automotive dealerships across the U.S., Canada, and Europe.
