By Ted Rubin, President & Founder, ActivEngage, Inc.
Elevating the Customer Experience Starts Within
Being a dealer today is tough. Margins are getting narrower. Managing inventory is becoming increasingly difficult. Hiring, managing, and retaining staff is harder than it’s ever been. Turning car buyers into lifetime customers is nearly impossible. And, while many of these issues have constricted operations for a long time, technology has magnified them while simultaneously creating new obstacles.
So, how do you make it work? Where can you find the most effective tweak or twist to help you improve your bottom line?
The Key is Optimization
Optimizing the customer journey may be the fastest and easiest way to impact sales. In a broader sense, optimization is key to any successful business because when you make the best use of your resources, it creates efficiencies that lead to higher revenue and profit. When you apply it to the customer journey, optimization creates a valuable experience that results in stronger relationships with customers and increased loyalty to your store and brand.
By analyzing your processes, you’ll be able to not only improve your customers’ journey but also find additional efficiencies, consistencies, and enhancements that can further increase your own benefit.
Analysis of Buyer Interactions
Before you optimize the customer journey, you need to analyze the current state of things. Look at your most common buyer interactions.
- How many steps does it take for a customer to get from point A to point B?
- How many people need to be involved to help the shopper?
- Is the process consistent each time the customer goes through it?
- Does each person in the process interact with the customer with the same intent regardless of the point of contact?
Focus on Human Interactions First
So, now that you’ve set the stage, where do we start? We start within the organization itself. The first step in optimizing the customer journey is to create a customer-centric dealership. Put the needs of your customers at the forefront of operations and ensure that all customer-facing teams are on the same page.
Consider that both your customers and your employees are human beings and how that is to your advantage. A recent PwC study shows that 59% of all consumers feel that companies have lost touch with the human element of the customer experience.
Using your very human staff to engage with customers can be a powerful differentiator for your dealership in a world driven by self-checkouts and automated emails. Remember that people still want to buy cars from people; technology is just the conduit. Another key element in employee-customer interactions is consistency. Create consistent interactions throughout the buying journey so that customers are comfortable and more willing to move down the funnel. Consistency establishes calm and confidence for both customers and employees—and it creates a more effective way to measure success. It is imperative that you can identify where you are succeeding and where you can improve as your organization evolves.
Train Staff to Uncover Buyer Needs
Companies that relate to consumers on a personal, human level foster unique relationships that enable greater customer loyalty and trust. To do any of this, your team needs to be skilled in the art of listening.
Your employees have to identify the needs of the customer, even when customers are not explicit about what their needs are. Many times, customers have not consciously identified their actual needs themselves. But focused attention on your customer’s interaction can prompt questions, and communication can give insight that superficial engagement cannot.
Teach employees to listen to what customers are saying and what they aren’t saying; it could very well be your business’s biggest competitive advantage.
Empower Dealership Teams to Help
The next step is to empower your employees to solve problems and address the needs of your customers. It’s almost impossible to motivate people to help identify needs and problems if you don’t give them the ability to carry out the solutions. That would be like sending out a rescue mission with no way to bring victims home. It’s imperative to the process of getting your team to listen to your customers to also enable them to satisfy the issues they uncover. Otherwise, they are just stuck with a problem that they cannot resolve.
Last but not least, make sure that everyone in the organization is involved. Even those who do not directly interact with customers impact your customers. If you want your brand to be known for the customer experience, make it a mantra of your entire business. By doing all of this thoughtfully, it is possible to completely transform the relationship your dealership has with its customers to achieve greater results in customers’ satisfaction and sale.
About the Author
Ted Rubin is President & Founder of ActivEngage, Inc. Ted has over 20 years in automotive and is a leading expert in Operations Management and Technology Development. A sought-after thought leader, he has consulted for recognized automotive manufacturers and vendors to develop go-to-market plans using proven digital strategies.
