Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5
When it comes to building a successful consumer buying experience at your dealership, there are a million different ways that you can accomplish it. In this series leading up to NADA, I attempted to break the steps down to five tangible areas in an attempt to hopefully make it more digestible for dealers. Some of these steps are more important than others. Some will be easier to execute…while others may not be able to accomplish at all due to resource constraints or other uncontrollable obstacles. Trust me, I get it. This is the car business. We try to control it all, it’s in our DNA.
But what of it?
Webster defines culture as, “The set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterizes an institution or organization”. Think about that for a moment. I believe that a team that comes into work every day with a shared mission to serve their customers, be prepared to buy a customer's car, wherever and whenever they want to sell it to you…they can overcome a lot of the uncontrollables at your store. Attitude toward serving the customer, under whatever constraints or barriers your situation possesses, is one of the easiest things to control while offering the biggest return on investment.
What do I mean?
There is not much more customers value today than time. Think about it. Almost every new piece of technology being built today saves people time and reduces friction. Walk into any booth this weekend at NADA and you are likely to find a product or tool built to make your job or your customers' experience quicker, easier, and more efficient. The same holds true for you and your team at the dealership when building a customer buying center. The easy part here is that your attitude, effort, flexibility, and level of transparency along with a process that historically has caused a lot of friction and perceived time can pay huge dividends in the end. Building a culture with your team around these values and concepts alone can separate you from the competition.
Buying cars directly from the consumer is not easy work. There will be lots of hurdles, and the success rate may be low at first. You need to plan for mistakes and expect frustration. Keep your mindset straight. Think of it like this, the profit potential, inventory, and customer traffic that it will generate will pay you 10X!
Don’t believe me?
Contact me directly if you are interested in talking about how to improve the culture or processes at your dealership to run a successful customer buying center. >There is still time to schedule an appointment at NADA.
Let’s chat!
