News

The 2012 NADA Convention exhibitor hall was very active this year making the selection of the PCG SpotLight Award winners even more challenging.

This year five companies that attended the 2012 NADA Convention were selected by PCG as having outstanding products that will benefit the dealer community.

Dominion Be Back App

We are proud to announce that Dominion Dealer Solutions has won a 2012 PCG Spotlight Award for their new Be Back Mobile App.

Dealers looking to engage with smartphone users are advised to jumpstart their research on customized automotive mobile applications.

Dealers looking to increase retention post sale, which Google refers to as the Second Moment of Truth (SMOT),  will find this new Dominion mobile app a perfect opportunity to increase brand loyalty and bi-directional  communication with owners.

Dealers who ignore mobile users do so at their own peril.  Google Analytics for thousands of dealers across the United States and Canada are showing significant increases in visitor traffic from smartphone.

Summary Of Be Back App Features

Glen Garvin, Group General Manager at Dominion Dealer Solutions,  demonstrated the Be Back app at the NADA Convention and here is a summary of the benefits from this powerful dealer branded mobile application:

• Customer can book service appointment without having to call or e-mail
• Customer can enter their loan/lease information once and they will always know approximately how much above or below equity they are in the vehicle.
• Local gas station finder
• Ability to push specials to the customer’s phone especially when they have underutilized service bays
• Social media “easy find” buttons and interactions
• Ability to keep multiple cars in the App
• The “glove box” concept where all of  vehicle information (VIN#, insurance policy, etc) is stored in app.
• Service history and recommended service interval reminders.
• Completely 100% white labeled for dealership – building the dealer’s brand and loyalty

Dealers Focus on Mobile

The 2012 NADA Convention had a significant increase in vendors offering mobile solutions.  This increase parallels the exponential rise in mobile visitors to dealership websites and the adoption of smart phones by the American public.

Dealers looking to engage consumers who choose to use their mobile device as the primary source of communications will be best served by getting a demonstration on the Dominion Be Back mobile app.

For more information on this product, download the PDF Brochure or visit www.DriveDominion.com
Brian

Brian Pasch, CEO

PCG Digital Marketing

Text PCGedu to 75674 get information on our upcoming conferences
Brian Pasch

In the past few months I’ve had the pleasure to work with passionate dealers who have asked me to do a comprehensive assessment of their Internet operations.

I called on my good friend Jerry Thibeau to help me with the mystery shopping part of the assessment.

In addition to the innovative Phone Ninjas process that Jerry created,  my team also made calls and lead submissions on our own.

It was an eye opener to see that a number of submissions failed basic customer service standards.

Operating With Broken Processes

Some of the leads we submitted were never responded to via an auto-responder or a personalized email.  Some leads never received a phone call.   Readers in the trenches of BDC/Internet departments may not be surprised by these findings but the dealers we worked with and their staff were very surprised that their processes were broken.

When you consider the tens of thousands of dollars invested each month to drive calls, leads, and ups to the dealership, it is amazing how few dealers have a consistent monthly process in place to mystery shop their dealership.   This could be the biggest omission in a dealership budget and most likely one of the biggest profit leaks.

Standards & Measurement Lead To Improvement

Without inspection, coaching, and benchmarks for first class performance, dealership BDC processes will never improve.  One thing a like with Phone Ninjas system is that Jerry created a Phone Skills Index (PSI) score for each Internet/BDC agent.  As the agent develops through coaching, and their PSI scores increase, a direct correlation to an increase in appointments can be seen.

Our Internet operations inspections also revealed that a CRM provider had an email server than was blacklisted, which was preventing some emails from being delivered.  How much did that cost this dealer?  Do you have a few gmail accounts that you use to test your own CRM system each month?

It is also important to recognize human behavior in regards to inspection and measurement.  Leaving this task to an internal employee most likely will not get the ideal result.  In some cases, dealer princiapls will not get the honest assessment that they truly need.  In other cases, the inspection will get postponed as more pressing tasks get pushed on the “inspectors” plate.

Can dealers afford not to listen to how their calls are being handled?  Are sales professionals following the proven sales process “script” or making things up on the fly?  Are your emails really getting delivered?

If you don’t have an independent process and measurement system in place, you may be fueling your greatest source for lost opportunities.  Plug the hole today.

Brian

Brian Pasch, CEO

PCG Digital Marketing

Text PCGedu to 75674 get information on our upcoming conferences
Brian Pasch

PCG Digital Marketing recently hosted a Dataium webinar for the automotive industry that featured co-founder Jason Ezell.

I had the opportunity to moderate the webinar and the dealer response was very strong so this product is striking a nerve in our industry.

Over 142 people registered for the webinar and the attendees were very engaged with feedback and questions.  The webinar ran for about 80 minutes, 20 minutes longer than the scheduled time!

Dataium is set to revolutionize the way in which we operate our BDC or Internet departments.  

Dataium’s cloud intelligence data will enrich chat sessions, website leads, and even phone calls with consumer shopping behavior.  The data that Dataium provides will allow dealers to better guide the conversation towards the consumer’s perceived needs based on their actions online.

• Imagine the power of knowing what cars and websites a consumer visited prior to submitting a lead on your website.
• Imagine being notified that a lead that your BDC marked as “dead” is now back in the marketplace and showing strong buyer signals.
• Imagine being able to know demand by model one month in advance so you can properly merchandize and purchase your inventory.
• Imagine how your can merchandize your cars based on viewing demand on other dealer websites in your marketplace.

The business rules and actions that CRM companies will be able to build off of this data will be endless.   A number of CRM companies are already working with Dataium so look for announcements in the coming months.

Dataium has the support of many technology platforms as well as at least 5 OEM’s.  The list of companies that will be integrating their API to tap this rich dataset will be growing rapidly.

For many dealers, ther OEM required websites will include Dataium software which will allow the OEM’s to better run their manufacturing plants, sales strategy, and operations.

Watch The Dataium Webinar

We recorded the Dataium webinar because a number of folks could not attend, no surprise in this industry.  Day to day demands and “fires” need to be put out quickly, but we got everyone covered with the recording.  The link is provided below and I encourage all reads to watch the video.

Free Dataium Software for PCG Clients and Friends

Most importantly, we have secured the Dataium base monitoring and reporting tool for no charge for PCG clients and community friends.  To secure the software without charge, you need to follow these steps.

1. Go to the Data Registration Page;  Sign-Up Page  (example above)
2. Use promo code:  PCGWEB
3. Install code on your website
4. You are all set to go and data will start to collect

Watch The Dataium Webinar Video

If you could not attend the webinar, here it is.

So enjoy the video and if you have questions, reach out to Jason Ezell at: jason@dataium.com

Please keep in mind that we will be conducting a workshop at the 2012 Digital Marketing Strategies Conference on how to use the Dataium Visicogn software and reporting data.

Jason Ezell and Christy Roman will be showing dealers how Dataium reports can impact your sales and marketing strategy.  They will be sharing case studies from dealers that have been on Dataium for a number of months.

This will be a great opportunity to learn how to use Dataium cloud intelligence to improve your digital marketing strategy. See you in Vegas!

Brian

Brian Pasch, CEO

PCG Digital Marketing

Text PCGedu to 75674 get information on our upcoming conferences

Brian Pasch