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Win the Competition for Customers with Artificial Intelligence Tech
As competition for customers intensifies, dealers can stand out from the crowd by offering better customer experience and by being the first in line when customers are ready to buy. See how artificial intelligence can help your dealership do both.
January 28, 2020
4 Min Read
Competition for customers in auto retail is intensifying. These days it takes more than a good deal to convince a customer to become your customer. There are two strategies in particular that your dealership can implement to beat out the competition: 1) create a superior customer experience, and 2) be the first dealership in line at the moment a customer is ready to buy a car. Luckily, artificial intelligence technology can help your dealership do both.
Create a Superior Customer Experience
Many of today’s customers don’t particularly enjoy spending time at the dealership. They prefer to spend their time researching cars online at their own pace, watching YouTube reviews of vehicles and going to sites like Kelley Blue Book and Autotrader to compare models and find prices. They even visit dealership websites (like yours) to check inventory. During the research phase of their car shopping, more than half of customers contact a dealership by phone, email, text or online chat, according to the 2018 Cox Automotive Car Buyer Journey study.
But as customers progress in their buying journey and decide to visit your showroom, many of those customers enter your store only to find that no one in the showroom knows about their previous phone and email conversations. At this point, customer satisfaction often takes a nosedive.
When a dealer’s CRM doesn’t record every customer contact, in-store shopping experiences feel disconnected. Dealerships come off looking clueless as customers have to explain all over again what kind of car they’re interested in. And customers have to wait around for the dealership to re-input data into their system that has already been communicated. In short, customers grow impatient when they have to wait for the dealership to catch up to them in the buying journey.
Luckily, there’s a way to solve this customer satisfaction issue. VinSolutions Connect Automotive Intelligence harnesses the power of artificial intelligence to aggregate and analyze all customer communications to help you understand every customer, no matter where they are in the buying journey. This reduces unnecessary wait time at the dealership, and it can help you give your customers the kind of individually tailored buying experience they’re looking for. Connect Automotive Intelligence gives dealers key insights to 1) pick up on customer buying signals, 2) measure salesperson engagement strength, and 3) evaluate customer sentiment.
Buying Signals – Connect Automotive Intelligence delivers key insights on customers’ interests and likelihood to buy by analyzing their online browsing behavior on Kelley Blue Book, your Dealer.com website and Autotrader.
Engagement Strength – Connect Automotive Intelligence tracks salespeople’s interactions with customers, so managers can evaluate sales staff and analyze their engagement with leads.
Customer Sentiment Analysis – By analyzing customer communications, Connect Automotive Intelligence determines whether a customer is likely to have positive, negative or neutral feelings about the car buying process. This helps dealers reach out to customers at the right time, or when it’s most needed.
Be the First in Line for Your Customers
Every day, customers research cars online. And every day, many dealerships are completely unaware this online car shopping is happening. Those unaware dealerships tend to wait until customers submit a lead to contact them - and that is often too late. They are losing out to dealerships using technology to proactively identify and reach out to customers who appear to be in the market. Instead of taking the risk that customers choose another dealership, why not reach out at just the right moment in the buying process with a personalized offer?
Armed with key insights about your customers’ online research from Kelley Blue Book, Autotrader and your Dealer.com website, Connect Automotive Intelligence enables your dealership to get a head start on your competition. This technology allows you to identify which customers are researching online right now - before they ever submit a lead or give you a call. You can even gauge customers’ interest level and see when a customer is most ready to make a purchase. With these data-driven insights, your salespeople can personalize each customer interaction and reach out with a relevant offer before your competition even has a chance to get in the game.
As competition for customers intensifies, artificial intelligence can help you up your game. With Connect Automotive Intelligence, your dealership can keep ahead of your competition by providing customers with a superior car-shopping experience and being the first to reach out with a personalized offer.
Learn more about VinSolutions Connect Automotive Intelligence and how it can drive results at your dealership here.
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