Creating a memorable dealership customer experience is possible with each customer interaction.
Each one shapes how customers perceive your business, influences their level of satisfaction, and ultimately, how loyal they are to you in the long run.
To create a truly captivating dealership customer experience that keeps customers coming back, it’s essential to seek out the appropriate digital tools, prioritize customer communication, and leverage your dealership’s data. Each element has a role to play in the larger ecosystem of your business, and when combined, they form a strong and memorable customer experience.
In the following sections, we’ll explore each of these aspects in detail, sharing tips and strategies to elevate your dealership’s customer experience.
Click to Jump Ahead:
- What is Customer Experience?
- How to Get Your Dealership Online
- How to Effectively Communicate with Customers
- Use Data to Enhance Your Dealership Customer Experience
What is Customer Experience?
McKinsey & Company defines customer experience as
“everything a business or organization does to put customers first, managing their journeys and serving their needs.”
This encompasses every interaction a potential customer has with your business, from initial online research to face-to-face dealings with your sales team. Each touchpoint shapes their perception and, in turn, the overall experience with your dealership.
Crafting an exceptional dealership customer experience is critical because it bears directly on your dealership’s reputation and profitability.
Read Next: How to Make Your Dealership’s Customer Service Ready for the Digital Future
How to Get Your Dealership Online
In an increasingly digital world, customers often take to the internet to explore products, services, or companies. This trend is particularly pronounced among the younger age groups, such as Millennials and Gen Z. So, having a robust online presence ensures that customers can easily find your dealership amidst a sea of competitors.
Unify Your Physical and Digital Storefronts
Think of your website as a virtual extension of your physical dealership. It should offer the same level of service and depth of information as your actual store.
Be it inventory lists or service bookings, every aspect of your dealership that can be digitized should be conveniently accessible to your customers online
A well-designed website will attract customers and keep them on your website. Ensure your website’s navigation is clear and allows customers to easily find what they’re looking for through your menu and logical page structures.
And with the increasing usage of mobile devices, you want your website to be adapted for different screen sizes like tablets and smartphones.
Harness the Power of Online Reviews
Positive online reviews can significantly boost your dealership’s credibility and guide new customers during their decision-making process.
For example, a Google Business Profile is an easy way to make your dealership visible on Google when customers are looking for dealerships in their area. The profile contains your dealership’s location, business hours, website, reviews, ratings, and more.
So, encourage customers to leave reviews. An easy way to do this is through DIS Notify. You can add a survey message so customers can leave a review about their service experience. This provides you with feedback about your dealership’s service but also shows that you value their opinion.
Their feedback will also help you understand how satisfied your customers are and, importantly, make them feel heard. Ultimately, it contributes to a better dealership customer experience.
How to Effectively Communicate with Your Dealership’s Customers
Your ability to communicate clearly with customers plays a big role in how they feel about their customer experience. You want your customers to be able to reach you via multiple channels – your website, social media, email, text messaging, etc. This is known as “omnichannel communication.”
Let’s look closer at how you can achieve this.
Reach Customers Through Text Messaging
You might be wondering… why text messaging?
Although emails are still a popular method for communicating with customers, text messaging is an underutilized tool that can significantly enhance your customer communication strategy.
Text messages generally have a more personal, urgent feel than emails, increasing the likelihood of customers opening and even responding. An astonishing 98% of text messages are read, and 95% are read and responded to within 3 minutes.
By adopting text messaging, you can reach your customers with important messages that they’re likely to see and respond to promptly.
An integrated text messaging solution with your dealership management software, like DIS Notify, will enhance communication with customers, build brand recognition, and improve your dealership’s customer experience.
You can send them a welcome message as the first outgoing message to your customer, text them updates during the repair process, and respond directly to the message. This sets a positive tone for the conversation and lets your customer know what to expect.
Read Next: How to Achieve a Successful Digital Transformation in Your Service Department
Maximize Your Social Media Presence
Social media is not just a way for friends and family to connect. Social media platforms are powerful tools for businesses to reach customers directly.
It also serves as an effective avenue for dealerships to showcase their equipment, facilities, events, and promotions using personal and friendly photos and videos. Customers can visualize the dealership experience, which positively influences their perception.
Identify the platforms your customers are most active on and establish a strong presence there. Your customers might not be on TikTok, but they might be on Instagram. Regular, meaningful interactions with your followers can greatly enhance your brand’s visibility and reputation.
Customer Portals
Customers appreciate having control over their interactions with businesses. Another tool to consider amplifying your dealership’s customer experience is customer portals.
Customer portals encourage customers to access what they need from your dealership on their own time and on their own devices. Customer portals also let customers send messages directly to your service department, which enhances the customer experience since they can get in touch with your team easily.
DIS MyPortal offers a platform where customers can manage their accounts, access service information, and complete transactions at their convenience. This not only saves your customers time but also reduces the workload on your staff.
“DIS MyPortal has made a huge impact on our customer service in a very short time. Our customers are able to look over their fleet and see what is happening with it. They can review invoices and make decisions on how to better utilize the fleet. It makes life easier for everyone.”
– Nic Corcoran, Branch Manager at Welch Equipment, Welch Equipment
DIS MyPortal gives you access to visual analytics reporting on customer activity, which you can share with customers to highlight opportunities to increase their fleet uptime and equipment utilization.
Use Data to Enhance Your Dealership Customer Experience
Your dealership is most likely already collecting a lot of data about your customers without even realizing it. For example, social media platforms provide valuable analytics and insights into the demographic of your audience, who’s engaging with your content, and how well your photos, videos, and content performs with them.
Your dealership also collects a lot of data internally. But, if that customer data is not measured or analyzed, you’re missing out on the opportunity to use it as an opportunity to improve your dealership’s customer experience.
That’s where a CRM can prove useful.
Read Next: How Farm Equipment Dealers Use Software to Manage Their Business
What is a CRM?
A customer relationship management (CRM) system is one of the most powerful tools to help you keep in touch with your customers and prospects, contact them, and provide them with relevant information at just the right time.
4 Ways a CRM Can Strengthen Customer Relationships
1. Central Place for Storing Data
A CRM gives you an accurate record of all customer interactions. You can retrieve the entire interaction history with a customer without needing to manually piece together timelines or search through past emails.
This way, you don’t need to only rely on your memory or word-of-mouth. It also provides a better understanding of previous touchpoints.
2. Improve Internal Dealership Communication
CRMs make data entry consistent. All relevant information – including notes, contracts, and other details – resides in the CRM system. CRMs often integrate with dealership management systems. This makes it easier for customer information to be shared and communication to be automated based on data.
A good CRM system will inform you about follow-up times and frequency of communication. It will help you find out what products or services appeal to specific customers most, personalizing their experience further with your dealership.
3. Manage and Evaluate Sales Team Performance
CRMs help you to use data to improve your sales process and train your salespeople. With it, you can evaluate sales performance in specific areas or for the entire team.
On the other side, with a CRM, sales reps can also immediately see what’s been done and what needs to happen next in the sales cycle. This ensures that sales reps have the necessary insights to take appropriate actions and maintain effective communication.
4. Never Miss a Lead
Timing is everything, and a CRM solution can help you maximize your response time with customers. With a CRM, you can identify and follow up on promising leads and keep track of the information needed for the whole team (sales, support, management, etc.). It can even remind you to get in touch with a customer at regular intervals and to stay on top of unresolved issues or support tickets.
Regularly Re-Evaluate Your Dealership Customer Experience
Crafting your dealership’s customer experience strategy is not a one-off task.
It’s an evolving process that requires constant reevaluation and fine-tuning. But the experience you create is the one that customers will remember – how easy it was to interact with your team, to buy from your dealership, and so on.
The customer experience extends beyond the sales process and lasts even after they’ve left your dealership. Regularly ask for feedback from customers and take steps to address their concerns or issues quickly.
