By: Peyton Hoffman, Director of Public Relations and Event Management
During this year’s NADA conference, Driving Sales interviewed a few of Dominion’s product experts. In the video above, our product leaders discussed the various pain points that dealers face in the current automotive sales climate and the solutions that help dealers succeed.
There has been an evolution of the consumer research process during the automotive purchase cycle…
Automotive software companies must adapt to constant industry changes and adjust their solutions to fit customers’ needs, expectations and experiences. Ten years ago, automotive dealerships owned the majority of vehicle data, while consumers had no control over the car buying environment. Now, with the vast amount of vehicle information living on the internet, customers can thoroughly research both dealership and OEM websites. With a short list of vehicles, shoppers choose just one or two dealerships to physically visit. There has been an evolution of the consumer research process during the automotive purchase cycle, so dealers must find ways to adjust their digital marketing to stand out.
“Dealerships don’t really have the time to manage campaigns. If they want to do a tent sale, who do they have to call to make that happen? Who do they contact?” noted Nicole Case, general manager for Dominion Digital Solutions. Dealers might have to call multiple vendors to get these messages across, and all too frequently, they are unable to move quickly enough to promote a new campaign.
Here at Dominion, we provide our dealer customers with “People Power.” Our clients have a dedicated Digital Marketing Manager to effectively and efficiently spread their promotional messages across all of their marketing channels.
Another way Dominion is striving to fulfill our mission “to make dealers’ lives better,” is by working to create seamless integration with both our own solutions and other vendors. Jill Whitehead, vice president of program and product strategy for Dominion Dealer Solutions, explains that the goal is to have a consistent user experience so dealers can spend more time on the showroom floor and less time worrying about their technology vendors.
Other changes that greatly affect dealers include the the growing importance of fixed operations and need for more mobile functionality. The importance of both factors is creating a need for technology that helps dealers capitalize on these changes. Jill explains that Dominion has recently released several solutions that focus on a dealership’s fixed operations including: multi-channel marketing, equity mining, and DMS.
…we are also creating solutions that have a stronger focus on being mobile first.
Lastly, Dominion is placing a stronger focus on being mobile first. Chelsea Campbell, product manager for Dominion’s inventory solutions, explains that her team is working towards helping dealers complete all of their processes from their phone. This will enable dealers to speed up the sales process and win the sale.
Throughout 2017 and beyond, Dominion will continue to create technology to help dealers adapt to the ever-changing world of automotive sales and service.
For more information on how Dominion’s suite of dealership solutions can help your dealership success in our digital world, call 877.421.1040.
