Vertical Market | Automotive

Nearly all authoritative sources observed the same five challenges that will affect car dealerships this year. Our relationships with our customers lead us to agree. For over 20 years, American Solutions for Business has been providing dealerships across the country with operational and branding solutions. As challenges have evolved over the years, so have our recommendations. We can help you address all five major challenges you might be facing this year.

Problems with New Car Supply

The last few years have brought on inventory conditions almost no one would have predicted. From chip shortages to customers waiting months to receive their ordered vehicle, the landscape of the dealership floor plan truly looks nothing like what it used to. While the chip shortage has eased considerably, some dealerships are still struggling significantly with new car inventory. While we can’t actually procure you the steel horses to fill your lot, we can assist you with acclimating those hesitant customers to the concept of made-to-order automobiles.

One of the most uncomfortable parts of ordering a vehicle is often the difficulty of visualizing the final product. We can help provide both analog and digital solutions to help your customer see what they’ll be receiving while they’re ordering it. Whether it’s working with augmented reality and virtually modifying your showroom demonstrator, or simply making a large graphic appear in motion, we have numerous methods and modes to help spark your customer’s imagination.

Increasing Demand for Used Cars

With economic uncertainty and increased finance rates comes an increased demand for used and certified pre-owned vehicles. However, with those same conditions also comes hesitancy for trade-in and difficulty procuring said inventory. We’ve found that direct marketing through mail and electronic means is one of the most effective ways to build up a quality used and certified pre-owned inventory. We can help you identify consumers in the community and from competitors that are nearing their lease end or have an equity position in their current auto loan and design a campaign that draws them into your dealership. Our campaigns include post-campaign analytics so you can determine ROI on your efforts and use the data to launch future campaigns.

Managing Aftersales

Critical to a dealer’s success, aftersales is what keeps customers coming back. Ensuring a smooth transition from sales to service for each purchasing customer is vital to customer retention, just as crucial is maintaining customer contact. However, many dealerships fall into the trap of annoying customers and prospects with irrelevant messages. The most impactful marketing meets customers where they are in their car ownership journey. At American, we have many solutions to help you better craft messages for each customer contact, providing valuable touchpoints at each interval of vehicle ownership and ensuring higher ROI on your marketing investments.

Building and Nurturing Customer Relations

Customers need to feel seen, heard and valued. Today’s car owner tends to be more resourceful in self-service when it comes to car buying. Most purchases today begin online. Dealers rely heavily on third party marketing and search analytics to drive traffic to their website, but can you identify your visitors if they don’t fill out a contact form? American can! How about the after-hours lot visitor, can you identify them? American can!

When it comes to customer feedback, it can often feel like only customers with negative experiences want to be heard. We can help you identify a negative experience in progress before the customer leaves the dealership so you can turn their frown upside down and make it right. Our customer survey programs have helped dealerships achieve record CSI scores.

New Approach to Sales and Marketing

The car buying and ownership journey has changed dramatically in the past 5 years and customers’ expectations have evolved. The digital buyer is not a new phenomenon in the automotive industry, but after the pandemic, the expectations of contactless transactions and at concierge services have grown. Dealer groups are investing in the ability to perform sales completely online. Others are investing in mobile service capabilities. While consumers want these services, they still largely depend on those providing them to make them aware of where they can receive them. American can help you develop an effective marketing strategy to not only reach, but surprise and delight consumers.

At American we see challenges as opportunities to prove our value as an extension of your team. Your success is our success.

To learn more about American Solutions for Business visit http://www.americanbus.com.