Change Is Coming: Will Your Dealership Disrupt or Be Disrupted?

Over the past 15 years there have been two main events in the world of automotive retail, one of which was Auto Trader taking vehicle adverts online, which was ultimately a hugely positive disruption for dealers. The other was the global credit crunch, which limited the ability for consumers to gain approval for finance on vehicles.

Fortunately, during this second instance, finance companies rode to the rescue of dealerships, meaning that the market helped them to adapt to the problems and the unchartered climatic conditions that they were faced with.

Another disruption is coming, the dawn of online retailing is upon us and without the right strategy, many dealerships could be susceptible to plummeting profits and catastrophic collapses.

When Auto Trader told dealerships that their stock would be advertised online in the future, many scoffed but those who heeded their advice early, set themselves up with first-class seats on the gravy train. Now that dealers are faced with a similar conundrum related to doing business online, it’s much more serious because it won’t be as easy to catch-up with your forward-thinking competitors this time.

ClickEngage enables dealerships to be more efficient and professional, with a seamless online journey which integrates into whichever DMS and Web providers you work with, whether you’re an independent dealer or a franchise. It records major portal leads and drops them straight into your dealer management system, taking away any GDPR headaches. As well as capturing consumer data and even sending out SMS and email messages with key vehicle details automatically, eliminating the age-old problem of losing leads due to delayed responses from busy dealers.

Since launch, dealers live on ClickEngage have seen a 58.6% increase in enquiries, showing that consumers are keen to interact with dealerships online. Not to mention the fact that 39.4% of ClickEngage enquiries have been processed outside of normal business hours, illustrating an appetite for online automotive retailing 24/7, as is the case with other industries.

 It also gives consumers the ability to choose how much or how little of the car buying journey they take care of online, providing dealerships with the ability to support its customers in the way they want to interact. Wherever you are on your online journey, ClickEngage can support whatever is right for your business to survive and thrive during this market changing transition.

Online vehicle retailing is still in its infancy, some consumers might only want to arrange their finance online, others might want to arrange their part-exchange or reserve a car. As a low-risk, low-cost solution, ClickEngage offers the ultimate flexibility whereby dealerships can modularise their approach to selling online, offering as much or as little of the journey as suits their model and strategic goals.  When you consider that 41.3% of ClickEngage enquiries have included finance, 28.3% have had a valid part-ex and 98.2% of vehicle reservation fees through ClickEngage have resulted in a sale, it’s easy to see that consumers are comfortable with conducting the various facets of automotive retailing online.

If you only want to dip your toe into online retailing to begin with, Click Dealer can implement the data capture element of ClickEngage, part-exchange, finance, add-ons, reservations, click and collect, click and deliver or even a selection of these modules. It’s all part of creating a joined up frictionless journey and understanding how a customer has interacted with your business, whether that be online or in the showroom. Online vehicle sales bring a tremendous opportunity for retention, especially given the improved data capture facilities on offer and this is something that is more critical than ever post GDPR, enabling savvy dealerships to utilise the lucrative retention market.

A year from now we believe that 50% of interactions with your business are going to touch an online process. With ClickEngage, you can support how customers want to interact with you, without it, you’re turning them off to everything that you’re able to offer them, because they can’t do business the way that they’ve become accustomed to in different industries online.

ClickEngage V1, was designed to provide an end-to-end online journey to support the customer. But now, in V2, Click Dealer has focused on how to provide the processes that will help dealers through the transition into online retailing, detailing a clear vision of the customer’s journey in a consistent way.

Whilst 150+ dealers might not seem a large number in relation to the UK dealership market, these are just the innovators and early adopters and let’s not forget at CDX, ClickEngage was the only end-to-end process available for demo with live clients to reference.

It’s fair to say that we’ve got online vehicle retailing figured out and we can help your dealership to succeed and reap the benefits of being a disruptor.