AS TECHNOLOGY ADVANCES, IS THERE A RISK OF THE IN-STORE EXPERIENCE NOT LIVING UP TO CONSUMER EXPECTATIONS FOSTERED ONLINE?
In a number of articles over the past year, I have addressed the rapidly changing purchase funnel and what this means to dealers. The changes are being driven by two primary forces — firstly, the almost blanket use of the Internet as the starting point in the journey of most new or used vehicle buyers and secondly, the changing dynamics of how digital consumers make their purchase decisions.
DIFFERENT WORLDS
Let’s start with the Internet and see how well certain manufacturers and their dealers address what I call the “two solitudes” of automotive retailing. This refers to the often very different worlds of the online shopping and in-dealership experience. Whether they’re shopping for smartphones, shoes, sporting goods or automobiles, consumers have certain expectations, set for the most part by their online experience, since that is where they start. The assumption for most is that what they see online is what they can expect to see (or experience) in the physical retail space.
In a recent Automotive News video series the findings of a study by Incisent Labs, a U.S. company specializing in helping organizations create innovative business processes, pointed to some vital components of a good online presence. The key components are to have engaging text and visual elements and the assertion that “the digital inventory must be as good as the physical inventory.”
Looking at the websites of the top five OEMs and their dealers (Ford, Chrysler, GM, Toyota and Hyundai), the following comments can be made:
- The basics are there — the ability to build and price, to contact a dealership and to compare models;
- Some are better than others in providing information on inventory — through the dealer or manufacturer’s website;
- Some require a lot of personal information to get a response from a dealership (beyond name and email address);
- The quality of visual/video information varies widely and there can be a huge difference in quality when shifting from the manufacturer site to the dealership site;
- Some make it difficult to even see the product properly (in some cases visuals can be very dark);
- • Some sites are interesting and engaging, while others are just functional (which won’t win any battles for new customers).
The dealer sites vary even more, especially on the video aspects.
Response times from dealerships (the usual metric of performance) are improving, but does the customer want to hear from the Internet business manager, or from the person they will end up cutting the deal with?
MEETING EXPECTATIONS INSIDE THE STORE
There’s no doubt that the auto buying context is vastly different from many other online purchasing environments. It is not as simple as choosing a size and colour of a new pair of running shoes, or selecting the features you want on a new laptop.
That being said, are we setting ourselves up for the expectation that the in-store experience will be just as smooth and transparent as that online? The online experience is in the hands of the shopper and he or she might think that the actual purchase process will be a simple confirmation of what has just been done online.
But in the dealership, all kinds of variables come into play: the complexity of the product and its various options; the number of people involved in the sales process; the caliber of those people; the capability of the dealership to pick up seamlessly from where the customer left off during their online activities and the sales process that is followed in the dealership. Any or all of these factors can result in an experience that neither meets the customer’s nor dealership’s expectations.
The challenge is that as websites improve in terms of both their functionality and their content, along with continuing advances in online technology, will the gap between the online versus the in-store experience widen even further?
DIGITAL TOOLS INFLUENCING DECISION MAKING
In an earlier column, I discussed how wrong many of us were years ago to think that the Internet would cause consumers to visit fewer dealerships, because they could do all their research online and then visit a fewer number of selected stores. It seems that we missed the fact that the use of the Internet is not a static thing — it is always evolving.
It’s no wonder that consumers feel they have more choices today — they do, and that is helped by search engines such as Google. Search any manufacturer or brand and depending on what words you use, you’re likely to see competitor “squatters” pop up, just to remind you that there are alternatives. Add to that the power of social media to “amplify” messages and today’s shopping experience is richer, more transparent and allows for more sudden shifts than used to be the case in the traditional process.
The bottom line? It’s no longer good enough to just throw video content onto a site. Shoppers judge brands and retailers by the quality of the material and its ability to engage them and provide relevant information (especially in a mobile context). It’s also no longer good enough to go back to square one with the customer when he or she arrives in the showroom.
There are many elements of the digital shopping world that will take some time to work through as a long-standing sales process comes into conflict with digital shopping behaviour. One (digital behaviour) is not going to reverse itself — the other must change if the “two solitudes” are to be bridged.
