RICHARD COOPER POSES THE QUESTION OF WHETHER TABLETS WILL SERVE TO ENHANCE THE OVERALL CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE WHEN IT COMES TO DEALERSHIP SHOWROOMS
Last year, I wrote about the “digital face” of dealerships and the divide between the digital world consumers live in and the “physical” one they experience upon entering the dealership. One part of the article referred to a mystery shop I did at 13 Greater Toronto Area dealerships (North York/Richmond Hill).
What we didn’t cover back then, was specifically how the different brands performed. To be fair, this was not a highly structured or formal mystery shopping exercise. What I did was go into these dealerships, putting on my consumer hat. I wanted to find out what it would be like as a digitally savvy consumer, who has searched the web in the shopping process, used social media to listen and to share and gathered all the key information I felt I would need when I walked into the dealership.
As mentioned in that article from last year, I was disappointed in the level of “digital readiness” of the stores I visited. As a result, I put together a scorecard of the brands, based on a few key criteria and on the factors that I have seen as important over years of studying the customer experience in dealerships. The most important things I looked for were: Did I get a sense that the dealership was oriented to engage a digitally savvy consumer?
Was the information available about the vehicles and the dealership presented in a way that would grab and hold the attention of this consumer?
Was there evidence that the people in the dealership were ready for this kind of consumer and were willing and able to meet the consumer on the digital playing field?
The graphic (top right) shows how the different brands came across in terms of their dealer’s digital readiness.
SO, WHAT GIVE YOU AN EDGE IN A DIGITAL WORLD?
One example of digital technology being used more and more in the retail space, is the use of tablets by salespeople and customer service representatives when interacting with consumers. In J.D. Power’s most recent U.S. SSI (Sales Satisfaction Index) Study, the company concluded that “sales satisfaction among new-vehicle buyers is 52 points higher when their salesperson uses a tablet device, than when their salesperson does not use a tablet during the sales process (844 vs. 792 respectively on a 1,000-point scale).”
Still, care needs to be taken in interpreting the J.D. Power conclusion. Over many years of studying customer satisfaction and trying to identify the key drivers, it is clear that there are cases where high levels of satisfaction are the result of a number of factors, not just one or two. Dealerships that score well, tend to do many things well and there is no single silver bullet that you can point to as the reason for strong performance on customer satisfaction.
DELIVERING CONSISTENCY
Putting tablets in the hands of sales or service people may not in and of itself, have immediate benefits. It will depend on how that “enabling” technology is deployed and turned into information and an interaction which the customer values. What it can do, is facilitate a better and more consistent process, where salespeople are all working with the same information, presented in a very engaging and appealing format for today’s customers.
This is just the thin end of the wedge. The customers who come into the showroom or into the service reception area in the future will expect car dealerships to begin deploying some of the same digital technology they experience in other retail situations. They expect salespeople to have information at their fingertips (literally) and will not be satisfied with having to walk around to look at a computer screen to have their questions answered.
Digital technology allows for more accurate and consistent communication of information in a format with which consumers are increasingly familiar and comfortable. With the cost of these technologies dwindling, before too long, being without them will become the exception rather than the rule.
