Canadian auto dealer visited dozens of exhibitors at the NADA Show 2018 to find out what’s new with their product offering and to learn about the types of conversations they are having with dealers.
Alex Wojcik, Co-founder and Sales Manager, Kimoby
“Kimoby helps dealers communicate better with their customers by text messages. Everything from sales, service, parts, appointment confirmations, recalls and CSI messages. We also help dealers with a CSI tool to help them gather more genuine feedback after the customer visit at service. We are trying to modernize the process. I tell dealers, go in your waiting room and look at what people are doing. They are on their phone all the time. This is where they are, and this is where you need to meet them.”
Diego Sanson, VP International Relations, CarGurus
“We sponsor the International Lounge at NADA. It creates an opportunity to meet dealers, vendors, trade associations, from all over the world. Our first international expansion was into Canada. The second country we went into was the UK. We are now in Germany and are looking at opportunities in other countries. We have had a good reception in markets where there is a monopoly or duopoly. We provide consumers with unbiased transparency to the car buying journey. For dealers we are providing them access to a consumer that is well informed, more conviction and is ready to purchase.”
Alexi Venneri, Co-Founder & CEO, Digital Air Strike
“It was eight years ago, working for a large dealership group down here that we saw that when you talk to people and prospects on social media, they respond and they interact with you. As social networks grew it became too much for dealerships to manage. So many dealerships don’t even have a marketing manager. We like to be covert behind the scenes. We are huge dealer advocates. If we can pick up all the conversations and adapt our tools and technologies, whether chatting or responding to reviews, then our team become an extension of the dealership.”
Maury Marks, President & CEO, Quorum
“For us it’s a year of getting re-energized in the U.S. market. In the past few years, Canada has continued to be a growth market for us. In many sales departments they use multiple pieces of software cobbled together to try to walk through an entire customer experience. For us it’s always been a mission by ourselves, or with very select partners, to have an end-to-end business process for dealerships where they don’t have to re-key anything and it’s a nice seamless process.”
Lynn McNeill, Sr. Vice-President, PBS Systems
“The show has been very solid. Lots of great Canadians have come by. It’s our 22nd year. We try to do something a little different every year. We are going 100 per cent in Quebec. We have a fully bilingual staff. The other thing we are talking about is the guest experience. Dealers are constantly thinking about ways to make that experience better. We provide them tools to give them some process help, some tools to make the service drive through piece easier, and other parts of their experience. Training is a key focus. We are putting up a 24,000 square foot facility in Milton and incorporated into that building will be two dedicated training hubs.”
Trevor Robinson, Director of Retail Solutions, Training and Development, NCM Associates
“It’s been nice to see more Canadian traffic at NADA, and we have more Canadians joining our 20 groups. Within North America, our largest opportunity around profitability is with used cars. There are lots of operational tools that align with the velocity approach, which means turning more inventory and pricing to market. It’s a true acceptance that a used vehicle is a commodity and the consumer has full transparency into price and market via the Internet. If you don’t buy it right, and you don’t turn it quickly you won’t make the same amount of money. If you don’t turn your used inventory within 45 days the margins go down.”
Chris Walsh, VP of Sales, Naked Lime Marketing
“We try to help dealers connect with consumers across the digital journey of buying new or used cars. Dealers have to really start thinking about changing their business model in a lot of different ways. One of the key things instrumental in a lot of what we have been doing is data. Data has become a currency. The problem becomes, after you start collecting this data, you can just end up with mountains of data which is unactionable. As a software company we have building a platform that we can put all this data but in segmented in different pieces — demographic data, DMS transactional data, market data, and OEM data. Once you know all of that, now you can start to have advertising and consumer insights that can help you connect to people with a relevant message.”
Cole Reiken, VP, Digital Strategy & Product Management, Canadian Black Book
“Dealers are down here with their shopping list. Some of the technologies they are looking for play really nicely with what CBB has coming down the pipeline with our CBB Connect product and the enhancements we are driving towards. I’m very encouraged about the direction we are going in and the features we are going to be bringing to market.”
Sam Risek, Dir. Sales, Business Development Canada, DealerSocket
“This is always a good show for us. Our goal is to bring it all together to not have so many different add-on projects that a dealer needs to deal with so many account managers. Time is our most valuable resource — you run out it all the time and you never get it back. To reduce the time it takes for dealers to do things, that’s what they are looking for. Dealers have been inundated with layer after layer of product.”
Rob Mackenzie, Vice-President of Sales, Final Coat
“I’m looking to see what the cool new technology is — see if there are things that can help our platform. I’m looking to spend some good time. It’s sort of like a meeting of the minds, a meeting of the industry, so it’s always good to see some of our partners and friends, and to see some of our dealers as well. It’s a great place to have a broad view of all the products out there, so we are always looking at what’s cool, what’s new, what’s innovative and different.”
Charlotte Ye, Founder and CEO, Webcars
“I have been coming to NADA for the last 15 years. I’m probably among the very early stage people that started coming to NADA. It is the largest event in the world for automotive dealers, and in the last 15 years China also developed a great automotive market, growing from selling one million cars in 2002 to about 28 million new vehicles last year. So there is a learning curve in China, and this is a great place for Chinese technology companies and dealers to learn from U.S. industries.”
Sean Peek, Creative & Marketing Director, Final Coat
“We are fully transparent. What we do with ourselves is we test every product that we have to make sure that it is the right product for the consumer. For instance, our corrosion module — we have a lab in Ohio that we are testing vigorously throughout the year. We have four scientists working all-year round to figure out how we can better that corrosion module or technology. We are not just selling our product, we are actually trying to understand the technology fully to then put it into the consumer’s hands.”
Howard Cobham, Senior VP, Dealer Services, GM Financial
“Dealers we met with were very positive. GM dealers in particular are doing really well. We have been at this about six years now in Canada as GM Financial. We have come a long way in building the relationships we have. We are talking to our dealers all the time. We are constantly trying to stay ahead of what they are looking for. We come to them with enhancements to our programs, training and performance reports to help them navigate all the change and nuances to the evolving industry.”
Brian Murphy, VP Research and Editorial, Canadian Black Book
“There a lot of Canadians. You can’t walk too far without running into a familiar face. The Canadian dollar has softened quite a bit and that helps keep Canadian prices up. I’d say prices have levelled off and prices are starting to go down. There is so much margin pressure on new cars, and there has been for years. I was talking to one dealer at the show who says for some of his brands he doesn’t make a nickel on new cars. All his profit eggs are in the used car basket.”
Mark O’Brien, Senior Director of Dealer Solutions, Cox Automotive Canada
“One of the most talked about issues coming into this NADA is the changing nature of the buying experience for consumers with respect to the purchase of a vehicle. I was actually very curious to talk to a lot of the Canadian dealers to understand what their observations are in terms of what they see in their day-to-day business as a transformed experience from a consumer buying perspective. So I’m really here to understand, are they seeing a difference in how consumers are actually buying vehicles?”
Patrick Manzi, Senior Economist, National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA)
“Our forecast for this year is 16.7 million light vehicle sales, and we expect more than two-thirds of these vehicles to be light trucks, and by light trucks I mean pickups, crossovers and SUVs. We don’t expect that trend to stop anytime soon, especially if gas prices stay in the range that we are expecting, which is between $2.40 and $2.70 cents a gallon.”
Wesley Pike, Vice President, Dealer Information Systems (DSI)
“We are a dealer management system for Canadian automotive dealers, and we are here at NADA in Las Vegas to meet with both clients, prospective clients and other vendors that we work with to better our offering to our Canadian automotive dealers. For the DMS, things are always changing as outside initiatives change. With the DMS being the core hub of the dealership, they are always looking at ways that we can help them build those processes and practices within their workflows.”
Mark Squires, Chairman, National Franchise Dealers Association (NFDA), U.K.
“Our trade association has brought a group to NADA probably for the last 20 years, and it’s always a fantastic opportunity to see, not just in the States, but increasingly sharing with many international colleagues, exactly what’s going on in this market. Because it’s clearly one of the leading markets in the world in terms of franchise dealers and how they are developing, but also sharing from all four corners of the globe — our colleagues in China, Brazil and the rest of Europe — to really see what the state of affairs really is.”
John Peron, Director of Canadian Operations, Hunter Engineering Company
“There’s lot of Canadian activity here at NADA, and lots of interest in the advancements in our technology. A big percentage of our booth space here is taken up with inspection. Every single vehicle that comes into the dealership, they should be inspecting 100 per cent of the tires. We have a digital laser process that is automated. The last thing that a consumer wants is to lose time. If you are going to do something you want to do it well. We are trying to provide the tools to help dealers do that, and integrate it into their DMS.”
Jon Strawsburg, VP, Product Planning, Reynolds and Reynolds
“We are at a point now where a lot of the things we have been working on for a number of years are comprehensive enough to touch all the parts of a dealership’s business. An example of that is docuPAD. We have continued to enhance the presentation of the deal components to a customer to promote transparency, to make it concise and to promote compliance. docuPAD last year delivered 1.6 million vehicles last year in the United States. It really has become a force in the industry.”
Johannes Gnauck, Founder and co-CEO, automotive Mastermind
“Our business focuses on dealerships and helping them to retain their customers more effectively, to essentially predict buying patterns and follow these consumers at the right time, with the right message. And that we are currently expanding to Conquest — how do you conquest fresh customers that are in your market but that you have no relationship with. NADA, it’s always about meeting existing partners and dealer partners, so we are very excited about that. And finding new partnerships with OEMs, with dealer groups and individual dealers, as well as releasing our future product strategy around Conquest and revealing a sneak preview of our product offering.”
Rick Johnson, Vice-President, Autovance
“We are taking a process inside the dealership today that hasn’t evolved a lot in the last 25 years — which is the negotiation process — and we are speeding it up. We are providing accurate information that sales managers can rely on, and can ultimately give to their customers to make that negotiation process smoother and quicker. We are also building a full F&I menu. We have some exciting things coming up.”
Adam Robinson, Co-founder and CEO, Hireology
“I think the opportunity exists right now to elevate the strategic importance of the HR leader function in automotive retail. Someone needs to be accountable and responsible for driving these processes forward, and they can’t do it with paper and pencil. I mean, the manila folder-based process that most dealerships follow really leaves a lot to be desired, in addition to creating compliance risks and real operating costs, you don’t move as fast, you don’t move as efficiently. We are in a pretty restricted labour market. The dealership down the street that’s running it more digitally, more intentionally and process-driven will have first access to the best people. And so the question I would ask is: would you rather have first access to the right people? Or would you rather be relegated to hiring the people everyone else decided weren’t good enough to work for them?”
Christian Hamaoka, Executive Sales Manager, Franchise, Canada, DealerSocket
“I want Canadian dealers that come here to know that DealerSocket is an American-Canadian company, and we have the right people and personnel in Canada taking care of Canadian dealerships. The Canadian auto market is unique and a little but different from the States, so it’s important for Canadians to come here and feel like they are understood and Canada is represented. Canadian dealers get to come down to visit us this year and take advantage of the over 200 technologies that we have and integration points. We are looking to partner with customers long-term.”
David Sturtz, Chief Marketing Officer, Dealer-FX
“It really is an end-to-end platform and it’s all controlled by something called the service dashboard, which allows the advisors or service management to see the status of every vehicle at every stage of service, every day. So they can make sure that everything is running smoothly, and if there are any vehicles that are potentially facing bottlenecks and may miss their promise times, that the service advisor or service manager can alert the customer and/or change anything that they need to reroute, reassign resources within the service department to make sure that everyone is taken care of, and we have on-time delivery for all of our customers.”
Chuck Seguin, President, Seguin Advisory Services
“NADA is many things to many people, and that’s the beauty of it. Whatever your background is, there is something for you. So if you happen to work in a dealership, or a service department, there is a whole bunch of stuff for that. If you happen to be a general manager, there is a whole bunch of stuff for that. If you’re a dealer principal, there is the brand meetings and the make meetings. And if you’re an advisor like me, there’s a whole bunch of things that happen in and around NADA that make it really valuable for me to attend.”
James Tani, Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer, TradeRev
“This year has been amazing. This has been our best show. We are engaging all kinds of dealers. We unveiled some new technologies on how to load cars and that’s been really well received by all the dealers. A lot of smaller Canadian dealers and those from big groups came by our booth. We make dealerships more efficient. Whether it’s how they get rid of their wholesale pieces or sell new cars. We do a lot of live appraisals. To be part of something that we are changing an industry, that’s what we are most proud of.”
Trevor Henderson, Chief Operating Officer, ADESA
“We had great turnout at the ADESA booth. Dealers we talked with are very optimistic. The market will look very similar to the last couple of years, we aren’t expecting a lot of changes. We are still seeing good off-lease returns and that should continue in 2018. What we are seeing, and it might be a bit surprising, is that there is still a lot of U.S. buyers in the market. There has been a steady demand for large SUVs and pickup trucks. We have set an objective for ourselves to make it easier for dealers to do business with us. They want to do more and more on their phones, because they are more efficient and it’s with them all the time. We are building more capability for mobile.”
