Daniel Martin, President, COO, and Mylene Pagé, VP Sales & Business Development
360.Agency gives dealers a 360° view of their customers
Quebec-based 360.Agency says it doesn’t only offer car dealers websites and digital retailing tools. Instead, it provides them a digital ecosystem to help them modernize the entire car buying journey for their customers.
The Canadian-owned and operated company says its e-commerce solution is the first 100 per cent online vehicle sales platform in Canada, and it covers the integrated purchasing process including: vehicle configurator and model selection, accessories, financing, trade-in values, managing online deposits, credit requests, F&I products and more.
“Our 360 Ecosystem lets dealers interact with consumers online and continues at the store, and they can then continue online,” said company founder Daniel Martin, President, COO, 360.Agency in an interview at the recent Vancouver International Auto Show.
Martin said the company provides next-generation websites and advertising products, linked to a digital retailing experience, that is connected to their CRM and desking tool.
The vehicle sales process today rarely happens in a predictable way a dealer can control. A buyer might start online, visit the store for a test drive, then go back to the website, look at F&I products, and look at other vehicle models. “The customer journey is not a straight line,” said Martin. “So our solution works in different ways. It’s not just about capturing leads. It’s making sure we improve the customer journey so we capture all the points of contact between the dealers and customers.”
Martin said then when a dealership team member sits down with a customer, they can use the information captured within the 360.Agency ecosystem that captures various touchpoints they’ve had with the dealership, which can make for a smoother transaction and less time spent at the dealership.
Martin helped found the company 15 years ago with modest roots, being launched from the “cramped, tiny basement of one of the founder’s homes” but the company has now grown to more than 250 employees across Canada, offering a fully-bilingual and broad suite of products.
Martin said the company experienced fantastic growth during the pandemic as dealers were scrambling to adopt a digital retailing solution. “It was something that was low on the adoption side before COVID. It went faster after COVID because dealers were just taking orders,” he said.
Now that inventory levels are back up, and there are other challenges in the market, it’s getting harder to sell cars, and he said dealerships are having to retrain their salespeople, and to make sure their BDCs are running well and they are able to follow up on all the interactions and touchpoints.
Martin said another challenge for dealerships, particularly those operating in Quebec, is keeping onside with new regulations and expectations around transparency and consumer protection. “Our solution is really top of the line in regards to the way that it allows full transparency,” he said, adding that the province’s dealer association is actively working to certify all dealerships in the province to allow for compliance.
“Our solution presents the sales bill online so the consumer can have all the details of the transaction at their fingertips. It’s something that we are very proud of. We are helping dealers in this transition,” he said.
Mylene Pagé, the company’s VP Sales & Business Development, said the company’s approach starts with the customer. “The big focus is on the customer and the customer. They are at the center of everything that we do,” said Pagé, in an interview. “So when we create something, it’s not only necessarily thinking about whether it’s the best thing for the dealer, but the end goal is to increase customer satisfaction, which will increase CSI.”
For Martin, he said the company might be the “best kept secret in town” and their platform is DMS agnostic. “All the strategic elements related to selling cars at a dealership are managed within one ecosystem,” he said.
In terms of their product pipeline, Martin said AI tools are now being integrated into their platforms. “We gather and capture a lot of data which is fantastic from an AI standpoint. It can provide insight and help dealers gain insights on how to reduce friction in the transactions. It can also help to educate their people because staff turnover is higher than ever.”
Martin said approximately half of the company’s business is now in Quebec, but they are growing in Ontario and the Maritimes. Their focus is now growing their presence in Western Canada. “We are Canadians supporting Canadian dealers. We are not in the United States, we are focusing on our own turf. We’re really proud of being Canadian.”
