Transform Your Dealership with Innovative Retail Tools
In today’s fast-paced automotive industry, having the right car dealership tools for retail is important for both short term and long term success. The tips we’ll share will be helpful for both smaller and bigger dealerships that are looking to elevate their customers’ experiences and, ultimately, transform and grow their businesses. From leads and appraisal management to using the right social media tools — we’ll cover it all.
Why Car Dealership Tools Matter in Retail
We all know that understanding and exceeding customer expectations is crucial — especially because the modern consumer doesn’t just desire a vehicle, but a seamless, transparent purchasing experience.
This is where having robust dealership management tools matters. This includes retail tools. On a high level, these tools can include solutions to streamline leads and appraisal management, vehicle previews for consumers, and social media management.
Tools to Enhance Your Customer’s Experiences
Leads & Appraisal Management
We’re putting this first because honestly, it’s the most important. Leads and appraisal management heavily contribute to creating a seamless experience for a consumer.
For instance, our Retail Inspect tool helps dealers enhance transparency by involving their customers directly in the appraisal process for their trade-in vehicles. Some of our dealers will list their customer’s trade-in on OPENLANE®, and share the auction process on one of the dealership TVs so their customer can watch the bids roll in themselves. This both empowers the customer and enhances trust.
If a customer wants to sell their trade-in without coming into your showroom, they have the option to inspect their own vehicle and send it to you through OPENLANE to finalize the details. This is especially helpful for online leads — they can load their vehicle details from the comfort of their own home. As a dealer, you’re offering your customer transparency, flexibility and convenience. These benefits are all key factors of a seamless purchasing process.
Customer Vehicle Previews
Let’s say that your customer has their eyes set on a very specific list of non-negotiables, and maybe you don’t have a model in stock that meets these needs. You’re doing a casual scroll on OPENLANE, when suddenly you find exactly what they’re looking for. Through our Retail Vehicle Details Page, you can easily share it with them, before you ever decide to bid on the vehicle.
The Retail Vehicle Details Page, is similar to our Vehicle Details Page (made for dealers), but is more consumer friendly and easy to understand. However, dealers can still easily share more information with their retail customers if needed.
Social Media Management
Part of having a seamless experience for customers is having an effective social presence. So what goes into that? It means they can easily find your business pages, get answers to the questions they have and learn more about your dealership’s story.
If you’ve already got that down, you can use tools that will continue to elevate your presence and potentially save you time.
Tools like SproutSocial or Hootsuite can be very beneficial for managing your social media pages. You or your team members can bulk schedule posts ahead of time, view your page analytics and more. This will help you gauge what content is and isn’t resonating with your audience. Maybe your analytics show you that customers love testimonials from other customers, or maybe that they loved an event you hosted and posted about. Ultimately, these tools make it easier to gain data insights from your social presence, which can impact how you operate your business and offerings to consumers.
Have more questions?
Have more questions or think you want to take advantage of some of our retail tools? We’re happy to help. If you haven’t already registered, you can do so below. If you’re already a registered user, you can reach out to your sales rep.
888-260-4604
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