{"id":1412,"date":"2017-10-30T09:48:50","date_gmt":"2017-10-30T14:48:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/efgintelligence.com\/dealershipcorridor\/?p=1412"},"modified":"2017-10-30T13:05:47","modified_gmt":"2017-10-30T18:05:47","slug":"technology-shifting-retail-automotive-landscape","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/efgintelligence.com\/dealershipcorridor\/technology-shifting-retail-automotive-landscape\/","title":{"rendered":"Managing the Shifting Retail Automotive Landscape"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Contributing
Contributing Author:
James Ganther, Esquire
Co-Founder & President
Mosaic Compliance Services, LLC<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As a retail automotive dealer, do you feel like the very nature of your business is changing right in front of you? Advances in technology are making it possible to conduct a good deal of the vehicle-purchasing transaction online. A new generation of car buyers who want more digital resources is rising in buying-power. Change is in the air.\u00a0 How will technology change the way F&I professionals ply their trade?<\/p>\n

To answer that question, I have to go far from the realm of retail automotive to the cerebral world of TED talks.\u00a0 The third-most viewed TED talk<\/a> of all time is Simon Sinek\u2019s \u201cHow Great Leaders Inspire Action.\u201d\u00a0 More than 35 million people have invested 18 minutes<\/strong> to watch an English\/American author explain what he calls the \u201cGolden Circle.\u201d\u00a0 If you haven\u2019t seen it, you can look it up on ted.com<\/a>.\u00a0 It\u2019s worth the watch.<\/p>\n

One of my take-aways from Sinek\u2019s talk has more to do with what he did than what he said.\u00a0 Sinek didn\u2019t have any high-tech A\/V presentation to back up his words.\u00a0 He used a flip chart on an easel and a fat black marker to illustrate his points.\u00a0 Sinek wasn\u2019t an artist and his handwriting wasn\u2019t all that good.\u00a0 Midway through his talk, his microphone failed and he had to be handed a new one.<\/p>\n

In fact, Sinek\u2019s famous talk wasn\u2019t even a \u201creal\u201d TED talk presented at their annual flagship conference.\u00a0 Rather, it was a local \u201cTEDx\u201d presentation in Washington state.\u00a0 Only about 50 people heard him speak.\u00a0\u00a0 Despite those handicaps, he delivered a brilliant and memorable talk.<\/p>\n

In the years since his first TED talk, Sinek has delivered many presentations to diverse audience from far fancier platforms.\u00a0 And yet I noticed something about those later talks \u2013 he still used a flip chart and a fat black marker to illustrate his points, and his points were still brilliant.<\/p>\n

All of this comes back to F&I, of course.\u00a0 Much is being said about technology replacing the F&I professional, but I remain unconvinced.\u00a0 Technology is a tool, not an end in itself.\u00a0<\/strong> And, Simon Sinek with his flip chart and Sharpie proves that the message is more important than how its presented.<\/strong>\u00a0 There will be no replacing the human touch any time soon.<\/p>\n

So, how do dealers cultivate successful and profitable operations, when it feels like the very ground beneath their feet is constantly moving? It all goes back to the basics of determining your value proposition and being the best at what you do. Any successful business accomplishes two things:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Providing superior<\/strong> customer service<\/li>\n
  2. Fulfilling relevant<\/strong> consumer needs<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Regardless of any new technology advancement or economic condition, the answer to maintaining profitability will always lie in a dealership\u2019s value proposition.<\/strong><\/p>\n

      \n
    • What are you doing that makes you different from the competition?<\/li>\n
    • Is your brand built around transparency?<\/li>\n
    • How are your fostering ongoing communication?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

      Focusing on the basics, and getting them right in today\u2019s environment, is one of the surest ways to foster dealership growth and profitability.<\/p>\n

      The point I\u2019m making here is that we can\u2019t let technology upgrades replace the basics of our business. Strong speakers will be motivational and empowering regardless of the technology surrounding them. In retail automotive, dealerships that focus on the basics of providing good customer service will survive and even thrive in a more digital world.<\/strong><\/p>\n

      Consider, for example, the vehicle research process. \u00a0Consumers are already researching everything they could ever want to know about a vehicle online, and now there is the growing trend of including F&I product information online. But, what happens when consumers hit a wall and they can\u2019t find the information they need? Most consumers send an email, engage a chat bot, or pick up the phone. And, the last thing they want is to be confronted with an auto-responder or phone tree. Consumers want to interact with a real person because there are some needs that technology just can\u2019t fulfill.<\/strong><\/p>\n

      Yes, technology advances are automating more of the vehicle-purchasing process. But, that automation requires dealerships to be more engaged with their customers, not less.<\/strong> As dealerships evolve, sales and F&I teams need to be trained to interact with customers both online and in person. The dealers who will succeed in the coming years will be those who find the balance between when to use technology and when to use the human touch to provide the best customer service.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      As a retail automotive dealer, do you feel like the very nature of your business is changing right in front of you? Advances in technology are making it possible to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[393],"tags":[450,449,446,448,447],"class_list":["post-1412","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-industry-trends","tag-digital-fi","tag-how-great-leaders-inspire-action","tag-james-ganther","tag-simon-sinek","tag-ted-talks"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7hsqu-mM","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/efgintelligence.com\/dealershipcorridor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1412","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/efgintelligence.com\/dealershipcorridor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/efgintelligence.com\/dealershipcorridor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/efgintelligence.com\/dealershipcorridor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/efgintelligence.com\/dealershipcorridor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1412"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/efgintelligence.com\/dealershipcorridor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1412\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1418,"href":"https:\/\/efgintelligence.com\/dealershipcorridor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1412\/revisions\/1418"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/efgintelligence.com\/dealershipcorridor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/efgintelligence.com\/dealershipcorridor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/efgintelligence.com\/dealershipcorridor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}