How loyal are your dealership’s customers? A great shopping experience builds trust and loyalty, and if you’re lucky - that leads to some great word-of-mouth advertising around friends and family. My family has been loyal to a nearby dealership for the couple decades we’ve lived in the area, so when I needed a new car, I went right back to the store that sold me my very first car.
Admittedly, my first car was sold to my parents 15 years ago, so this was my first time in the market as a buyer. I did some research, asked around, and went right back to our family’s dealership knowing exactly what I wanted. The staff was helpful, and we made a deal I was happy with.
Everything went smoothly until…the F&I manager called me by my dad’s name. Easy mistake. Then I realized they had his information all over my documentation. It happens. After correcting everything, those minor hiccups were in my rearview mirror as I sped off in the new ride, fully focused on adapting to all the new technology I’d been missing out on with my previous 2010 model (feels like a spaceship now!).
Fast forward to a couple of weeks later, and I received a letter from the dealership service drive. It contained information and billing about a costly service…wait, is this a scam? No. Despite being addressed to me, it was intended for my brother, who took his car in for service a few weeks before I visited the dealership to buy my car.
My family thought we had a great relationship with this dealership, but turns out they don’t even know who we are.
It was all relatively harmless, until it was time for me to set up my billing for my first monthly payment. Can you guess what happens next? While they had fixed my name on the paperwork I signed to purchase my car, they somehow still had my parents’ information attached to the financing.
Despite the initial frustration, it was a relatively easy fix. But this dealership has now set the expectation that they cannot keep family members of three different households organized, so how can I believe something as simple as an oil change will be handled properly? And would you believe that as I write this, I received an email about scheduling a test drive for the same vehicle I purchased over a month ago?
Not only are they killing customer trust and creating an unpleasant shopping experience, they’re also wasting money on marketing to the wrong customers. And what happens when service bills go to the wrong place? These errors should be easily avoidable, but that doesn’t make it any less damaging to their brand and their bottom line.
While the staff were pleasant to work with, clearly their software solutions left a lot to be desired. You could say their dealership toolbox is clearly missing some essential pieces, especially when it comes to cleaning and unifying their data across the dealership. In my case, they still made it to the endzone despite a few fumbles, but other customers may be unwilling to overlook these constant errors, especially during sales negotiations.
This scenario would have never happened with
Curator. Whether it’s a single person shopping at a one-store dealership or an entire family shopping at multiple households, Curator cleans and connects their data from each of your dealership’s touchpoints, making it accessible within a single Unified Customer Profile (UCP). The dealership would have been able to identify myself, my brother, and my dad as related, but separate households as soon as I submitted a lead online or walked into the dealership.
Connecting this data prevents any mixups between sales and the finance desk, you won’t be wasting money on marketing to closed leads, and you definitely won’t see service invoices being mailed to the wrong household! You could have the best staff, but an inadequate system will still drag down the customer experience.
Equipping your dealership with a Unified Intelligence Engine like Curator will ensure you put your best foot forward in all communications with your customers. Clean and accurate data is an easy way to build trust and in time, a relationship with your customers. Nurturing that relationship leads to loyalty, both in future services and sales opportunities.