An effective and valuable GPS program for the New Car Franchise Dealership would have the following elements:
INVENTORY MANAGEMENT
Managing your inventory can be a headache at the best of times. Finding a car
on the lot after an exhaustive search, just to find out it won’t start due to a dead battery can be frustrating. Do you find yourself searching acres of cars or off-site vehicle storage locations for the car you want? Have you ever spent more than 10 seconds looking for a car for a customer? Have you ever had to scramble to find vehicles during a floor plan audit? How much time away from selling cars does inventory management cost you and your sales managers?
A good GPS program dramatically expedites the sales cycle. You can find any of your cars within seconds as well as know if that car has a dead battery before trying to start that car in front of the customer.
ASSET PROTECTION AND RISK MITIGATION
When it comes to protecting assets and mitigating risk, a good program is not only self-sufficient but is a profit building winner as well. Stolen vehicles are easily recovered, protecting you from the rising cost of floor plan insurance.
A “Virtual Hands-On-Hood” service which identifies discrepancies in GPS inventory on hand compared to the floor plan and allows you to quickly see and resolve issues. What used to take a day would be done in minutes! The reports from such a service would make it possible for dealers to do monthly inventory checks.
MARKETING TO CUSTOMERS
We know that marketing to customers is time-consuming and unreliable due to the lack of accurate information. Recent in-depth market research has suggested that effective marketing and advertising for customer acquisition takes a tremendous amount of dealers’ time and money.
A good GPS program provides precise mileage and diagnostic information to be able to accurately market to customers. Mileage alerts enhance service marketing accuracy. Trouble code and “Check Engine Light” diagnostics maximize service retention and enhanced service loyalty.
PROFIT RETENTION
Profit retention is all important. It is naturally a big concern for dealers. A Good GPS program would offer opportunities for every department in the dealership and helps dealers keep a larger percentage of the revenue from add-on products because it’s a tangible and usable item. Salespeople are trained to use the app to find and demo a vehicle so the customer sees the features and value of the product first hand. The product is transferrable to the customer at the time of sale.
A program with such a marketing platform helps with building customer retention in Parts and Service AND Sales.
CUSTOMER RETENTION
Customer retention is based on accurate diagnostic and mileage information
and contacting customers in a timely manner for sales and or service.
A good marketing platform helps with building customer retention. With it, you know precisely when your customers have crossed certain mileage markers or have a “check engine” light that has come on and can use this information to market to your customers based on real-time data, instead of dated algorithms.
Closing the loop with the customer ensures that your customers keep coming back into your dealership for service and eventually for another new car.
SUMMARY
A really good GPS program helps dealers across the country with real-time Inventory Management, Asset Protection and Risk Mitigation, Marketing to Customers, Profit Creation and Retention as well as Customer Retention based on accurate mileage and trouble code information. These 5 key features vastly aid in closing the loop with YOUR customers.
T. J. Embree is the VP of Sales for Apex Protect GPS, Inc. Other articles by him can be found here: https://apexprotectgps.com/articles/