The Field of Dreams Strategy

Auto consumers want flexibility and convenience, and if they find both at your dealership, you will have happy repeat customers.

Providing a hybrid experience that enables customers to do most or all their shopping/purchasing/vehicle servicing digitally from wherever they are is no longer optional for progressive dealerships. Consumers demand convenience and zero-contact whenever possible and organizations that haven’t already, need to prepare for this new era of auto retail.  

There are a few ways dealerships can adjust to remain attractive to consumers who increasingly prefer a zero-contact experience without causing more operational headaches: 

1. Evaluate your dealership operations and identify the biggest points of friction. Review current sales and service processes and identify where the process is getting “hung up.” The goal is to reduce manual steps, automate tasks, reduce costs, and evaluate whether it’s time to make a change. 

• At what point in the process does the transaction move from online to in-store?  
• Can you create better self-service options on your website, such as creating a robust FAQ page or better DIY tools?  
• Are communication and data seamlessly integrated across your dealership teams on the back end?  
• Is your dealership technology working for you or against you? If a tool is causing more headache than profit, ask yourself if it is mission-critical to your business.  

2. Offer a hybrid experience by increasing or improving self-service options where appropriate. Once you’ve identified the friction points in your process, find ways to move some of the tasks online. For example, you may want to focus on tasks that are manual and/or require heavy data entry.   

• Can your service department offer “no touch” vehicle pickup and drop-off to the customer’s door like Tekion’s Premium Concierge can?  
• If unable to accommodate that level of customer convenience, consider implementing a Tekion Secure Key Lounge for safe and easy key drop-off and pickup by customers. 
• Can customers communicate with you via their preferred channel, and are transactions frictionless? Can they digitally sign estimates, track vehicle status, review, approve, and even pay invoices online without hassle? 

Weigh the benefits against the potential operational complications created by adding yet another bolt-on tool. While legacy tools may not allow this flexibility, new tools built from the ground up on this philosophy, like Tekion, may help you reduce friction for the customer experience, as well as for your teams. 

3. Evaluate a system that offers zero-contact convenience. If current tools are no longer serving you, maybe it’s time to implement the right, truly planned-out zero-contact tool; one capable of adding a new dimension of convenience and flexibility for both the customer and your dealership. 

• Evaluate the cost; the right solution shouldn’t be more expensive, but should reduce cost and drive profit and increased customer satisfaction 
• Determine how easy or complicated it will be to switch; it shouldn’t be a burden. Rather, it should reduce the complexity of your operations and improve communications. 
• Review how data flows throughout the workflows and whether the tool is truly integrated or creates more friction for the consumer and your dealership teams.  

Tekion’s Automotive Retail Cloud platform was built from the ground up as a complete tool with a frictionless customer experience at its core, offering zero-contact digital sales and service, convenience, flexibility, and truly seamless data transfer to streamline your dealership’s operations.