The pace of change in automotive is truly staggering, and coming from all sides in terms of new products, electrification, evolving retail models and ever changing customer experiences.
To try to make sense of it all, Reuters Events held a two-day Automotive Retail event in Las Vegas featuring more than 40 speakers, and attracting a mix of senior OEM and dealership executives from across North America.
The content was designed to present the challenges at both
the retail and OEM level and have both groups participate in the discussions so they can collaborate on solutions to create a better experience, and a more profitable business model for everyone.
The three pillars for the event to guide that journey were: the Evolved Dealer, the Consumer-First OEM, and the Collaborative Future. The content areas were divided up into four main categories:
- Digital dealership strategy;
- EV marketing and sales acceleration;
- The future of the OEM/Dealer relationship; and
- E-commerce and meeting the needs of the modern consumer.
In the session: both Bricks and Clicks, dealership execs shared stories of how they are evolving their teams and operations to meet their customers wherever they want to conduct business: online, in-person or increasingly a blend of the two.
“We have really taken omni-channel at its core and implemented it,” said Paige Goodwin, Director, Retail Buying Experience, Group 1 Automotive, who has 50+ dealerships across the U.S. and 60 across the UK. “So that means there are multiple ways that we are talking and taking customers through the car buying journey. And it doesn’t matter if it starts online, if they come back to the store first, or have a big hybrid of bouncing back and forth. A large majority of our customers want to come to the dealership — they still want to drive the vehicle — but they can have a shorter process at the dealerships.”
When asked about the role of OEMs, Tim Bergstrom, Chief Executive Officer, Bergstrom Automotive said there are a lot of discussions about who “owns” the guest. “We are not trying to fight the OEMs, we represent them,” said Bergstrom. “Some OEMs are trying to work to establish who is the guest — who owns the guest — at the end of the day for me I want anyone who wants to buy a car from me to think Bergstrom is the right choice.”
Bergstrom said they focus on retaining their guests through their fixed operations experiences. “A lot of dealerships lost service business during the pandemic. We have to keep guests choosing us. How do we build that stickiness?”
The event also featured Niel Hiscox, Publisher of Canadian auto dealer who moderated two sessions, including an engaging session with Andy Thomas, Vice President, Marketing and Communications with McLaren Automotive, about how to create a community around a luxury lifestyle brand.
“Community to us is very, very important,” said Thomas. “As you can imagine in the supercar realm, it’s a very emotional purchase. I have a saying, ‘inclusive — but exclusive.’”
So to build that community, it starts with all customer touchpoints. It could start with a 10-year old racing McLarens in a video game, a consumer who wants to go to an F1 race, or anywhere in between. “We want to be known as a brand that includes people and doesn’t exclude them in any way.”
For information about attending future Reuters automotive events, visit: https://events.reutersevents.com/automotive.
Automotive Retail 2024 is being held in Las Vegas May 7, 2024.
