Canadian auto dealer introduces a new column on retail engagement, which will chronicle the ways that digital tools such as digital signage, interactive digital experiences, and new in-store technology are helping the automotive industry provide a more robust and modern retail experience

At a recent industry conference, I was struck by one of the speakers from outside the automotive industry who described automotive dealerships as “digital deserts” mostly devoid of any digital experiences, whether that was digital signage, video and other interactive tools customers have come to expect from their other online and retail experiences.

That lack of in-store digital experience is one of the reasons we launched UniversusDX as a standalone operation that focuses solely on ensuring automotive retailers have access to the best strategy, thinking and technology required to close the digital divide that occurs once customers enter your stores.

Car dealerships are unique environments, and some digital strategies won’t work the same way as they do in other retail industries.

While the dealership still needs to grab a visitor’s attention, by the time they are inside the store they are either already a customer — in sales or service — or they are in one of the 1.6 dealerships customers now visit before buying a vehicle. This requires a different conversation than the content in the marketing materials that brought them into the store.

Because dealerships are also really several different businesses operating in one retail location, the digital experiences need to reflect that. Messaging from new vehicle sales is different than that in pre-owned, the F&I office, parts and accessories and service, and yet it still needs to be cohesive, connected and on brand with the OEM messaging.

While none of this is super easy to pull off — nor is it extraordinarily hard — particularly if you understand how to produce engaging content and how to apply it within the automotive retail landscape.

But far too often when it comes to discussions about setting up digital experience strategies for dealerships, people involved get bogged down by fears about content getting out of date, costs of acquiring content or the complexity of integrating and managing all the technology.

It’s important to remember it’s never about the technology. It’s always about the strategy. Content and implementation follows, as does measuring the impact of the chosen approach. An approach that involves constantly updated digital content that can be engaging, tactical and measurable has a lot of appeal for dealers and OEMs alike.

It’s important to remember it’s never about the technology. It’s always about the strategy. Content and implementation follows, as does measuring the impact of the chosen approach.

Moving to things like digital signage and touchscreen kiosks offers instant updates to ensure materials are up-to-date, and frankly a degree of control and tactical effectiveness that traditional printed point-of-purchase and similar materials just can’t have.

With digital signage and kiosk-based materials in-store, now you can tailor messages to a specific time of day, week, and adjust them on the fly to put up things like daily specials up on your screens, and even changing the menu boards behind your advisor counter to really highlight the offers you want to drive attention to.

Using technology like geofencing, we can understand how many customers are in your store, when they are there, for how long, and if specific customers have been there before. Individualized offers can be pushed to a specific customer’s mobile phone. Dealership staff can be alerted when a specific customer is in the dealership.

Digital experiences are also something that OEMs are more eager to help fund and support for their dealership partners. They recognize that if they are insisting on a true omni-channel experience with consistent brand messaging for customers online and in-store, that they need to help bring these experiences to life.

At the same time, dealerships recognize that their biggest competitor is often another dealership of the same brand that is nearby, so they want to be able to customize the digital experiences to ensure their dealership’s personality is captured.

Next-generation digital signage and other technologies are well suited to bring all of that to life, and increasingly at a cost-effective price.

In future columns, we will touch on many of the trends, strategies, best practices and the technologies that are starting to transform the auto retail experience — and for the better. We will explore topics like brand compliance, future-proofing your facility for digital experiences, content strategies, measurement and analytics, hardware and technology, and pricing models.

I look forward to hearing from readers about your positive — or negative — previous experiences with digital signage and digital experiences in your dealerships, or any interesting retail experiences you might have come across. Please send any comments my way and I’ll be happy to respond.

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How Walla Walla Valley Honda turned its operations around by turning the customer experience on its head

One-point-five percent of shoppers expect to have a satisfying car buying experience. That’s it.

Even in an area as friendly and down-to-earth as Walla Walla Valley, the findings from DrivingSales’ landmark Consumer Experience Study ring true: virtually everyone expects a hassle, and 50 per cent will even walk away if a test drive is required before providing a price.

Why? Clearly, it’s the past reality of car sales coming back to haunt today’s dealerships.

The battle over control, the waiting, the negotiating…it has historically been an ugly, hard-scrabble process that turns off customers, hurts dealerships over the long term, and ruins relationships.

Recasting the customer experience

Word travels quickly when a customer suffers through a bad experience. Whether it’s a dirty showroom, a rude associate or high-pressure sales tactics; people like it when their needs are put first and foremost, and notice when they aren’t.

According to a study by AutoTrader, 73 per cent of consumers surveyed would be willing to drive farther just to find a great car salesperson. And consider that cars.com has already compiled over one million dealer sales and service reviews — assessments that thousands of consumers use to determine where they’ll purchase their next vehicle.

That’s not what was happening at Walla Walla Honda. Previous management followed an old and rejected script: start at the retail price, then try to negotiate — at all times. In doing so, the business was struggling.

Recasting the dealership’s reputation into one based on a positive and comfortable experience has been job #1 for Blake Underriner and his team since day #1.

Underriner, the dealership’s General Manager, wants customers to feel like they’re not just buying another car, or getting service done. “We’re actually trying to create a relationship with customers, so that they understand that we, from the bottom of our hearts, really care about the experience,” said Underriner. “That’s the experience we want. We want a family experience, so you feel welcomed into our home when you walk into the dealership, and you feel taken care of. Most of all, so you know that you’re not going to be taken advantage of here at Walla Walla Honda.”

Transparency and the art of awesome

At the core of great customer service stand the principles of fairness, honesty, discipline and transparency. “Our overall process is centered on taking care of the customer,” said Underriner. “Our entire goal and mission is to provide a good experience so often that our guests recommend us all the time and return again and again for everything automotive. In order to turn Walla Walla Honda around, we had to really build up from that, so that it’s ingrained into everybody from service to sales. We want everyone to know that we can be their one-stop automotive shop.”

The approach is based on the Five Principles of Awesome:

1. Upfront Pricing, No Negotiation Needed
2. No Buyer’s Remorse Money-Back Guarantee
3. Non-Commissioned Sales Staff—Buy the Car That’s Right for YOU
4. Trade-In Guarantee — We Buy Even If You Don’t
5. True 24/7 Availability (Call, Text, Email, and Facebook)

Truth is, everything at Walla Walla Honda is driven by these five core standards. And for good reason: they build a positive customer experience that’s based on the store’s mission and brand promise.

It all comes down to how customers are treated, and how they feel when they leave the dealership. “We need to be able to deliver on our promise and the mission statement, every day and in every transaction,” said Underriner. Starting with training and into our day-to-day routines, we follow through, we handle situations and we stay in close contact until the customer is completely satisfied.”

And while it starts at training, this dedication to the customer experience is carried into work expectations and even pay. Specialists don’t get paid a commission; spiffs and bonuses are based on 100 per cent survey results and happy customer reviews.

“We want our team to show people the ease of buying a car,” said Underriner. “Customers come in with their wall up, and our job is to get them to like the experience, and be comfortable.”

Today, the experience looks like this: show the customer the invoice price of the car while explaining the current market price and the rationale behind its price tag. In other words, be open and transparent, so that the customer knows that the deal is fair and that the dealership is making a profit. “We’re upfront. We’re honest. We’re not hiding anything, and I think customers feel relieved that we’re honest and yes, we need to make money — we are a business,” said Underriner. “So if we’re more honest and transparent with our customers, I believe the more money we’re going to make. It takes being straightforward. It takes transparency and trust.”

The same goes for the service side of the automotive business, especially when faced with the challenge of reopening the dealership and rebuilding the faith. The fundamental logic behind the Five Principles of Awesome is that the more you provide a great experience the more customers trust you, and when that happens they’re going to come back again and again.

“They had no place to go for service,” said Underriner. “So we told them, through our words and actions, that we were going to take care of them. It’s really, really helped in bringing the customers back into the service department.”

Words and actions can have a real impact. For Walla Walla Honda, it’s the example of the service tech who is willing to drive 40 minutes back and forth in order to pick up a car and get it fixed for a customer.

It’s the dedication that each and every service member has to show the value of their work through the promises they keep to customers. From Underriner’s perspective, it’s what he considers to be an Apple Store model, where product specialist and service experts are able to answer any question and fix virtually any problem that a customer may have.

Transparency leads to profits

Some people would call the customer experience at Walla Walla Honda a classic example of going the extra mile.

It’s true, and the results show just how effective that mile has been for the sales and service teams: In the past 18 months, Walla Walla Honda has gone from 0 sales and a closed drive to an average of 50-60 sales per month. They’ve been honoured by Honda as a visionary dealership and have accelerated overall gross to the point where it is now in the top 10 percent for Honda dealerships in the nation.

For the first time in years, people are coming back. They’re coming in for maintenance, and they’re becoming loyal Honda customers. Whether they’re considering an Accord or a Pilot, the sales experience at Walla Walla Honda — transparent, friendly and knowledgeable — is now creating a new perspective on the dealership, one that’s reflected in CSI scores and dealer reviews.

After all, word travels quickly when a customer has a great experience. Walla Walla Honda is a perfect example of how powerful those words can be.

Bart Wilson is the Director of Media with DrivingSales.com. Jared Hamilton, the Founder and CEO of Driving Sales, is the co-founder of Walla Walla Valley Honda.

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As we conclude our Retail Revolution series, we present the key takeaways for dealers.

Over the last year, the Retail Revolution series in Canadian auto dealer has focused on seven companies. But in a twist from you’d normally expect, none of them is directly related to vehicles or dealerships. Instead, we looked at restaurants Chick-fil-A and Panera Bread; clothing retailers Burberry and Nordstrom; retail giant Amazon; software company Shopify; and Disney.

We moved away from our readers’ core business to present “fresh eyes.” Back when cars had curburetors, the industry was simple. Customers didn’t know much about the new models. They took a test-drive, and you crunched the numbers. They ran those by a couple of nearby competitors, and then they made the deal.

Today, of course, they cross-shop a dozen models online before coming anywhere near your door. That’s not news, but how you handle it can be. Dealers focus on selling and servicing cars. But when you look beyond the showroom for inspiration, you can see how other industries handle challenges and apply that to yours.

Studies show that the number of real or perceived differences between auto brands is shrinking. Cars no longer sell themselves, and it’s up to you to provide the customer experience that does. Keeping up with technology is a major issue for any retailer, especially with the speed at which it’s evolving. Amazon founder Jeffrey Bezos saw potential in the Internet when it was still in its infancy, realizing he could use it to sell products.

He initially grew Amazon slowly, but once it was established, he surged ahead with new technologies. Your customers will also appreciate being able to use new methods such as phone payment apps, and to be contacted by their preferred method. Amazon also anticipates and suggests consumer purchases, and dealers with the right software tools may be able to do so as well.

Beyond maintenance reminders, sales staff could reach out at the earliest stages, assisting with vehicle research and capturing customers before they go to competitors’ stores. From British fashion house Burberry came a lesson about protecting one’s brand. The company’s signature is a unique check pattern, and it was originally used on high-end products.

But lured by the siren call of volume sales, Burberry licensed it for such inexpensive trinkets as pillows and cookie tins. It took a long time to re-establish its luxury status in customers’ eyes. You must protect not just your OEM’s brand, but that of your individual store. It’s a given that you keep up its curbside appeal, but you also have to guard its reputation. Some employees may not always understand the wall between work and social media.

It can be disastrous for your company if someone easily traced back to your store makes an inappropriate political or social comment on Twitter or Facebook, especially since it may “go viral” with breathtaking speed. Restaurant Chick-fil-A and Panera Bread became successful by serving chicken and fresh sandwiches, respectively, when most fast-food stores sold hamburgers.

Both knew they couldn’t go head-to-head with giants like Mcdonald’s, and so instead focused on winning a loyal audience willing to pay more for a quality product and personalized service. Chick-fil-A models its employee behavior on that of a hotel, treating patrons as guests and even assisting them in the parking lot if necessary.

Anytime you can outperform the big-box stores on service, you’ve made an impression on your customer that helps offset what those stores can beat you on price. Panera Bread also focuses on customers, getting them their food as quickly as possible. The restaurant is busiest at lunch, and many people left when long lineups cut into their limited meal breaks.

The company added in-store kiosks, online ordering, and a smartphone app to help them bypass the lines. Dealers who can offer appointments through a phone app may also find themselves at an advantage. Dealers can also look to fashion department store Nordstrom and its emphasis on satisfaction. It’s well-known for giving its employees the freedom to do almost anything required to make a customer happy, without the need to go up the ladder for permission.

They must also take responsibility for fixing problems, such as finding out why an online order hasn’t been delivered, rather than sending the customer to the courier. That level autonomy is built on a rock-solid base. Employees are carefully chosen and extensively trained, and must follow a pattern when greeting and serving customers.

Dealers may balk at the time and expense of such schooling, but it can pay off in customer retention and upselling. Employees who are allowed to make decisions may also be less likely to move that pricey training to a competitor’s store.

We looked at Shopify primarily because many people don’t even know this company exists. Based in Ottawa, Shopify provides everything a retailer needs to do business online, including websites, apps, cloud-based accounting, and card readers.

The company’s offerings aren’t unique, but its business model is. Founder Tobias Lutke knew he couldn’t do it alone. Shopify works with outside developers and lets them sell their apps directly to clients, boosting Shopify’s portfolio with minimal investment. Lutke also knew that many entrepreneurs are not computer wizards, and so everything is made as simple as possible. Dealers who leverage the talents of their employees, and who make every transaction as easy as it can be for customers, will also reap the benefits.

And we looked at Disney, the biggest of the big, which greets 20 million visitors each year at its Florida park. It has to take care of its customers, but seamlessly so as to maintain the “magic” for which it’s known. It started with a paper ticket system to reduce lines, and then an online version. It has since added a high-tech one that uses electronic wristbands, guiding visitors through the park while also capturing data on their destinations and buying habits.

It highlights the importance of investing in scalable technologies that can grow as your needs change, and to keep on top of emerging tools that will allow you to follow your customers online and help them through the buying process.

Overall, the most successful businesses are those who look at what they’re doing wrong as well as right; who sweat the details; who look at the future; and who examine themselves as a customer does. We hope we put that across, and we hope you enjoyed reading Retailer Revolution.

The post What have we learned? appeared first on Canadian Auto Dealer.

How a set if guiding principles helped Walla Walla Valley Honda shake up the car buying experience and dramatically boost results

Situated in the shadows of the Blue Mountains, Walla Walla Valley Honda has a seasonal, small town feel. It’s a friendly place, and one of the oldest communities in Washington state.

Things change slowly here, and people count on one another to help create a diverse and welcoming way of life. That goes for businesses as well except for car dealerships.

Like everywhere else, the idea of going to a dealership and buying a car is not viewed as great way to spend a Saturday. Salespeople aren’t generally thought of as people who are looking out for you. It’s a negative stereotype based on the past reality of the car buying process.

The battle over control, the waiting, the negotiating it has historically been an ugly, hard-scrabble process that turns off customers, hurts dealerships over the long term, and ruins relationships. But help is coming to the automotive retail business The future shows a different approach to car sales that reprioritizes the experience toward customer satisfaction and long-term viability.

Indeed, nestled up against those Blue Mountains is an experiment taking place that will evolve the business and change the way people buy their cars and how they view dealerships. Thanks to the practices being developed at Walla Walla Valley Honda, people may soon welcome the idea of going to the dealership and talking to a friend about their experience.

THE CHALLENGE:

Down and out in Walla Walla Valley
It used to be that a customer would walk into Walla Walla Valley Honda store, and, more often than not, walk back out – never to return. The dealership was known as a haven for hard-sell tactics, broken promises and disreputable customer service; if there was a reputation among car buyers in the area, it was worse than bad – it was busted down and was driven to bankruptcy.

“The previous owner had a sales approach that would start at retail – and then go into hard negotiations with every customer,” said Blake Underriner, the store’s current GM. “I’m not totally sure how they did business, but I know it wasn’t good. The store went bankrupt. It closed down. And when we came in, we started from scratch with a clear understanding of why we’re in business, and in the community. It really helped us develop our brand identity from the start.”

Today, Walla Walla is a solid example of best practices in developing a transparent and lasting approach to dealership operations. It hasn’t been easy. Reversing the previous owner’s hard sell tactics and lack of transparency takes time, but with each car sold and serviced, the team at Walla Walla Honda is rewriting the dealership’s reputation.

THE SOLUTION:

The principles of Awesomeness
The first step to resuscitating a failed business is to carefully construct a meaningful mission statement that drives all aspects of dealership operations, from sales to service, accounting and beyond. For Walla Walla Honda, the owners turned to DrivingSales University to help them identify and create a mission statement that reflected their desire to create a transparent, friendly and community-oriented mandate. The result was a statement anchored by the DSU “Five Principle of Awesomeness”:

1. Upfront pricing, no negotiation needed:
Walla Walla Valley Honda’s “pricing promise” vows that it will list the most competitive price up front and centre, at the dealership and on the website. There’s no negotiation, only a transparent approach to pricing.

2. No buyer’s remorse money-back guarantee:
Walla Walla Honda’s 3-day/300-mile money back guarantee and 5-day exchange promise ensures that you’ll be happy in a car that’s right for you and your family.

3. Non-commissioned sales staff – buy the car that’s right for you:
Dealership ownership and management rejected the notion of commissiond sales, because it puts the salesperson at odds with the customer – a no win situation. Walla Walla Honda trains and hires non-commissioned honda product specialists, who receive bonuses for customer satisfaction. That makes the sales experience a classic “win-win.”

4. Trade-in guarantee-we buy even if you don’t:
Walla Walla will appraise your car, and you will leave the dealerships with a cheque – whether or not you buy your next car.

5. True 24/7 availability (call, text, email, and facebook):
Walla Walla Honda specialists are available at any time, on any day and on virtually every platform. Depending on your perspective, the Five Rules of Awesomeness are, well, awesome. Each tenet sets into motion a relationship between customers and sales, setting them up for loyal, repeat business. Working with DSU helped the dealership put its mission statement into focus: Provide an experience so awesome that our guests recommend us to all of their friends, and come back again and again for everything automotive.

But the fact is, principles and mission statements only go so far. It takes a committed team to apply the meaning of the words to the actions on the showroom floor and in the service bays of a dealership, every day, with every customer. That’s the difference, and why it works at Walla Walla Valley Honda. The team believes in the process, and understands how important it is, because it’s on everything they do – advertising, website, social media, and most importantly it’s a part of every single customer conversation. “It works because our staff believes in the mission,” said Underriner. “I think that’s the most important thing. The team must believe in and execute your mission and approach.”

For a team of hardworking professionals to believe in and adopt a new approach to selling and service, the words they follow must be carefully selected and meaningful to the entire experience at Walla Walla Valley Honda. To that end, the mission statement not only reflects their sales and business intent, but the spirit and enthusiasm with which the team goes about its work. Walla Walla Valley Honda isn’t just in the buisness to put customers in new Accords, or Pilots. They’re working to be a longstanding and valued member of a the community – and become a friendly, reliable business for generations of residents.

THE SOLUTION:

From bankrupt to benchmark
The community is coming around to Walla Walla Valley Honda again. It’s hard work, and slow going at times, but what was once a bankrupt, closed dealership has now become a benchmark Honda dealership. In the past 18 months, the store has gone from 0 sales to an average of 50-60 sales per month; they’ve been honoured by Honda as a visionary dealership, while accelerating overall gross to the point where it is now in the top 10 percent for Honda dealerships in the nation.

This transparent approach, driven by the Five Principles of Awesomeness and a uniquely designed mission statement is showing signs of sales and service excellence:

From bakrupt to benchmark. That’s not an easy journey; it takes discipline and focus, a consistent approach and a uniform belief in a way of doing business that builds and nurtures relationships. Working with DSU, Walla Walla was able to make their mission live and breathe across the store every employee. “When our specialists explain the five principles, 9 times out of 10 customers become very, very relaxed.” said Underriner.

The post From Bankrupt to benchmark appeared first on Canadian Auto Dealer.

Business is always a bit of a risk, but there are times when the wildest gambles pay off. And that’s exactly what happened with one of the most successful American restaurant chains in recent years, Panera Bread.

Ron Shaich originally thought he’d go into politics, but starting a student-run convenience store in university convinced him that his strength was in running a business. Once out of school, he became a sales manager for Original Cookie Company, which sold baked goods in mall stores.

He thought it could be successful outside of malls as well, but his superiors disagreed. So in 1980, Shaich opened his own bakery in downtown Boston. Soon after, seeing promise in a struggling chain of three bakery shops named Au Bon Pain, he merged it into his company.

The gamble paid off, and Au Bon Pain expanded to 225 stores, going public in 1991. Two years later, the company acquired the St. Louis Bread Company, a small chain of cafés. Shaich preferred the idea of a restaurant to that of a take-out bakery and took an even riskier chance: he sold off the larger and well-established Au Bon Pain to concentrate on the tiny new acquisition, which he renamed Panera Bread. It turned out to be the right choice.

Panera Bread has been credited with creating (or at least popularizing) the “fast-casual” segment, one of the fastest-growing in the industry and which now includes competitors such as Chipotle Mexican Grill, Baja Fresh, and Pret A Manger.

The concept is a hybrid between fast-food outlets such as McDonald’s, and casual dining restaurants such as Applebee’s: priced between the two, food made fresh with quality ingredients, and where customers line up and order from a menu board, but eat in a restaurant-style setting. Panera specializes in sandwiches, soup and salads, with a bakery area for take-away bread and pastries.

The company now has some 2,000 outlets. It opened its first Canadian store near Toronto in 2008 and currently has nineteen in Ontario, divided between two independent franchise operators, and with one corporate-owned location.

From Panera’s public offering in 1999 to the third quarter of 2016, the company’sstock rose almost 7,500 per cent.

The company tackled many challenges along the way. Panera’s traditional method was to have customers order and pay at the counter. They were then given cups to serve themselves at the drink station, which moved them toward the dining area. They were also given a pager, which went off to signal them to pick up their meals at a separate counter.

But at lunch, when the company does more than half its business, long lines at the order counter meant that many people left in favour of stores that could better accommodate their short lunch breaks.

To deal with the issue, Panera has begun installing kiosks, where customers can order and pay through a touchscreen. The kiosks speed up ordering and also reduce the number of incorrect orders, which Panera says happens in one out of every ten. That’s slightly better than the industry average, and customers with wrong orders receive a corrected one, along with a free pastry.

Panera says that while it reduces workers at the cash registers, the faster process creates more orders, requiring more employees to make and deliver the food, guided by a tracker that indicates where the customer is sitting.

The company also offers online ordering at select stores, including through a smartphone app, with a “Rapid Pick Up” option where the meal is placed on a specific counter for customers to quickly grab when they arrive. Catering orders can also be entered online for pickup or delivery.

Since everything is captured digitally, the data is available for Panera to analyze and track store performance, assess menu item popularity, and to offer personalized app services, such as favourite choices or their order history.

In 2010, Ron Shaich stepped down as CEO. With more time for other company business, he launched the charitable Panera Cares program. The company had always been generous with its charity work, including donating unsold food at the end of each day. But Shaich felt he could do more, and he studied a pay-as-you-can restaurant in Denver.

The first Panera version opened in St. Louis, Missouri, with a donation box instead of a cash register and a “take what you need, leave your fair share” policy. No one is turned away if they need something to eat, although there are suggested donations, and those who require more than an occasional meal are directed to local resources such as food banks.

Those who can’t pay are asked to volunteer their time in return for a meal voucher. To reduce costs, day-old bread is brought in from other stores. The cafés must at least break even, which they do largely through customers who donate by paying more than asking price.

Not all the Panera Cares restaurants worked out long-term — one near Chicago closed when required renovations would have been too costly, while another in Portland, Oregon was used primarily as a hangout by the homeless, leading to its closure — but the company still operates three, in Boston and in Dearborn, Michigan, along with the original St. Louis location.

As with some other restaurant chains, Panera has also vowed to use only cage-free eggs by 2020, uses antibiotic-free meat, and is adding more vegetarian choices to its menus.

Ron Shaich once said that obsession with shareholder value is a “narrow definition of success” and that he looks “beyond the shareholder,” with profits and stock prices becomingby-products of delivering to everyone involved.

By looking for opportunities no matter what their size, he was able to make differences in his business that a broad strategy might have overlooked, and that getting the “right stuff done” is the key.

Certainly, for Panera Bread, it seems to be working.

The post The rising fortunes of Panera Bread appeared first on Canadian Auto Dealer.

Disney bills its theme parks as the “Happiest place on earth,” but they can also be among the busiest on the planet, too. And each time the company adds new attractions, whether it’s a Star Wars Stormtrooper parade or breakfast with the characters from Frozen, the lines grow even longer.

It’s been an ongoing issue for Disney, which has implemented a succession of solutions in an effort to streamline people through the park.

Each new program uses the latest technologies available, but at the same time, the company has to retain the “magic” of the experience for visitors, without any hint of the digital nuts and bolts that make it happen.

Walt Disney made his fame and fortune with cartoons and movies, but his dream was to build a place where families could come for both entertainment and education. He wanted more than a simple amusement park, and when Disneyland opened in Anaheim, Calif. on July 17, 1955, it was the world’s first theme park.

Although Disneyland had been planned for more than 20 years, it was built in just one. Despite everyone’s good intentions, opening day was a disaster.

Disney had sent out 15,000 invitations, but between counterfeit tickets and people finding ways to sneak in, more than 28,000 people crammed in. Rides broke down or hadn’t yet opened, food ran out, and the weather was so unseasonably warm that women got their heels stuck in the softened asphalt.

But it eventually all came together. Disney then began planning an even larger park in Florida, which he announced in November of 1965. He died 13 months later, before construction even began on the site. But the plans went ahead, and Disney World opened in Orlando in 1971.

The parks are a collage of diverse themes, all of them carefully segregated to the point that employees, each costumed for a specific area, get there through underground tunnels. It was an integral part of the park, legend has it, that Disney insisted upon after he spotted someone dressed as a cowboy from Frontierland walking through the futuristic Tomorrowland.

Disney grew up in a small town, and park sections were dedicated to an idealized view of this simpler way of life, along with carefully-sanitized American history.

But behind the scenes, it definitely wasn’t old-fashioned. The company is credited with the first use of audio-animatronics, creating such robotic characters as singing birds and bears.

Disney says it also pioneered 360-degree motion picture technology, the first tubular steel roller coaster and the first computer-controlled thrill ride. One ride had random programming to give riders an unpredictable experience, trackless ride vehicles, and voice-activated, real-time animation so that cartoon characters can have unscripted conversations with visitors.

In the past, if you wanted to see all that, you would buy a paper ticket.

Today, Disney is using high-tech solutions that maintain the magic while getting people through the parks more efficiently, and, once they’re there, make it easier for them to spend more money.

In 1999, Disney introduced its FASTPASS ride reservation system. Instead of standing in line to get on a popular ride, visitors would go to machines located by each one, which spit out tickets stamped with a reservation time. Go away and see other things, come back at the indicated time, and get right on Space Mountain.

It wasn’t flawless, especially when visitors discovered loopholes to get around wait times and the number of reservations they could make, but it laid the groundwork for more technical systems to come.

It was replaced in 2014 with the paperless FastPass+, which lets visitors reserve their rides online, with a mobile app, or at kiosks in the park. This can be done up to 60 days in advance, but the technology allows visitors to make changes right up to the reservation time.

FastPass+ still exists, but Disney has since added MyMagic+, estimated to have cost $1-billion to develop and roll out. The key is a battery-operated wristband, dubbed the MagicBand, that contains a radio transmitter and RFID chip.

All of a visitor’s preferences are loaded into the wristband, and there’s a lot crammed in there. The band gets the visitor into the park and onto rides at reserved times. If he or she is staying at a Disney resort, the wristband also works as an electronic door key, and can be used on payment readers to buy merchandise.

Beyond that, anything reserved in advance can be loaded into the wristband. Characters can call children by their names, or dinners can be delivered as soon as visitors arrive at their restaurant table.

The company also offers a full service package, called Magical Express, that takes over as soon as travellers check their bags at the airport on their way to Florida. At the Orlando airport, they board a shuttle to the resort, while Disney employees collect their tagged luggage and take it directly to the room.

From the visitor’s point of view, it is magic: shorter lines, no paper tickets, no cash, and Mickey Mouse greeting children individually by name.

From Disney’s viewpoint, it’s an investment that streamlines its processes while improving the customer experience. It can also make visitors more open to add-ons such as character-themed meals or visits to the gift shop.

It’s also a tip of the iceberg technology, because it can ultimately give Disney the ability to track visitors at any point in the park. Employees could proactively tend to guests who need assistance, or divert crowds when areas get too busy.

It can also provide real-time information on the people that come in — more than 20 million went to the Florida park in 2015 — including where they go, what they do, and when they do it.

People who might normally protect their privacy will gladly give them that information in return for the convenience. Many companies talk about leveraging Big Data, but in many ways, it looks like Disney might be the first of a new generation of retailers and experience providers to actually make it happen.

The post FastPass to customer service appeared first on Canadian Auto Dealer.

If you can identify a certain British brand by simply looking at the pattern on a scarf, then Burberry has achieved its goal.

The iconic fashion company has had its share of issues, including a recent hard hit caused by the uncertain global economies that have affected most luxury goods, but it also has 160 years of retail experience from which to draw.

The company was founded in 1856 by Thomas Burberry, who opened a drapery business in Hampshire, England when he was just 21 years old.

A decade and a half later, he was selling outdoor wear to local farmers and hunters. He experimented with various fabrics, and in 1879, he invented gabardine, a waterproof and breathable fabric.

Burberry opened a store in London in 1891, and his products gained fame a few years later when mapmakers on an expedition to the Arctic Circle wore the company’s gabardine coats.

Burberry’s business grew as more adventurers clothed themselves in the fabric. By 1910, it was selling its products in France and the U.S. Its reputation was cemented during the First World War when the company was commissioned to provide coats for British officers on the front lines.

The design, incorporating epaulettes and metal rings, was subsequently dubbed a “trench coat” for the front-line battle fortifications. After the war, the company trademarked a camel-colour check pattern and used it as coat lining.

Burberry went public in 1920, with Thomas Burberry’s two sons named as joint managing directors. It was sold in 1955 to British retailer Great Universal Stores, which would retain majority ownership until 2005.

The company’s fortunes rose in the 1960s with the popularity of its timelessly-styled trench coat. Movie stars and public figures wore it, and the company received a Royal Warrant to supply the Queen with it.

In North America, the music-centric British Invasion, the “Mods” style, and superstar model Twiggy all drove the popularity of U.K. fashion, and Burberry quickly became a contender in a market that had previously belonged almost entirely to the fashion houses of Italy and France.

A store window display featuring the trademark check pattern, still used only as a coat lining, garnered such a response that Burberry applied it to a line of scarves and umbrellas that quickly became the company’s best-selling products. These helped lead a push
into Asia in the 1970s as that region became an increasingly important global market for luxury goods.

It seemed that high-flying Burberry could do nothing wrong, but eventually, it did.

The company first introduced lines of casual wear priced as much as 30 per cent lower than its classic products. That might have been acceptable by itself, but by the mid-1990s, Burberry was licensing its name to a large number of outside manufacturers.

The trademark plaid started showing up on such mass-market products as boxer shorts, throw pillows, dog coats, toys, and even cookie tins.

Burberry had always aggressively protected its trademarks — it has even sued American retail giant JCPenney for selling knock-off products — but now its name was legitimately on products that often looked like the counterfeits it fought so hard to shut down. Those items cheapened the brand. Few people wanted to spend thousands of dollars for a coat and then see someone else wearing an inexpensive Burberry T-shirt.

The company was already an older brand competing in a youth-driven market, and it was a serious misstep.

This, coupled with economic downturn in the late 1990s in the Asian markets where it did much of its business, Burberry’s sales and profits fell.

The good news was that Burberry learned from its mistakes, although getting back on track was a long and sometimes painful process.

Hired as CEO in 1997, and with a background in brand management, Rose Marie Bravo put the focus back on core products and concentrated on stronger markets in Europe and the U.S. She closed three production facilities in the U.K. as well as some unprofitable stores, eliminated the downscale licensed items, and increased advertising, including a new campaign with model Kate Moss.

Sales rose and the company was listed on the London Stock Exchange in 2002.

Two years later, Burberry went digital, and for the first time, you could buy its products with the click of a mouse. It might have seemed counterproductive, given that exclusivity was a key point of the turnaround, but it worked.

Since Burberry products were no longer available in a large number of department stores, the site appealed to customers who were willing to pay the prices but who weren’t close to one of the smaller number of exclusive outlets.

It didn’t stop there.

Last year, Burberry partnered with Apple’s music service to provide a branded service showcasing British artists. It also worked with Google to create “Burberry Kisses,” which allowed users to send virtual kisses worldwide through an interactive map, and “The Burberry Booth,” which used real-time video stitching technology to capture images of customers and put them into a 15-second film, which they could then share on social media.

Burberry still has many challenges ahead of it, as do many luxury goods retailers in uncertain times. Its CEO took a huge pay cut this year following a slump in sales, and the company has eliminated jobs and merged its product lines.

But it is also fine-tuning its sales approach, expanding its digital presence, and attending to underserviced markets like Japan, where demand for the label is expected to grow.

More than a century and a half after its founding, Burberry still intends to stay relevant.

The post Brand Power appeared first on Canadian Auto Dealer.

Like many of our readers, the Canadian auto dealer team had been hearing stories about innovation in the British automotive retail sector with examples such as Audi City, the Hyundai Rockar retail store located in Europe’s largest mall, and other futuristic experiments.

So we hopped across the pond to check it out ourselves.

With real estate prices among the highest in the world, it’s no surprise that automotive retailers in urban settings like London, England are looking to find ways to maximize every square foot of prime retail space, while still running a profitable automotive dealership.

But what exactly are they doing, and how much of it is applicable to Canadian dealers? That’s what we set out to discover.

Audi City

Our journey brought us inside Audi City, which markets itself as “the Showroom of the Future” and “the World’s First Interactive Car Dealership.”

Audi City has indeed been a darling of the media, portrayed as a shining example of the interactive digital experience customers will soon be demanding of their own dealerships.

“The high-tech cyberstore that could be the future of buying cars,” writes Digital Trends.

“It’s a sort of Apple Store for cars, with a nod at the full-screen interfaces beloved by Hollywood blockbusters,” writes Wallpaper.

The Audi City store in London was the first of its kind to open in 2012, but the company has since opened similar stores in Beijing (2013), Berlin (2014), Istanbul (2016), Paris (2016) and Moscow (2016).

Guided tour

When we arrived at Audi City, we were greeted by Romain Nogues, an Audi Sales Specialist with the VInP Programme at Audi City London.

“This is the best place to buy an Audi in the world,” says Nogues. “A lot of customers are amazed by the integration of technology. If you go to a centre with 200 cars on display, there is no chance you can inspect the car the way we can.”

Clearly sold on the power of the Audi City experience, Nogues walked us through the typical process when a potential customer walks through their doors.

With only a handful of Audis in the showroom, most guests are drawn to the high-definition interactive touchscreens mounted on tables. They are technologically advanced vehicle configurators that are updated daily from Audi in Germany with the latest product and accessory information. “The idea of the concept is to have a lovely showroom. As you can see, we only have two cars upstairs and another two cars downstairs,” says Nogues. “Obviously we can’t display our whole lineup here. However, we can use the technology to show it.”

Visitors will first interact with Audi Specialists, who are not commissioned salespeople, and are only there to answer questions and help customers navigate the vehicle configurator technology.

The system lets them custom build their own Audi from among the more than 50 models now available. “More and more customers want to drive their very own, customized Audi, and they want to see it in as much detail as possible right there in the dealership,” says Audi in a press release, explaining the growth in the Audi City model around the world.

Once they select their Audi, guests can spin and rotate views and get a clear sense of what their next Audi could look and sound like.

Those keen to share their configured vehicle with others can simply “swipe” the touchscreen and then the image is projected to one of the giant video powerwalls behind them. From there, they can change views, and really get an “inside” look at their vehicle of choice, opening doors, and scrutinizing every inch. The size of the video walls allows a user to view their configured car on an a scale of 1:1 on the floor to ceiling video screens.

Audi Code: a bridge builder

There are so many different variations of an Audi that you can configure — several hundred million different possible configurations — that saving your progress is really important.

To enable that, Audi has created the “Audi Code” that becomes a useful “bookmark” to record your digital shopping journey. The customer’s unique Audi Code can be entered anytime, whether using the touchscreens at Audi City, or on the customer’s mobile device or desktop computer when they get home. This bridge between the online and in-store experience is perhaps one of the more impressive technological innovations.

It’s particularly important for Audi buyers since the point of the entire virtual journey is to narrow down all the options and get to the final step of ordering their car. There are no “cars on the lot” that can be driven home, so the efficiency and accuracy of the ordering process becomes crucial.

In Europe, almost half of all cars sold are build to order, while that number is less than five per cent in the United States according to figures from the National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA).

Soft sell approach

It’s only when they get right down to the “money” part of the process that they get handed over to a sales consultant, someone like Nogues, to seal the deal. “We have one specialist team help you figure out what you want. Then they send you to the sales team once you’ve decided. It’s a very smooth process,” says Nogues. “I think Audi City is just an amazing place to work.”

Discussions then often move to private customer consultation suites downstairs where customers can have a tactile experience feeling fabrics and looking at colour swatches.

But it’s more than just a pretty virtual technology showcase.

These cyberstores act as satellite outlets for a conventional dealership, with service located minutes away in a different facility that the customer would never likely have to visit. Customers simply drop off their keys and the vehicles are taken there for servicing.

What about the results?

The technology all sounds cool, but at the end of the day, does it help sell more cars? You bet.

According to Audi, the sales figures compared with the former brand outlet in the same location in London soared by almost 70 per cent.

It turns out that, at least for Audi buyers in London, technology trumps massive showrooms. In fact, most Audi City locations have showrooms that are less than one-third the size of traditional Audi dealerships.

Although viewed as European innovation, ironically Audi City London is actually owned by the U.S.-based Penske Automotive Group. Audi City is owned by Audi UK and the U.K.-based dealership group Sytner, which is owned by Penske.

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The post All that glitters: Inside Audi City appeared first on Canadian Auto Dealer.

Jeffrey Bezos was a banker on Wall Street who saw enormous potential in the Internet. In 1994, at the age of 30, he quit his job and started the online retail company he would name after the Amazon River.

Bezos had always planned to offer as many products as he could, but initially focused on books because they were popular as online purchases, relatively inexpensive, and easy to store and ship. He began fulfilling orders out of his first warehouse, which was his garage in Seattle, Wash.

His timing couldn’t have been better. More and more people were buying personal computers and venturing onto the Internet, but most retailers still didn’t see the opportunity to reach them there. Bezos did.

Amazon was noticed and promoted by Yahoo, and sales soon rose to $20,000 a week. Bezos secured $8-million in private funding in 1995, and two years later, took the company public.

Bezos’ business philosophy made many of his investors nervous because he had no intention of turning a rapid profit. Instead, he warned them that he was all about the long-term.

Where many companies looked only a couple of years into the future, or even just a few months, Bezos was determined that Amazon’s timeframe would be five to seven years.

Its focus on gradual growth helped Amazon weather the dot-com bubble, and it announced its first profit in 2001. It was modest, but Amazon was still standing after a huge number of Silicon Valley start-ups had spectacularly imploded. Bezos was building his company by plowing its profits back into it.

Looking so far ahead gave Bezos the opportunity to fully work out any kinks in new projects. It also gave him an advantage over competitors coming late to fully-bloomed technologies that he had already incorporated when they were still in their infancy.

Amazon has purchased more than 40 businesses since the late 1990s, including software developers, publishing firms, data companies, smaller e-commerce companies, and even a robotics company that makes automatic guided vehicles for warehouses. In 2007 it launched its own e-reader, Kindle, and the supply of e-books to go with it.

As with any company, repeat business is the key to Amazon’s success. To that end, it reaches out to its customers proactively. It uses software not only to track purchases but also items that users have perused without buying.

It will then send suggestions similar to purchased items, by email or when the customer next logs into the Amazon site, or will cross platforms when customers log into other sites, like targeted advertising on a Facebook page.

Taking it a step further, Amazon has even patented “anticipatory shipping,” which could predict what a customer will buy. The company would package and ship the item to the closest delivery hub before the customer actually ordered it, cutting down on wait time when the item is finally requested.

Amazon appeals to customers on several levels. It’s convenient, since it carries a wide variety of products that would be hard to find in one place, either stocked at its warehouses, known as fulfillment centres, or from third party sellers.

Items are shipped as quickly as possible, with some products in select areas arriving on the same day. A fee-based service, Amazon Prime includes free shipping, entertainment streaming, free cloud storage, and early access to special deals.

The company also prides itself on service. It assigns dedicated customer service support providers to assist people who have purchased from third party sellers through Amazon, and keeps copies of all correspondence between buyer and seller if it has to settle a problem.

When people call in with issues, Amazon rates its service representatives by whether they’ve made each customer happy, not by how long the call takes or how many customers they help during a shift. Despite fielding thousands of complaint calls each day— everything from delivery issues to not being able to figure out how a product works— Amazon consistently ranks among the top companies for customer satisfaction.

That’s not to say it’s always utopia inside.

Employee turnover can be high, with some reporting they’d been expected to work excessive hours or be available at all times, even late at night.

And not everything the company touches turns to gold. It built an online auction site in 1999 to compete with eBay, but it never attracted many customers, and was dropped.

In 2005 Amazon launched BlockView, which used camera-equipped vehicles to take street photos that were integrated into its Yellow Pages search engine. It was dropped a year later, and ultimately, it was Google that successfully ran with the idea.

Perhaps Amazon’s most surprising venture is actual bookstores. It opened its first in Seattle in November 2015, with a second one scheduled for San Diego later this year.

The store offers free and fast WiFi, and puts all of its books cover-out for maximum exposure. The selection is smaller than in most big-box stores, but customers can order online while they’re in the store.

There’s a display of electronics,most of them the company’s proprietary units such as Fire TV, Echo and Kindle, laid out as in an Apple store for customers to try out. Even in a world of online retail, many people like to browse and touch the merchandise, especially electronic devices, before they buy.

The company posted strong earnings in the first quarter of 2016, much of it driven by another unusual venture, Amazon Web Services, a cloud-computing service for businesses.

It’s experimenting with restaurant delivery and, famously, with delivery drones for packages. Amazon has come a very long way from packing books in a garage, and it’s still looking well into the future for its next big thing.

The post Long-term payoff appeared first on Canadian Auto Dealer.

It’s true that amazing customer service is timeless. In the age of the Internet, the experience and opinion of one person can influence hundreds through social media and thousands through review websites such as DealerRater and Yelp.

Great service creates return customers and advocates for your dealership. A 2015 survey by Autotrader found 66 per cent of more than 4,000 customers surveyed said they were more likely to buy from a dealership that offers their preferred customer experience.

But in the past few decades, what a customer wants while buying a vehicle has changed — and not every dealership has caught up. That same Autotrader study found only 17 per cent were satisfied with the current car buying process.

Consumers aren’t looking for a hard sell or a pile of paperwork anymore. They’re looking for a buying experience marked by efficiency, transparency, and authenticity.

Today’s new car buyer is busy with work, a family, or any of the countless other things on their plate. They don’t want to spend hours at the dealership. Any minute you can shave off the vehicle-buying process is another minute they can spend on other responsibilities.

This efficiency starts online. Your dealership’s website must be easy-to-use, and should seamlessly line up with your in-house experience. It should also be optimized for mobile devices, including smartphones and tablets.

Timeliness in online customer service is important, too.

A recent study by Google Canada surveying 3,000 Canadians who bought cars in the past year found 74 per cent of searches for a new vehicle lead to an online interaction with a dealer, but only 68 per cent of consumers were satisfied with these web conversations. Most consumers wished for more prompt or higher quality responses.

On the sales floor, make every effort to understand what your customer wants. Research shows that customers often come in with one or two makes and models already in mind. Many negative reviews are caused when a consumer comes in set on test driving a certain model, but has to jump through hoops to do so.

The biggest gain in efficiency, however, might be in paperwork.

Accessories used to speed up the process, like tablets, are only logical. Instead of having a buyer spell out their last name, have them type it out on an iPad form. Instead of running off to scan their license, use a smartphone app, provided you meet provincial requirements.

Some dealers have gone as far as moving the entire paperwork process online.

In an industry sometimes plagued by a distrust of salespeople, transparency is also key.

According to a 2014 survey from J.D. Power, one in three shoppers use their smartphone to do research on a vehicle while at the dealership, and 96 per cent research prospective cars before they even step through the door. You can bet one of the main things they look up is the average selling price of their future vehicle.

Studies continue to prove that haggling is one of the most disliked parts of buying a car.

Consumers are increasingly shopping online or through third parties in efforts to bypass negotiation entirely. Some dealers and their OEMS have even introduced no-negotiation pricing in response.

Even if it’s not as drastic as a one-price policy, doing everything you can to make the negotiation process as transparent and understandable as possible will build customer trust and satisfaction. After all, no customer wants to spend their weekend pouring over an auto contract.

Perhaps the most important of the service trio is authenticity. This is customer service 101— consumers prefer a friendly face who genuinely wants what’s in their best interests.

“Friendly,” “sincere” or “goes above and beyond” may seem like buzz words, but they’re a common refrain in reviews of some of the top dealerships in British Columbia.

Though consumer preferences have differed throughout the years, customer service has always been about going the extra mile. Exceptional service truly boils down to having engaged employees who are passionate about providing a positive customer experience.

Just like every other facet of the auto industry, what consumers want when buying a car is changing. The key to keeping up is honest, knowledgeable and passionate employees and, of course, an eagerness to change along with them.

The post Cater to your customer appeared first on Canadian Auto Dealer.