Canadian auto dealer delivers new tablet edition
The role of the tablet device as a communications tool is one of the most interesting technology debates raging. How it all sorts itself out is something that auto dealers need to keep an eye on. You will need to decide what works best for your staff — and your customers.
Pundits and experts debate everything from the preferred tablet screen size, the best operating systems, the best connectivity methods, price, functionality, looks, design, ergo-nomics, user friendliness and of course the best apps.
There’s a lot at stake because experts predict explosive tablet growth. The respected analyst firm Gartner, Inc. predicts worldwide tablet sales will reach 118.9 million units in 2012 — a sharp 98 per cent increase from 2011 sales of 60 million units.
I recently took part as one of four judges at a “Tab Off” event organized by the Waterloo, Ont.-based sales and CRM software company One-Eighty Corp. That event brought together five of the company’s dealer users who were each provided one of five different tablets to test out. They met at the company’s offices to reveal their findings and their test scores. After some discussion and with final input from the judges, Apple’s iPad came out on top, but crowning a champ wasn’t really the point of the event. The company wanted to provide insights to dealers from other dealers about tablet options in a dealership setting, and to showcase that its mobile software tools could be used across a range of tablet devices.
The real world feedback from users was interesting. Regardless of how well the software might have been programmed for the various tablet devices, the connectivity and ease of inputting information on the devices themselves was a huge determining factor for how the dealers liked their tablet experience.
One user found the ability to enter data into the tablet he tested so cumbersome, he left it in his drawer and switched back to his iPad when dealing with customers.
Another tester found the iPad itself kind of slippery and difficult to easily carry around the dealership, particularly for test drives.
But really, the most interesting point to consider is that tablets are here now and being used extensively inside dealerships to access an increasing range of business software systems, and customer facing content.
Canadian auto dealer just released its own tablet version showcasing our magazine’s content and we’d love to hear your test drive feedback. Just visit: www.canadianautodealer.ca and the browser will recognize you are visiting on a tablet device and will deliver our tablet version. A warning though: the software works on most, but not all tablet devices. Welcome to the wild world of programming for tablet devices!
