Pub 10 2020 Issue 3

9 Commit to accepting and even embracing change. Retail is changing, and you can only win going forward if you meet your customers where they are at in the spectrum of how they want to buy and service their vehicles. Digital retail now includes all these things. That means the idea of an internet department in a dealership has become a funny remnant of the early 2000s. It’s more accurate to think of your entire dealership as an internet department. The way the customer is shopping and the way they want to engage with your dealership has morphed for sales and service. It’s time to stop pushing customers into our traditional funnel and shift your mindset entirely to how to make it easy for them to do business with you. Get customers the information they want, when they want it, and in the format they want. Allow them to take steps in processes that are comfortable for them. An internet sales process that fosters new customers and draws them to the dealership while they are doing their research will be suc- cessful. If that experience is consistent and earns their trust, the dealership can facilitate their “custom” experience. Ex- amining outdated processes is hard work and requires a lot of change. It also doesn’t provide the instant gratification of a beautiful, up-to-date showroom — so it requires more strategy and patience. Once again, in our business, change is constant. The speed of change only accelerates. Most dealerships already have some building blocks in place for digital retail. But the first step in cre- ating a comprehensive, successful strategy for digital retail isn’t defining it. It’s accepting that it is part of everything we do in every department, recognizing that needed changes aren’t going away, and there is no silver bullet. Like every other challenge a dealership faces, this one is going to start with a comprehensive game plan of processes executed by a well-trained winning team with clear goals and objectives. That team will be led most effectively by a leader who is passionate about service, including service to employees. You will have to push down the mentality that says, “but that’s how we’ve always done it.” You will have to remove some core tenets of our industry, like “get control of your customer,” and take a fresh look at every process in the dealership. Technology can augment the well-defined process your well-trained team is following, but recognize that every technology fails without the right implementation plan, and every process fails without accountability. Most important of all, commit to accepting and even em- bracing change. Retail is changing, and you can only win going forward if you meet your customers where they are at in the spectrum of how they want to buy and service their vehicles.  At Automotive Development Group, we put the emphasis on training. For more information, please contact Francis Fagan with Brown & Brown Dealer Services | Automotive Development Group at 312-608-4979 or ffagan@adgtoday.com. Francis is the regional training director for Illinois and In- diana. For our training calendar and to meet our nationally renowned trainers, visit www.AutomotiveDevelopmentGroup.com .