3 Ways to Improve the Car Buyer’s Customer Experience

To compete effectively with both online and brick-and-mortar competitors, your dealership’s customer experience must stand out from what others provide.

The longstanding tradition of car buyers spending the weekend shopping at car dealerships until they drive home with a new vehicle is no longer the only game in town for car buyers.

Today your auto dealership must compete against not only used car websites but also companies such as Carvana, which makes the auto buying experience as easy and dealer-free for consumers as possible.

“To cater to today’s automotive consumer, dealerships and service centers need to provide top-notch customer service not just at brick-and-mortar locations, but also in the online and phone call experience,” according to call tracking and business analytics software provider Invoca.

“If you don’t create a seamless buying journey for your customers across all channels, they’ll leave you for one of your competitors.”

In fact, 46 percent of consumers surveyed say they would switch to a different automotive brand if it delivered a better customer experience, according to research by Accenture, an information technology and services company.

Read on for three tips to improve the car buyer’s customer experience.

1. Track and understand the buyer journey

Most dealerships and service centers measure their customers’ online experience using web and analytics tools. For example, analytics tools can track how many customers take a test drive, schedule maintenance or finance a vehicle, says Invoca.

Yet many dealerships have a “glaring gap” when it comes to understanding the buying journey from the customer’s first phone call experience with the dealership, says Invoca.

“According to our 2022 Buyer Experience Report, 67 percent of automotive consumers will call during their buying journey. If your dealership or service center isn’t capturing analytics from phone calls, your customer journey analytics have a major blind spot.”

Invoca recommends using conversation intelligence software to track the complete digital-to-call experience and find out which marketing campaigns and web pages are prompting the most calls to your location.

“This will allow you to understand how phone calls are impacting customer acquisition as well as if there are any [customer experience] issues you need to address to improve your conversion rates,” says Invoca.

2. Identify and address pain points

Your dealership can identify customer pain points by paying close attention to online and social media reviews and conversations. Then take action to eliminate those pain points, advises marketing agency V12.

For example, maybe your website needs updating to be more user-friendly. Do customers complain about certain aspects of the financing and paperwork process that you improve for a better buyer experience? If so, work to improve the process.

“Look at each point in the purchase process from initial point of contact to after the car is sold to ensure you are continually building trust and responding to your customer’s individual needs,” says V12.

3. Invest in omnichannel marketing

“With the average car buyer spending over half a year researching their purchase, they’re likely to engage with you on several different channels and devices before they visit your dealership,” says Invoca.

Invoca recommends creating a consistent customer experience when your dealership markets to prospects.

“If your ads aren’t tailored to their latest interaction with your dealership, their experience will feel disjointed and they’ll be less likely to convert,” says Invoca, which suggests creating audiences based on website visitors and segmenting them according to which vehicle pages they visited.

“Also create audiences based on which advertising offers consumers engaged with,” says Invoca. “This will allow you to market to your online audience based on their previous interactions.”