In a recent Forbes article titled: “Fix This: Why is it so Painful to Buy a New Car?” world-renowned professors at Harvard Business School revealed their frustration with the car-buying experience, while trying to shed light on the very reasons consumers routinely list buying a new car as the worst shopping experience imaginable.

For Jill Avery, a senior lecturer in the Marketing Unit, it was the disrespect displayed by a salesman during a trip to her local dealership that soured her experience. Despite the one shopping for the car, the salesman’s frequent attempts to “talk business” with her husband, while ignoring her, proved exasperating. 

Professor Leonard Schlesinger, author of a 1989 case study about service in the auto industry, Ford Motor Co.: Dealer Sales and Service, had an equally negative assessment of the industry: “Nothing much has changed over 25 years. The experience is still generally awful.”

The article points out a number of issues dealerships need to overcome to improve the car buying experience, chief among which are the “sharp-elbow sales tactics” purportedly undertaken by dealerships, and the lack of transparency dealers provide their customers regarding invoice markups and service costs.

Not every criticism the article points out is accurate or fair. Unfortunately, such viewpoints are the norm, but that doesn’t make them any less frustrating. Thankfully, there is a way to combat this widely held stigma.

Focusing on the big picture can lead to bigger profits

One of the strategies we advocate is to stop viewing customers as one-time sales opportunities; instead, the goal should be to focus on lifetime customer value. Rather than going after a single sale, try to establish a lasting partnership with your customer, one where your dealership benefits from many years of sales and service.

Our industry-leading 3 Birds ME™ Core Solution is perfectly suited to help. Through our Core Communication and “Always On, Always Learning: analytic engine, we make it easy to examine customer click data, and provide clear, actionable ways to act on that data. 

Eliminate guesswork with Smart Messaging Streams

Another effective solution that helps establish lifetime value is our Sales Accelerator. It too uses our advanced analytics engine to tailor optimal campaign messaging based on your customer’s behavior and interest. Not only does this remove any “guesswork” from your marketing campaigns, but because you’re marketing directly to your customer’s behavior and interest, the messaging is more relevant and establishes a greater degree of trust.

Going forward

It’s hard to say when negative consumers’ negative perceptions about the car-buying experience will dissipate entirely, but that’s a future we must all work towards because the perception and the reality are out of alignment. One important takeaway from the article is that even academic experts like Jill Avery and Paul Schlesinger are unfamiliar with the challenges dealerships face--that applies to customers, too. Challenges or not, at the end of the day, consumers’ perceptions are our reality. The good news is that better software and solutions are now available to automobile dealers that can make the dream of communicating with customers and prospects in an increasingly intelligent, consumer-directed fashion a reality.

By adjusting the way your dealership views and communicates with customers, and with a little help from 3 Birds, you’ll not only improve the car buying experience for your customers, you’ll reap the rewards of a lifelong customer.