RelationshipCommentary & Insights

Retail is NOT a physical location. RETAIL IS AN EXPERIENCE.  This statement may raise questions, prompt pushback, or lead to realizations. Retail across all industries began to shift long ago. We can credit or fault disruptors like Amazon for pushing the boundaries and expanding the concept of retail to include digital experiences. But even Amazon has blurred the line between physical and digital with pick-up/drop-off hot spots and a few retail store outlets. While I don't love the term "phygital," it conveys the idea that physical and digital are now blended and part of a single experience. Charles Dunstone, founder of Carphone Warehouse, stated that "the future of retail is the integration of internet and digital experiences and services with the retail network." This is an interesting perspective, but what does it mean for automotive retail? The industry was already experiencing a significant shift, which was further disrupted by the global pandemic. This disruption was compounded by a significant supply shortage that caused inventory issues. As a result, we are now facing fast-moving customer expectations and shifting business models in the industry. Despite the uncertain future, there are numerous paths to achieve greater value and opportunity. The questions become: what do we want to be, and how can we deliver it?  We must develop core capabilities to flex our muscles and future-proof our business. What could it look like? Sometimes it's easier to look outside of our own industry for examples and benchmarks to understand the actual experience and benefits without getting caught up in what can and can't be done in our own business. In the world of the Future of Retail, I would like to bring up Disney, perhaps surprisingly. Not the Disney store in your local mall, but the Disney Park in Orlando. If you've been there in the last 5-10 years, you've probably noticed the advancements in personalizing the entire experience. Here are a few highlights of what they provide (and the experiential capabilities): A personalized trip plan that's tailored to you and your family's needs and desires, created before you even depart for the trip Online and offline tools that work together to create a seamless experience The ability to meet the characters of your choice and highlight certain themes and areas of the park that are your favorites Suggestions on shows, pop-up meet-and-greets, and other immersive experiences to enhance the personalized engagement A connected bracelet is given or worn upon entry to the park to accommodate location-based services (tracking, payment, selected experiences) The ability to choose rides, preferred times of day, food selections, and other amenities in a planned and time-windowed preference Overall communication, alerts, and updates to facilitate the desired experience throughout the day. So, you say, that’s great, but what does that have to do with automotive retail or retail? I would suggest that this is exactly the future of the retail experience. Well, let’s break it down. It offers the basics of retail; goods and services available, shopping, buying, servicing, and experiences (that are very personalized). But it does it in a way that is so much more than transactional. This retail experience is: Personalized Needs-based Highly experiential Immersive Digital and Physical Supportive Memorable and ongoing (carries on after the original visit) Interactive …and extremely human-centric (despite all the bells and whistles, it is still focused on the people) Is there anything in the experience above that we think should not be possible or available in an auto retail experience? While the cost of Disney is getting extremely expensive, we still pay 10x-20x that amount for a vehicle transaction. Shouldn't acquiring a vehicle be as engaging, personalized, easy, delightful, memorable, and immersive as described by a customer? That's what we want in auto retail, yet we often fall short of these capabilities and benefits. While we may all agree that some or all of these elements would be desirable and beneficial, the challenge is in figuring out how to achieve them. So, what do we do? While recognizing the need for change and transformation is crucial, it's even more critical to determine how we can seize this opportunity and make it beneficial to our long-term success. How can we future-proof our business? I believe we need both a Mind Shift and a Business Shift. We cannot improve or achieve what we do not measure or set as objectives. The traditional measures of success in the automotive retail industry focus too heavily on transactional events. While sales, profits, and margins are important, the focus needs to be updated. To drive the necessary change and successful future business models in auto retail, we need a mindset shift. The following are some of the key areas where this shift is necessary: Experience-driven, not transaction driven Need Management over Lead Management Personalized, not mass marketed Customer-managed relationships (customer in control), not Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Human-centric, not Product-centric Omni-channel experiences, not one-channel events Human-centric, not product-centric Restructuring of Talent Management and compensation aimed at customers for life and experiences, not transactions. These may sound obvious, but without these as objectives, supported measurements, and infused into our business model and business processes, they do not happen. These must become our North Star view of success and capabilities. They also need measurement, training, focus, and ongoing innovation and support. Thus, next comes the business shift. We are witnessing numerous pilots and experiments in new retail storefronts and immersive design, as demonstrated by Porsche. We are also observing new sales and demand management models, such as regional warehousing and agency sales models. Additionally, we are seeing a greater influx of technology beyond traditional dealer management systems. As a dealer, it can be more effective to start with the customer and their current and future needs, rather than simply implementing massive business model shifts and new technologies. Customers desire mobility, personalized offerings that meet their journey needs, and an easy, trustworthy, and accessible process that fits their schedule and preferred channel. Therefore, to truly understand the customer, we must capture all relevant data and insights possible, to be agile and flexible in assessing and executing against their needs. Although dealers currently possess a lot of data, we lack a clear and visible view into one customer, one journey, with multiple needs. Furthermore, our current business model and capabilities do not make it easy for us to proactively respond and offer solutions to those customer needs. Unless the customer engages us, we typically do not discover and meet their needs until it is too late. Assuming that our goal and North Star is to enhance the customer experience beyond the basic transactional model of today, we need to align our data and insights, metrics and measures of success, people and training, processes and workflows, and tools and enablers to support that target operating model. Currently, a sequential, transactional, one-way experience is the norm, and trying to restructure outcomes from within that framework is ineffective. Instead, we must change the operating model and framework to align with the new definition of success. This is a simple concept, but not easy to execute. It requires clear goals, alignment, and an agile, ever-transforming process. Some of the key business shifts will include: More insightful use of data Processes and workflows focused on experience, not transactions New key metrics and objectives instilled and measured Talent Management and Reward structure in line with the objectives Building of agile capabilities aimed at customer experience and mobility access for customer A defined Target Operating Model to address the “to be” state …there is much more to continually do, but it does start with getting a clear vision of “your customer experience” and how you can deliver against that. Just start, and keep going. Never stop. Customers evolve. Their expectations grow. The industry of mobility is continuously transforming. We must continue to become “platforms of mobility access meeting customer needs wherever, and however, their personal journey requires it.” Steve Jobs said, “you’ve got to start with the customer experience and work backward for the technology.” I fully agree but would only add: “Start with defining your customer experience North Star, then build out the tools and processes to support it.” And never stop. The timing and delivery of your customer’s experience will be an ever-lasting, continuous journey, and one built as an enterprise capability (a muscle you can flex), not as a project, one-time program, or technology.

I'll bet you one dollar ($1.00) you have this issue, too. When you're shopping at the market and see a food product that's "non-GMO," don't you stop and think about it? Follow my logic here, please. If it's "non-GMO," that means it's "natural," right? I mean, if it's not genetically modified, it's natural? So, if it's natural, that indicates it's "real food." So, they didn't insert not-real food into my food. Amiright? So, why do they feel the need to tell me that my food is made up of one hundred (100%) percent food? Why can't they just leave that off the labeling? Am I missing something here? I just want true and genuine food. Likewise, shoppers want a "genuine" dealership, not an artificial corporate one with no personality and a queue for everything. How do you translate this to action, so the customers feel what you are about? Let's just take one step today, and here it is: Respond to your online complaints like a human (and definitely not a robot) and invite the customers into the store to get their problem resolved. You cannot resolve these issues by communicating through postings on websites. All too often, I see dealers have "robo-responses" posted by real people telling the customers that the dealership is "sorry for their experience" and then offering nothing to the customer. Zero, zip, nada. What function is that fulfilling exactly? How does that help either the dealership or the customer? Even worse, I was recently at a dealership group in New England whose policy was to post something which said, "Please email xxxx@dealership.com and tell me your concerns." This was posted after the customers had just spilled their guts telling the dealership, and elaborating to the public, the very nature of the problems. At best, it appeared the dealership was insincere. The issue here is not just a reputational one. When potential buyers are scouring the internet, looking for where to purchase, they read these reviews to determine the genuine nature of the dealership. You really can tell the culture of a store by how its employees respond. So, responding to these reviews will help you sell units, too. I've seen it happen over and over again. Beyond this, an even better practice is when you have earned the right to ask the customer to "update" their review after you have fixed their problem. Here's what those updates should look like. And these are posted from the internet: "Previously, in a letter, I complimented the salesman yet slammed the dealership, which, in hindsight, was unfair since I never met Mr. Kline. After reading my letter, Mr. Kline was concerned enough about my feelings and thoughts about his dealership to invite me into his office and explain why I was so distressed. We listed my complaints and found that some were just anger on my part and unwarranted, yet some were justifiable. He fixed the ones that were justified. I guess the point I am trying to make is that he didn't have to do that. The owner of a corporation took the time to satisfy the concerns of one individual. I think that was great, and he'll have my business for life. Most times, you can get the help you need from the managers, and I'm not saying everyone should be running to the owner with every problem. It's just nice to know that Mr. Kline's door is always open. Thank you." Here's another: "At first, when I got the response back from Tom Kline, I did not respond back. I felt why bother if that is how his employees treat customers. I am sure it is the same way. Well, Mr. Kline kept calling, trying to settle this matter. Finally, he got a hold of my daughter, and we agreed to meet with him. I really did not want to, but my daughter said that it wouldn't hurt anything. I have to say that today I met with Tom Kline, and he was much different than what I accepted. He apologized, listened (truly listened to what I had to say and how I felt). He fixed the problem. I was so far off in my judgment about him, and I am glad that I listened to my daughter. I just knew that I would never use the dealership again for anything, but after dealing with Mr. Tom Kline, I have changed my mind. Thank you very much for your assistance and truly listening." Finally: "First, I want to thank Mr. Kline for his response. I was indeed contacted by Mr. Kline today and have set up a meeting with him soon. I must say any company that will take the time to not only listen to a customer but agrees to make it right is a place I want to do business with. I have never seen an organization except for the military to respond and address a problem so quickly. I look forward to working with Mr. Kline in fixing some concerns I have." There's nothing magical here, just good, old fashioned work. Fixing these complaints is money in the bank. And if you are not going to repair your customers' problems, the government will. Regulatory actions almost always start with unsatisfied customer complaints. Look at the recent regulatory actions against dealers resulting from upset and unresolved customer issues: Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Napleton Automotive $10 million Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Passport Automotive $3.380 million Commonwealth of Massachusetts Jaffarians Ongoing State of California Paul Blanco $27.5 million So, you can sell more units, have happier customers (who will continue to patronize your dealership), and avoid lawsuits and regulatory issues by controlling your online customer issues. By managing and overseeing these internet complaints, you are minimizing your risks and increasing your revenues. Now, that's a non-GMO deal if I've ever heard one!

There are two types of people in life.  Bucket dippers and bucket fillers. People that invest into others and pour their time, effort & energy into helping, fixing and developing others, are bucket fillers. The people who continue to simply take from and not give to others, are bucket dippers.  Bucket fillers typically use kind words. They are inclusive and work well together with others. They have manners and say things like, “please and thank you” and “I’m sorry”. They like to share and are generous with what they have and don’t live with expectations of reciprocity.  They ask lots of questions and actually listen to the answers without constant interruption, because they are being present and engaging. They will continue to help others, even when it is not deserved. They will push through tough times, because they see the good in others and they know they have the ability to be the light. Bucket fillers ARE the light.  They are the good energy people to whom everyone is naturally drawn.  Bucket dippers are the opposite. They are the ones who steal the light. They are the vampirical form of the worst of us. They typically have low self-esteem. They consume the energy and emotional gifts from those upon whom they prey. They are typically very selfish, lazy individuals who proudly admit to it. They can’t tell the truth easily and engage in selective omission. They are people who are constantly behaving in ways proven to be self-serving, allowing them to deceive people opportunistically. They are narcissists. Sometimes, they are gas lighters, the WORST ones. They frequently blame others and have a difficult time admitting they are wrong, not only to themselves but others as well. They are messy. They don’t share. They rarely offer to pay for things. They are takers.  You get the idea? Terrible people. Bucket dippers typically don’t have a knowing problem. They have a doing problem. It is totally controllable and correctable if you are on the wrong side of the bucket.  In the dealership world, as a manager, your job is to build up your team. Your job is to connect with and engage with all of the people on your team. It is your sole responsibility to make sure the people on your team have the right words of affirmation and quality time spent with them to feel valued and appreciated. Those managers who pump up the team and bring the positive energy to the store daily have happier, more productive members of the team.  The managers who treat their team like brown shoes, are the worst kind you can be. They are the reason that salespeople quit their jobs. They make the people on their team feel guilty for no reason. They offer nothing of value in terms of compassion or support. They make people on their team feel bad, and question everything.  Eventually the people on the team feel like they have gone crazy and after losing countless nights of sleep, they wake up one day and decide, no more.  If you want to take your team to the next level, it starts with you.   I encourage you to take the bucket filler pledge When you wake up in the morning, as part of your daily mindset routine, remind yourself that you will do your best to be a bucket filler at the dealership, at home, and everywhere you go. You will feel better about yourself, knowing you chose to do the next right thing. This will yield a lifetime filled with meaningful relationships, as opposed to running through friends, relationships and customers simply as transactions. This is what takes you from being average to becoming a polished professional.

We sat down with Pam Walter, the VP of Business Development for Thought Leadership Summits, the producer of CXAUTO Summit Series and Founder of MAPconnected Membership Forum and the VEHICLE SERVICE & WARRANTY LIFECYCLE Summit. Pam is remarkable in the way in which she engages with people and has helped build a brand and community that is changing the way that the automotive industry comes together. How has the last couple of years affected the CXAUTO Summits? At the start of 2020, we had already begun planning for the CXAUTO summits in June. I never thought that we would need to go virtual. We kept moving the date out until we realized that things were not changing, in fact, the restrictions were becoming more severe as the year progressed. We had to adapt our strategy to support our brand and our community. It took a lot of work, coordination and relationship management; we were just not set up for virtual conferencing and it required a lot of effort and understanding to make it successful. After CXAUTO2020, I had considered what we had achieved and was grateful that we had been able to adapt our model and make it work. That said, I never in my wildest dreams imagined that we would need to do it all over again, virtually, the following year. When CXAUTO2022 was in its planning phase, we decided to focus on in-person fully and decided not to adopt a hybrid model and include digital. It may have been more accommodating to those who are still not traveling but based on our brand, our audience and our business platform, it made more sense to create an exclusive and closed environment in which to share and meet people. What was different about this years’ summits in comparison to those held, in-person, in previous years? There was a distinct sense of appreciation for creating an environment for people to connect in-person, to shake hands, to step out from behind their computer screens and connect once again with people. Attending an event in-person, forces you to be fully present without the distractions that come with digital technology being the sole environment to connect. It really created the opportunity to share, engage and network. What makes CXAUTO different? There are many conferences that take place in our industry, there is a huge market and an incredibly diverse ecosystem within automotive. As a smaller and select group, our events allow for everyone to experience direct access. Anyone they want to speak to is available and so you are able to create relationships with people easily and the quality of the engagement is beyond that which can be experienced at large events or in a different environment. We have found that based on the exclusive environment that we create, everyone in attendance, as well as our sponsors, come prepared to share and receive thought leadership and experience something very personal and unique. How did CXAUTO come to be, how did you come to build this brand and create these experiences? I specialize in automotive and have been running CXAUTO within the Thought Leadership Summit brand for the last 6 years. I think that traditionally, my role represents a very transactional function. However, I am fully invested in each person who forms part of our ecosystem, I truly want everyone to benefit from participating and attending. I truly care about people, their brands and their business. My distinct specialty is relationship marketing and having built my foundation in the hospitality industry, I am able to bring something different to the table. I stay in touch with our network and really focus on sharing the experience with everyone in it. For the most part, we have an exceptionally high retention rate based on the experience we create and the relationships that we build. In terms of my own story, I spent the late 1990’s and early 2000s in Chicago working for Hyatt Hotels. I was selected for the Executive Committee, Director of Catering role to re-open the flagship Park Hyatt on Water Tower Square and was really on top of my game. My husband was approached by his company to launch a program which he had started in the US, over in Europe. What was meant to be a 2-year sabbatical had turned into a 15-year European Adventure and it forced me to look at other career opportunities. It was at that time, living in Amsterdam, that I got my first taste of being a hotel customer while creating and hosting pan-European business to business conferences in key cities such as Amsterdam, Barcelona, Brussels, Berlin and Paris. Living abroad and working extensively while immersed in different cultures changed our lives. It was such an incredible opportunity and experience. When we returned to the US, I knew that I wanted to continue to focus on automotive conferencing and that I wanted to do it through building real human relationships. What is up next in the calendar? Well the dates for CXAUTO2023 have been confirmed and we will be back at the Ritz-Carlton Marina DelRey next year June 20-22 but until then, I am really focused on MAPconnected Members Forum which I started in 2021. It is a network of executives responsible for the warranty lifecycle: warranty, aftersales, aftercare, technical services; all the way from the manufacturer’s warranty through to additional extended warranty and financial services products. There are a lot of events focused on marketing and new and used car sales which get a lot of attention in the industry but very limited attention and forums for warranty and technical services peer networking and benchmarking: which is a huge expense for manufacturers besides raw materials.   MAPconnected was created for this reason and offers different levels of membership and varying packages which allow for single or multi user executives who are interested in connecting with like-minded people. The MAPconnected model provides monthly small virtual benchmarking and sponsored webinars, and our messaging forum allows you to further communicate as well through private and group threads throughout the entire year.  And, the annual summit, VEHICLE SERVICE & WARRANTY LIFECYCLE Summit will be taking place October 25th and 26th at The Southfield Westin in Detroit, open to leading automotive, powersport, bus, truck, construction and agricultural equipment OEMs, Parts & Equipment Suppliers, their Retailers, Dealers, Distributors, Logistics & Services Providers.  We have a really exciting lineup of 35+ speakers who will be sharing case studies on Strengthening Your Warranty Roadmap in a Customer-First-Connected-World focused on 7 core topic pillars including: Warranty & Quality Strategy – Connected Customer & Recall Strategy – Financial Services & Extended Warranty – Service Operations & Parts – Legal & Regulatory Compliance – EV Warranties & New Services – Technical & Field Service Ops Take advantage of the July early bird special and receive 2 tickets for the price of 1 through July 15th.   Reserve & Read more here: www.mapconnected.com Pam Walter LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pam-walter-4aa9143/

How do you interview someone who is truly an industry heavyweight, a Massachusetts Dealer of the Year, the CEO of a Tech Company, and who has been interviewed so many times before? You prepare. And then you scrap your prep notes and questions and you allow magic to happen.  “I think the first-mover advantage is the first person to learn, right? Whoever learns first, has the advantage, and we've learned a lot.” Meet Joe Shaker , owner of the Shaker Auto Group and the CEO of TruVideo . Someone who is “trying not to be famous,” doesn’t exist on LinkedIn and openly shares his story with honest excitement, energy and a formidable presence that, honestly, left us invigorated.  Below is his story, in preparation for CXAUTO2022 . When I tell the story, I tell it from a point of: these are the real problems, this is what we've learned and this is what we did when we learned it. And then guess what? We learned something else. So when I say it's genuine, it's actually true. I wanted customers to see what they're paying for. What is being disrupted, what is changing? Communication is changing.  I think one of the key things that I like to remind people, and what I've learned myself, is that we forget about the big picture. Sometimes when we're talking about service or sales we get focussed on details that don’t matter. I tell Dealers: don’t change the way you do business, change the way you communicate.   Overall, 95% of customer experience is largely embedded in how well or how poorly you communicate. So we need to really focus on how we communicate and what it is that we are communicating. I like to joke around with the OEMs. I love it when I go to the meetings and people talk about trust and transparency or when the marketing team talks about meeting people on “their terms”: Yeah, just a quick question. How do you deliver on that? How would I execute that? Oh, you don't know. You're just saying that. Okay, great. Thanks for the punchline. So what we end up doing is going back to the theory without an execution model, but we can solve these problems! The stars have aligned for TruVideo and the reason I say that is because texting is the most used function on a phone and 10 billion videos are being watched daily on Facebook alone. Customer behavior has fallen inline for us, and with phones now taking high quality video, there has been an alignment between consumer behavior and technology. Asynchronous communication is how customers want to communicate. They love it, they click on it, they open it and, if you want to do business with a customer, it's the best way to maintain a relationship based on all the data and stats. Also, because of where we are in this journey, we can now also see how customers are interacting with the communication.  If we take it a step further, focussing on the customer experience, CX personalisation is probably the strongest underpinning right now. Video has provided this personalization which has allowed these communications to explode on the customer experience front as well as dealer revenue. Simultaneously, you get to take two bites out of the same apple. “TruVideo really took off within the sales department of forward thinking Dealers” We have a case study that analyzed 16 stores, within a large group, during December of 2020. The case study showed that when you sent the video to a customer that personalized their experience, the appointment set rate and show rate, both increased. We all know that when we are talking about leads and customers, we are looking at how many leads were generated, how many appointments were made, how many were confirmed and how many customers showed up to those appointments. The next layer, percentage wise, is how many vehicles were sold after this whole process. Any change on any level, with any of those factors, makes the number at the bottom go nuts because it’s a multiplier.  Well, with the case study group, they sent out just under 7000 videos and sold around 560 more cars during COVID than they did prior to the pandemic in December 2019. We started to realize that so many people were watching the videos over and over again and sharing them, we realized this data is actually more valuable than the website data. We can send videos, we can scrape words and phrases, we can really grab all this rich analytics and data and reach customers.  How are you able to manage your duties within Shaker Auto Group as well as deliver on your goals as CEO of TruVideo? One of my favorite quotes is: “Commit to the process, and surrender to the result.” Our Business, the car business, has been largely built around processes. When we hire, we share our process, our system, which we are willing to hire into. It is not a blank slate. We are willing to hire you to work within this ecosystem and we have spent a lot of time creating a systems and process driven environment. This means that hiring correctly and training people to thrive within our environment, really is our big picture.  We do behavioral profiling so that we get the right fit within the environment and we also have a different way of paying our people versus other Dealers. The reality is that someone like me is usually buying more stores to grow further. I have chosen to diversify what I do and how I do things through software and technology. I have a great management team that we have cultivated in order to run the process environment and this allows me to grow in different ways typical to the industry.  In an environment where everybody is focussed on training, how do you truly integrate training into your environment? Theory without execution is hallucination, and I don’t like to hallucinate. People do and say things, buzzwords, but don’t execute on them. When people say they do training, I want to know what that means. Usually, theoretically they are right but I want to understand how they execute on these things. And I think that's really the secret; we won't sign up with vendors if we don't believe we, as the dealership, can execute on it. There is a difference between those who flippantly use  training  as a component of their operations and ourselves. It’s part of our system, our process, it’s a religion with us. What can we expect at CXAUTO2022 TruVideo has really been an incredible experience for us and some of what I'll be talking about at the Event is  conversational commerce ; what it is and how we found ourselves there. We knew we were doing something different but found out that the concept existed, we were just executing it in a very unique way. When we started learning about the communication chain, we realized everyone was getting the same message. We had to fix that and, then, that’s when we really started learning. We spent the first few years really focussed on solving the customer problem. The word  engagement  slips in all the time but when we really think about it, has the message been delivered and not just the text lines? Maybe we know the open rate of an email, but do we really know anything else? “I want to talk to the Doctor, not to the Receptionist” In 2021 we released the ROVI Report; We wanted to share data from our first 7 million videos. One OEM partner that shared data with us showed us  a 1.1 million repair order sample. The ROs that had video were $55 more, and, simultaneously increased CX scores. Customer “Intent to Return”, went up 4 points on the Net Promoter Score and “Value for Service” went up 3 points on NPS. Some of our OEM partners have exploded on the JD Power Service Index; so we are truly seeing the impact on the customer.  Following the data has shown us that we can not only eradicate doubt, but fix the communication chain. We realised we had data when we saw 35% of videos being shared in service. The inspection from the technician was no longer diluted by going through various people. The same transparent message was now going to the advisor, customer and any friend or confidant.  What matters about data and analytics is: how do we make it actionable? How many times are people watching, sharing, what is the real time data? We can show that through our dashboard, allowing managers to know what they need and allowing the Dealer to control the communication.  Our high-energy conversation ended with us sharing our personal views on how the world needs  more . More communication, more technicians, more perspective, more creativity and more acceptance of differing skills. Especially when it comes to breaking negative cycles through inclusive thinking.  See Joe live at the CXAUTO2022 in Marina Del-Rey next month! We would highly recommend it!

If you ordered a new vehicle and were told it could take a few weeks to come in, and all you had to do was leave a deposit and wait, you’d be pretty excited right? Well, what happens when a post pandemic global chip shortage starts to squeeze automakers’ abilities to deliver their vehicles to their dealer network? Dealers are now delayed in scheduling retail deliveries with their customers, and have to disclose missing items. The chip shortage is creating catastrophic wait times, crippling dealers’ ability to offer vehicles containing the high-tech features many customers want. The outward-sensors are controlled by microchip processors and therefore some manufacturers are building vehicles without the features altogether. Others are simply pausing production. Either way, it’s not a happy problem to have. There are a variety of anomalies occurring in the automotive industry currently. The biggest challenges we face include: managing customer expectations, factory constraints, and used vehicle valuations skewed by current market conditions. The values, because of low supply, are at an all-time high. Meanwhile, increasing delays leave some customers wanting to back out of their orders. The others customers remain waiting weeks and months more. When they do finally take delivery, the sales process suffers greatly. In the customer’s mind, they were lied to and ignored. They are extremely frustrated. They are anxious about getting their new vehicle. Increases in MSRP and egregious dealer addendums, have customers feeling squeezed by the charlatans. After being ignored by their salesperson for the last few months, they have no patience left for our process and they certainly aren’t interested in spending extra time in the business office listening to our pitch. The customer has the cashier’s check in hand, made out to the penny, and can’t wait to torch you on the factory survey. Those customers are also highly likely to leave a really nice 1-Star Google or DealerRater review. Did I miss anything? Vehicle sales plummeted to some of the lowest levels at the start of COVID and now that we have sold through the bloated inventory, we struggle to build back up again. We are reminded that after enduring what we have all experienced during this pandemic, including its shortage repercussions, people’s psyches have changed. Not only our employees, but our customers too! It’s time to re-adjust our approach, our attitudes, and our actions.  To fix this, we start with an attitude adjustment and increasing the amount of engagement. Simply reach out periodically with updates, and let your customers know what’s happening. It makes people feel nice when you call or text them. It makes them feel like a priority. They are happy you didn’t forget them and they know someone is paying attention to their vehicle and its arrival date. We change our negative attitudes regarding low inventory, it’s low everywhere. Next, pay attention to our appearances and the vibe we give off. When people are dropping $100,000 on a new Escalade, they want to know we care about their purchase. Finally, take action! Start realizing one of the biggest perks our industry is experiencing - low volume and high profits.  How fortunate are we? You’ve never had to sell fewer vehicles for more gross profit in history. Commissions are at an all-time high and life is pretty good considering. Get excited about having more time to spend with each customer. During busy times when we give cars away for little to no profit, we are always rushed. We never seem to get quality time, connecting with them and solidifying meaningful relationships. If you spend extra time with customers now, you can set clearer expectations. This allows you to manage communication more effectively during the waiting process. This ensures the delivery is more successful and brings the customer back again for their future purchases in sales and service. It’s time to get re-connected with our customers and stay there.