Your shoppers want more control over the car buying process. They want to buy a car on their time and in their own unique way, usually through some combination of online and in-dealership shopping.
With the right tools and processes in place, you can give your consumers the control they want while getting what your dealership wants—a streamlined the sales process and faster path to purchase.
Let the Shopper Take the Wheel
On the traditional road to the sale, the car buying process often bottlenecked when it came to getting the details of a deal done. Gathering signatures, filling out paperwork, and negotiating terms were all painstakingly slow and involved inputting customer information one step at a time.
Consumers expect car buying to be similar to their other online shopping experiences. Your dealership can meet shoppers’ expectations by giving them a flexible buying experience that lets them decide which steps they want to complete online—including price negotiation, finance application, and even digital contracting and signing.
Instead of spending hours negotiating a deal at the dealership, consumers can structure deals online and continue the deal right where they left off—whether they pick up online, in-store, or somewhere in between.
Accelerate Your Shopper’s Path to Purchase
These flexible buying experiences go a long way in attracting online shoppers to your dealership. When you trust consumers to structure their own deals, they often reciprocate by giving you their business.
In fact, 58% of high-performing dealers offer convenience solutions like digital contracting, and 47% offer a hybrid customer experience, combining digital retailing with the traditional sales experience, according to Cox Automotive’s study, How to Thrive: Best Practices for an Accelerated Digital Landscape.
When you give your customers the freedom to structure their own deals by exploring payments, browsing F&I products, completing online credit applications, and more, you reduce the amount of time a shopper must spend buying a vehicle.
This flexibility helps speed up the path to purchase for your automobile leads. In fact, according to the 2020 Cox Automotive Digitization of End-to-End Retail Study, heavy digital buyers spend 42 minutes less time in store compared to light digital buyers.Â
Giving your customers more control of a connected car buying experience is a win-win for your dealership and your shoppers. It also lets you maintain the integrity of your deals while giving your shoppers the kind of car buying experience they want and expect.
To learn more about the benefits of a flexible car buying experience, download our free ebook, Owning Every Marketing Moment: The New Rules of Engagement. To learn more about the benefits of a flexible car buying experience, download our free ebook, Owning Every Marketing Moment: The New Rules of Engagement.
