‘Get rid of the loop of pain’: Automotive marketers warned they’re forgetting about the customer
The car purchasing process and automotive marketing have gotten worse over the past five years, global initiatives have gone backwards and a ‘bizarre’ culture has emerged in selling vehicles, the audience at Mumbrella’s Automotive Marketing Summit has been told.
Simon Van Wyk telling automotive marketers what’s gone wrong in the industry
“The forgotten part of car marketing is the customer – and I know that sounds contentious – but it’s 2017 now and the car buying process is actually no different to how it was 30, 40 years ago. It hasn’t changed at all… Actually the process is the same. And we’re all extremely different,” Simon Van Wyk, managing director of MediaDigitalX warned.
“We’re a lot busier [now]. We’ve all got mobile phones. But none of it has changed. It’s actually just as bad now as it was then. You might call your customers ‘guests’ now, but that’s not actually the point.
“It’s not a good process and the customer is being forgotten.”
Van Wyk contended that from a motoring point of view it’s never been better – “It’s never been easier to buy a car, it’s never been cheaper to buy a car. You’ve got customers who will pay $120,000 for a car that never leaves Mosman… It’s a very well-tuned environment for selling cars” – but said marketers were falling behind and failing to capitalise on the opportunities 2017 presents.
The crowd listening to Van Wyk at Mumbrella’s Automotive Marketing Summit
“Despite the fact we have this thing about ‘guests’, we still have weird cultural things happening. I mean, what kind of guest gets a Ming sting? You wouldn’t invite someone into your home and then charge them for the dinner you just gave them. It’s weird. It’s kind of old school. It’s been going on for 50 years and we’re still doing it. Again, the process hasn’t changed,” he said.
“You have to deduce that most of this isn’t working.”
He also took aim at the idea that technology for technology’s sake could solve the problems dealerships and automotive marketers face.
“There’s been an enormous investment in technology… but on its own, that stuff does nothing. It’s just technology. It’s a hammer. And the stuff has to be used. It has to be mapped into how the business works. The data has to be dealt with. None of that has really happened and a lot of initiatives have gone backwards because they’ve been handed over to the Germans or the Japanese and so we’ve got a lot of global initiatives so every site globally looks the same, works the same and operates the same – whereas the customers and the dealer experience, the sales experience is actually very local. It’s done around the corner from your home.
“Don’t put a ribbon on my car if I don’t want it”: Van Wyk
“So it’s kind of weird. These things have got slower. These things are worse than they were five years ago despite millions of dollars in technology.”
Apps, he warned, are not the answer automotive marketers and brands are looking for.
“We’ve got a proliferation of apps and things now. Everyone wants an app. You can have an app to book a service. For God’s sake. Once a year you’re gonna even remember you downloaded that thing? I mean it’s just problematic. It’s not about the customer, it’s actually about the technology.”
The blame for the automotive industry’s perception problems and marketing challenges lies not with the dealership staff, he said, but the processes which have failed to evolve around the changing landscape.
“Get rid of the sales person business manager loop of pain. You circle through these people, have to shake their hands, introduce yourself. Just there’s no need for any of that. It could all be moved through the system with one person,” he said
Other advice included: “Don’t put a ribbon on my car if I don’t want it. All you have to do is ask: ‘Do you want to come to the ribbon ceremony? Or do you want us to deliver the car?’ It’s the easiest question in the world. Some people want the ribbon ceremony because they want to hear about the car… That’s the easy thing to solve…”
Van Wky tells automotive marketers to remove the friction from the car purchasing process
Once automotive shop fronts remove the barriers to purchase – including too many staff members being involved in the process, call centres which are disconnected from local dealerships, having to pick cars up at a time which suits the dealer and women still feeling the need to take their fathers or male partners with them – more sales will automatically flow, he said.
“The industry should focus on the circumstances, not the sale. … You can sell 18% more beer in a pub if you take the friction out of the process – and by friction I mean the queues and any of that stuff. You take the queue and the payment [difficulties] out of a pub experience and there will be 18% more beer drunk…. People can’t be bothered with the queues. Imagine in the car business. It does actually make a difference.”
topics
automotive marketing
car advertising
Car brands
car dealers
MediaDigitalX
Mumbrella Automotive Marketing Summit
Simon Van Wyk
My boss is a woman and Chinese. She was in a crash, her car was repaired, and she asked me to give her a lift to the panelbeater’s. I did, and to my surprise she asked me to come in with her because she wasn’t confident about dealing with the business on her own. She said she knew nothing about cars apart from how to drive one, and she was an immigrant to boot, so she was afraid they might take advantage of her. I’m no automotive expert either, but I’m a man and an Australian, and to her my mere presence was enough to keep them from trying to put anything over. As it happens, I found the business to be completely honest, but there you are: so long as women don’t know anything about cars, they’ll need a man to keep an eye on things. That’s just how it is.
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