Digital Dealer - March 2019 - 14

Road Trip to DD26 | April 9-11, 2019 | Orlando

Cover Story (Continued from pg. 13)

WE ALSO SEND TEXT MESSAGE VIDEOS
CONFIRMING THE APPOINTMENT. AND WE REDUCE
CHANCES OF FRICTION BY MAKING OUR PRICE
TRANSPARENT."
Those are just two examples of how
we use technology: call monitoring
and text message videos.
DEALER MAGAZINE: Which DMS
and CRM vendors, as well as thirdparty lead providers, do you use?
BRAD: All our stores use
DealerTrack for DMS and VIN
Solutions for CRM. We've been
pleased with both.
For third party leads, we use many
of the standard services: TrueCar,
CarGurus, AutoTrader, Edmunds,
Cars.com. It's hard to know which
service is delivering more or better
leads than another. In my opinion,
they're no longer true lead providers
but are inﬂuencers.
DEALER MAGAZINE: Could you
elaborate on this distinction?
BRAD: Sure. Ask yourself, what
is the journey that a prospect goes
through when they start thinking
about buying a car? They could make
ﬁfty diﬀerent moves before buying,
from googling local dealers to visiting
Cars.com to looking at Edmunds for
car reviews. Perhaps they missed their
turn and had to make a U-turn, which
is when they saw a jeep on special in
front of your store and pulled right in.
Or maybe a neighbor next door bought
a car at your store and encouraged
them to see you.
DEALER MAGAZINE: In this case,
how do you know which lead vendors
to use?
BRAD: Good question. Although
there's a certain amount of faith
involved in using some lead providers,
I've come to the conclusion you can
test things. You're not married to a
lead provider forever. You can use a
lead provider for three months, say,
and see if you've noticed a bump in
14

MARCH 2019

traﬃc or sales. I like to bring people in
and ask questions and get answers I
can sink my teeth into.
DEALER MAGAZINE: In what ways
does Ferman reach out to millennials?
BRAD: First, we have something
here that appeals speciﬁcally to
millennials, and it also appeals to
everyone. It's our VIP appointment
process. They get a tropical smoothie
or a Starbucks coﬀee, their choice,
upon arrival. We also send text
message videos conﬁrming the
appointment. And we reduce chances
of friction by making our price
transparent.
Millennials aren't using email. They
might not even check their voicemail.
So, texting is a big part of what we
do, even in Service. With our service
advisors at the beginning of the year,
we talked about how texting between
service advisors and the guests is the
only way to communicate because of
phone jam. Service advisors are the
busiest people in a dealership. They're
not just sitting by the phone waiting
for a call. It's a topic we discuss all the
time: service advisors deal one-on-one
with guests and not through the BDC
or a switchboard operator.
From the beginning, we let
millennials know we're serious about
earning their business. If we agree
on the numbers, there's no reason
we can't proceed and do business.
Millennials like things done fast, if you
think about it. They're used to buying
online.
DEALER MAGAZINE: As a
dealership with more than onehundred years under its belt, the
Ferman automotive family has seen it
all. What's ahead for retail automotive
in, say, the next ﬁve years?

D I G I TA L D E A L E R . C O M

BRAD: Whatever happens, car
dealers are resilient. Whatever you put
in front of us, we'll still ﬁnd a way to
be successful. I think GM's stair-step
programs, for instance, is a big game
changer. Stair-step money used to be
extra money - the cherry on top - but
now it's survival. We need that money
to stay in business. So, I'm interested
to see what changes will be made to
stair-step programs and how dealers
respond.
I don't think the autonomous car
discussion is going to be relevant.
I think we still need to do a lot of
research on autonomous cars to
see if the public really wants them.
Certainly, the technology we are
creating in pursuit of that mission is
creating some really fabulous features.
I also don't think electric cars will
be as important to the economy as
some think. If there's not a charger at
every corner like there is a gas station,
people won't be as interested in
buying electric cars.
I'm certainly pro-technology. I'm
just not sure how long it's going to
take for consumers to get there.
DEALER MAGAZINE: More
speciﬁcally, what's on the horizon for
Ferman Chevrolet?
BRAD: We've experienced a lot
of growth recently, and we plan to
take advantage of these extra units
of operation. We'll be focusing more
on our Service department. We have
a tremendous gross producing Fixed
department, and really top-notch
leaders and employees in that area.
I've been pondering the quote,
"It's Sales that sells the ﬁrst car and
Service that sells the rest." If that's
really true, then we need to wrap our
arms around our Fixed people who
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Digital Dealer - March 2019

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