AutoSuccess August 2015 Success Story

Success Story

BARNEY NINER GENERAL MANAGER DAN DEERY TOYOTA

All The Right Moves

The Customer-First Strategy That Is Helping Dan Deery Toyota Outsell The Region By 300% Å CONTINUED INSIDE

Success Story Ä CONTINUED FROM THE COVER

Barney Niner and the team at Dan Deery Toyota have made customer loyalty a way of life – for their customers and their dealership. As a result of their turnkey strategies, the dealership’s total sales volume (new and used) is up 37% yearover-year and year-to-date new car sales growth is outpacing the region by nearly 300%. This growth did not come from expensive conquest marketing or higheffort sales tactics. To the contrary, the ingenious strategy Dan Deery Toyota put in place leverages automation so that salespeople spend less time focusing on software and more time focusing on customer satisfaction. As a result, 7 out of every 10 sales at Dan Deery Toyota have come from repeat customers for nearly three years in a row.

CUSTOMER FIRST CULTURE

At the heart of Niner’s retention strategy is his commitment to serving the customer. This commitment is visible throughout the Cedar Valley through their support of high-profile projects like the construction of the area’s youth soccer complex as well as countless programs with local civic organizations and universities.

This commitment continues at the dealership level where Niner leverages data-driven technologies to automate redundant tasks so that his sales team can focus less on software and focus more on serving the needs of their customers. This combination of efficiency and quality has helped Dan Deery Toyota maintain 4.5 to 5 star ratings on virtually every review site, including Google, Cars.com, DealerRater and Yelp.

MAXIMUM REACH

Like all marketing, equity-based marketing is a game of percentages. Even though close rates and gross profits are significantly higher when compared to other opportunities, increasing volume is directly associated with increasing reach. To increase Dan Deery Toyota’s overall reach, the dealership uses a system that evaluates every sales and service customer every month to determine if they are eligible for the dealership’s upgrade program. Whereas many products on the market only consider previous sales customers, the system used by Dan Deery Toyota leverages proven algorithms to identify which service customers have the highest statistical probability of upgrading their vehicles. On average, this process generates 3,700 legitimate upgrade opportunities every month.

MINIMUM RISK

In-equity customers are arguably the most valuable opportunities a dealership has.

Yet, many dealerships unintentionally miss opportunities by tying themselves to manual equity mining processes.

“This strategy delivers 43% of our new car sales every month.”

-Barney Niner GM, Dan Deery Toyota

“As crazy as this sounds, manual equity mining tools are the norm — even though, statistically speaking, they have very low probability of generating sustainable success,” said Scott Davis, founder of Driving Loyalty, the company Dan Deery Toyota uses for its automated retention program. “Humans will never be as good as computers at performing complicated calculations and executing repetitive tasks. Conversely, computers will never replace humans at building face-toface relationships.”

This is the genius behind the strategy that Niner and his team have implemented. They leverage technology to perform calculations, match customers with the right offers and execute marketing activities so that they can focus on training their sales team to deliver a five-star customer experience. This eliminates dependence on list-pulling and other manual processes that allow in-equity customers to fall through the cracks.

Automated marketing allows Dan Deery Toyota to deliver consistent, personalized offers to every eligible upgrade customer across multiple media channels with minimal effort at the dealership level.

“Giving a person who works in an unpredictable environment a task that requires consistency is a recipe for disappointment,” said Niner. “I know I can’t always count on salespeople to do what we’d like them to do, but I know I

DAN DEERY TOYOTA can count on Driving Loyalty to communicate with our in-equity customers and give us a steady stream of opportunities every month.”

REAL OFFERS. REAL CARS.

Personalized offers with side-by-side comparisons delivered via email, direct mail and phone call

Unlike other systems that use “estimates” for their calculations, Niner uses a technology that verifies every component of the transaction to make sure his customers receive accurate, fundable offers on actual in-stock vehicles.

MARKETING

First, the customer’s current vehicle is verified to make sure calculations are based on the car’s actual cash value. Next, the customer’s payoff and credit tier is verified to make sure they only receive offers that the dealership is capable of delivering.

Many tools.

One platform.

Once this process is complete, the system automatically creates what their service provider calls “Undeniable Offers™” for every eligible customer. These Undeniable Offers™ compare the customer’s current vehicle to the in-stock vehicles suggested in the offer; and then illustrate how the customer can actually save money by upgrading into a newer vehicle. Multiple calls to action encourage the customer to visit a personal upgrade Website where they can compare vehicles and view real loan and lease offers on every in-stock vehicle with their equity already factored in.

Best of all, the system automatically recalculates these offers for every prospect every month and continues marketing on the dealership’s behalf, via email, letters and live phone calls until the customer purchases a vehicle or until it is determined that the prospect no longer owns their current vehicle.

“When we first started this program customers thought it was a gimmick,” said Niner. “After a few months of consistent communication, customers caught on to the fact that we were sending real offers on real vehicles. Now, our customers and our employees know that this is not a gimmick.

This is part of what we do.”

Personal upgrade Websites that allow customers to view personalized loan and lease offers on every in-stock vehicle

CUSTOMER

SHOWROOM

DATA CLOUD

SERVICE

Printed brochures used by quality assurance managers in the service lane

Customer-facing closing tools used by salespersons to engage prospects from any PC or tablet

SALES DESK

Back-end tools used by sales managers to see the finance program and deal structure of every offer

Every element of Dan Deery Toyota’s automated retention strategy is driven by the same real-time, cloud-based platform.

EVERY BASE COVERED The system the dealership uses does much more than generate compelling marketing.

The same cloud-based platform that powers their marketing and customer portals also powers their in-store closing tools. This allows the customer to receive a consistent sales experience regardless of where they engage the dealership because the information they receive in their homes, the research they see on their personal upgrade sites, the printed offers used by the service department, the tablet/ PC based tools used in the showroom and the deal structure information used by the sales tower are all powered by the same platform. As a result,

approximately 30% of customers who buy from the program purchase the exact vehicle listed in their upgrade offers.

UNDENIABLE RESULTS The impact that this strategy is having on Dan Deery Toyota’s sales are undeniable. seven out of every 10 sales come from repeat customers. Year-over-year sales are up 37% and they are outpacing the region in new car sales growth by nearly 300%.

To learn more about Dan Deery Toyota and the strategies outlined in this article email: successstories@autosuccessonline.com

Success Story

Success Story

DAN DEERY TOYOTA Impact On New Car Sales

IN A NUTSHELL

All The Right Moves: The Customer-first strategy that is helping Dan Deery Toyota outsell the region by 300% Customer-First Culture Leveraging data-driven technologies to minimize redundant tasks so that salespeople can focus less on software and more on serving their customers. As a result, Dan Deery Toyota has generated 4.5 to 5 star satisfaction ratings on virtually every review site – including Google, Cars. com, DealerRater and Yelp.

Maximum Reach Evaluates every sales and service customer every month to determine if they are eligible to upgrade into a newer vehicle with no money out-ofpocket. This generates an average of 3,700 legitimate upgrade opportunities every month.

Minimum Risk Eliminates dependence on list-pulling and other manual processes that allow in-equity customers to fall through the cracks. Automating outbound marketing to upgrade prospects assures that 100% of upgrade opportunities receive compelling loan / lease offers every month for as long as they own their vehicles.

Real Offers. Real Cars.

Increased conversion rates by giving upgrade eligible customers authentic, fundable payment offers on in-stock vehicles. This generates 43% of new car sales every month with up to 30% of upgrade-eligible customers choosing to purchase the vehicle shown in their offer proposal.

Every Base Covered Uses a cloud-based marketing platform that feeds real-time data to every component of their automated retention strategy. This aligns the efforts of the dealership’s departments so that customers receive the same information no matter where they engage the dealership — from home (via marketing communications and the Internet), in the service lane or in the showroom.

Å READ FULL STORY