Ken Garff Automotive, Swickard Auto, Reynolds and Reynolds execs tout value of retail data

LAS VEGAS — Dealership group executives and Reynolds and Reynolds President Chris Walsh on Thursday touted the value of data in auto retail.

Abe Samari, director of retail strategy at Swickard Auto Group, spoke at a session sponsored by Reynolds and Reynolds at Automotive News Retail Forum: NADA. He recalled how his group lost access to data temporarily during a dealership management system change.

"All the management team, they were all like blind mice walking around," lamenting their inability to see metrics, he said. "It was very telling."

Samari said Swickard Auto became motivated to leverage data after a conference where there were companies significantly smaller than his group using data tools.

Swickard Auto Group, of Las Vegas, ranks No. 48 on Automotive News' list of the top 150 dealership groups based in the U.S., retailing 16,422 new vehicles in 2022.

Sam Jarvie, vice president of sales and finance and insurance operations at Ken Garff Automotive Group, described using data for better and potentially more lucrative customer interactions. Nearly all customers start their car shopping journey online, and "we start collecting data from that point," he said.

Walsh said when a customer does part of the shopping process online and then visits a dealership, "it can't feel like you're starting over again." Data collected online about them should be accessible within the store for a seamless transition, he said.

"When a customer does so much research online, if we start back at this first step of the sales process, it's very frustrating for them," Jarvie said.

Recognizing the customer's previous interaction with the store also is helpful in the service department, Jarvie said. If a customer declined recommended services on a visit to the store and the dealership then fails to propose that vehicle work the next time, "they start to wonder if we told them the truth last time," Jarvie said.

Ken Garff Automotive keeps track of such information and makes it available to staff, Jarvie told Automotive News.

Ken Garff Automotive, of Salt Lake City, ranks No. 9 on Automotive News' list of the top 150 dealership groups, retailing 54,371 new vehicles in 2022.

Walsh said much of the information collected on dealership customers is what he would call "rear-view data." The dealership knows what has happened but not what the consumer will do in the future.

"I think that's the next step," Walsh said, describing a scenario in which a customer known to be looking at SUVs is marketed SUVs specifically.

Samari and Walsh also described cases where artificial intelligence could be used to sift through data and find other customer connections. Samari said Swickard Auto is using AI to examine its camera feeds and study the locations of customers and employees. Walsh also discussed the idea of having AI examine transcripts of customer phone calls and prioritize customer engagement based on key information such as the words "ready to buy" or an upset customer.