Retailer evolves processes to meet needs of all customers

Joe Lukich joined #1 Cochran Automotive as a sales business development representative about a decade ago.

Today he holds the newly created role of strategic variable operations director, a position he took early in 2021. Lukich's job is to think about how a traditional dealership needs to evolve to meet the rapidly changing needs of consumers and what modern retailing might look like at #1 Cochran — from online transacting, to the finance-and-insurance office, to the intersection of multiple software applications, to staffing and skill sets.

Having a high-level look at the entire process is important to the Monroeville, Pa.-based group, with 26 stores near Pittsburgh, Lukich said.

"I don't know if it makes us generally more profitable than others. I definitely know it makes us more nimble," he said. "I definitely know it's helped us navigate COVID, and I definitely know that however the industry changes over the next 10 years, we're set up in all instances. If we need to be terribly traditional? Hey, bring it on. And if we need to be electronic experts, we're good."

Lukich, 35, spoke with Staff Reporter Lindsay VanHulle about how the industry is evolving. Here are edited excerpts.

On defining modern retailing:

To me, it's a great experience between us and the customer that is really facilitated by a strong technology underground that allows the customer to do everything from buy a car online to buy a car in store. It's the same tooling that facilitates them both. You don't need to have these separate silos if you want to do this there or this here. The modernization of it is the same thing, whether you do it brick-and-mortar-less or you want to come in and you want the traditionalism of it.

On using iPads in the store:

We really like when the customer can physically, even on an iPad, get engaged with the process. All good things happen. We even promote that from the standpoint of checking the customer in [and] getting their information. Our most creative, skilled consultants hand the customer the iPad. It's a no-pressure approach: "Hey, I think you'll find we do things a little bit differently here. Let's get you checked in. This will give us the ability to track everything we do today, and you will be able to take this with you all digitally. And if you want to continue it from home, there's no paperwork you got to carry." It's real transparent.

On the digital shift in retail:

I don't like the term "digital retail." To me, that is a tool. I call it "digitalizing retail." To me, it's the action of the event that needs to take place And we're trying to do that as digitally as possible, whether it is from utilizing Roadster, an environment that is not paper, to how do we do more of the F&I portions of it digitally.

On e-commerce during the pandemic:

I couldn't have been more thankful that we decided to have that digital retail tool, the ability for us to digitalize several of those car-buying events — the sharing of the inventory, the payment calculation, the trade ingestion, the ability for us to accept documents electronically.

The gap between where we were and the industry closed in 2020. We certainly saw more people jump on the bandwagon of digital retail. I feel like the gap is widening again. I think there has been a little bit of regression to the [mean]. Even in our own traffic analysis, we see more customers — not as many as pre-COVID, but we see more customers — walking in vs. this time last year, even with the height of a lot of the pandemic still out there.

On what may come next:

We want to be able to allow the customer to do whatever they want to do to buy a car, from wherever they want to do it.

We have traditional customers that still want some level of negotiations. We have customers that are OK with coming in, not coming in — they're sort of agnostic to it. And then we have customers that are just, "I want to do it all online. I can't stand being there. I don't want to be there." Those are the ones that are finding any way possible to run away from us. So we want to create an environment that they feel safe and feel like they've gotten a great experience in. And we know the quantity of individuals in those buckets will fluctuate. To what degree, I have no idea. Is it going to be all virtual one day? Who knows. We just want to be able to be set up that we can do anything with any customer.

From an internal side, the bigger challenge is: How do we create a sales team that has the mindset to facilitate all three of those transactions?