Pain points still present on journey to digital retailing

Being bigger doesn't make things easier.

That's the sentiment from three public auto retailer marketing executives as they look to meet automakers' customer experience expectations and provide end-to-end digital retailing solutions to customers across multiple brands and store websites in their large dealership groups. And meeting those directives amid an explosion of digital retailing tools while also delivering their own customer service strategies and online shopping platforms is tough, they contend.

The executives from Sonic Automotive Inc., Asbury Automotive Group Inc. and Penske Automotive Group Inc. shared their wishes and gripes, during a J.D. Power event last month, about the lack of workable off-the-shelf digital retailing tools and tricky-to-implement automaker customer experience requirements.

"We're a large group," said Tracy Cassady, executive vice president of marketing for Penske, the nation's second-largest new-vehicle retailer. "We have many brands, and we're trying to create this consistent process. ... And it really becomes a challenge to manage as more OEMs are adding these tools in the mix."

If Penske is forced to add tools, "our process just becomes fractured," Cassady said. "So I think we need to work a little bit better together because we can't really implement 20 different tools on our site."

Several brands, such as Nissan, Toyota, Lexus and Honda, have announced or launched their own online shopping tools and initiatives in recent months.
Asbury Chief Marketing Officer Miran Maric said the digital retailing tools used by dealerships today aren't meeting customer expectations and really are just lead generators.

"We have done a complete disservice to U.S. consumers" with the industry's collective digital offerings over the past five years, he said.

Maric wouldn't name vendors but said the tools available today are "always half-baked."

Consumers can log onto any dealership website — an Asbury store or a major metro market competitor — and find a "buy online" button, Maric said. But those buttons and systems are "the same lead-generation experience that our industry has been doing since the 1990s" and that have driven away customers for years, he added.

"The guest experience piece, you know, whether it's 50 percent online or 100 percent online, you got to make sure that the tool is pliable enough to be able to do that full transaction," Maric said.

Asbury aims to improve the process. In December, the nation's seventh-largest new-vehicle retailer launched Clicklane, a digital retailing platform that replaces its Push Start tool. It partnered with software company Gubagoo to build a platform that promises to complete an end-to-end buying process in minutes.

Sonic Chief Marketing Officer Rachel Richards said the nation's sixth-largest new-vehicle retailer last year decided it needed an online omnichannel approach. Omnichannel refers to technology and processes aimed at providing a seamless buying experience for consumers whether they shop online, in-store or both.

Richards said Sonic reached out to automakers to help create a "unified [customer relationship management] marketing communication approach" but found it challenging.

"The OEM has certain communications. The finance arm has certain communications. And the dealer has certain communications," she said. "And we wanted unified, relevant and timely messaging. And it sure was difficult, not because the OEM partner doesn't want to do that. It's just that the organizations are not set up that way to support a dealer group that has multiple different brands."

Richards said it will require an open technology platform and dealers and automakers sharing data to get to that better coordinated and unified customer experience.

"There's so many different tools and technologies that get partially there, but not the whole way there," she said. "I really think some sort of open technology platform that everyone buys into, but still differentiates themselves at the point of sale or point of the shopping process with a guest experience, would help."

Sonic late last year hired two outside experts to help bolster its e-commerce strategy. And the company in 2020 also partnered with Cox Automotive and Darwin Automotive to create a digital retailing platform for its franchised dealerships and used-vehicle EchoPark stores. A fully capable online buying process should be available at Sonic's stores by the end of 2021, Richards said.

At the beginning of the pandemic last year, Sonic had only about 10 stores connected to a digital retailing platform, Richards said. But the group quickly added the ability to all franchised dealerships and EchoPark stores, she said.

"It's not perfect by any means, and it does not solve the overall issue that we have to offer our guests or all consumers a good online shopping" experience, she said. "But it's a good start."

Penske's Cassady said consumers are using digital retailing tools more than ever before. Penske has worked to perfect its online shopping tools since 2015. Its Preferred Purchase tool never forces customers to share their information, Cassady said.
"We just constantly improve the system as it continues to grow and evolve with technology," she said.
Updates and additions have been necessary for Penske and other auto retailers.

"There's not a tool, like an off-the-shelf tool, that has it from A to Z," Cassady said. "You have to truly customize one."