Test videos put at-home shoppers in virtual passenger seat

The pandemic has kept more car shoppers out of dealership showrooms, but it hasn't stopped some of those buying online from getting a test drive, complete with a salesperson tutorial on some of the key features.

The catch is that the drive happens virtually.

Gwinnett Place Honda near Atlanta offers visitors to its website a passenger-seat view of new and used inventory while a salesman wheels the vehicles through the city. The digital excursions create a sense of ease for consumers, letting them know they don't have to come in to get a closer look at products, said Danika Windom, marketing director for the store in Duluth, Ga.

Windom said customers have learned about vehicles safely from home through the drives, which have become more critical in recent months and helped the store secure sales it otherwise may have lost.

"Our consultants like being in front of the camera to assist themselves in getting customers," Windom told Automotive News. "It helped generate some leads."

Dealerships that have added virtual test drives to their online repertoires in recent years suddenly have a unique connection point to shoppers during a health crisis, adding an interactive element to online research. Panoramic videos from production company FlowFound allow viewers to look around the cabins on their mobile devices or computers during the presentations and get a firsthand glimpse at how technologies such as adaptive cruise control work in real-world conditions.

Stores such as Gwinnett Place Honda were ahead of the curve with the 360-degree videos, deploying the digital showcases several years ago as a perk to make their websites a better resource for prospective consumers. The COVID-19 outbreak has increased the importance of these videos at a time when some shoppers are hesitant to visit showrooms and has sparked a rush of stores that are adopting the technology.

Nick Cybela, FlowFound's CEO, said sales jumped 600 percent at the onset of the pandemic. He foresees the crisis inducing a mass adoption of video technology in general, not just for virtual test drives. Cybela said the videos need to be executed well to be beneficial to dealerships.

The FlowFound team goes to a dealership to film the virtual drives, donning face masks for safety these days. The videos have on-screen graphics that correspond to features the salesperson discusses.

During a Honda Accord test drive for the Gwinnett Place store, the salesman shows how the automatic braking and lane-departure warning work and explains what happens when drivers switch to sport mode. All of the segments have visual aids.

When viewing these drives on a phone, users can move the device to see the interior from different perspectives. On a computer, users can use the mouse to look around.

Gwinnett Place promotes its virtual drives on Facebook and Instagram. The dealership's website also has a test-drive landing page for the latest models.

"One of the largest elements that we hear from new clients is they're looking for ways to differentiate, and more importantly, something that just builds confidence and trust with customers," Cybela said.

Kevin Frye, director of marketing for Jeff Wyler Automotive Group, believes the videos have given his stores a competitive advantage. The group, which has stores in Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana, began using the videos around three years ago as a complement to its digital retailing tools.

Frye said shoppers in Kentucky had to rely on the virtual drives while showrooms were shut down in the state as a safety precaution.

"From the comfort of their couch, they can virtually test drive that vehicle," Frye said. "It is definitely going to be a contributing factor to more 100 percent online sales in the future. But we're still seeing even with people doing that, they're going to come in and test drive physically if they can. But it's a very forward-thinking concept."

Johnson Automotive Group in Raleigh, N.C., has found another benefit of virtual test drives: They reel in out-of-state buyers.

The group has Lexus, Subaru, Hyundai and Genesis stores using FlowFound's videos. Videos for a Porsche store are being filmed.

Erick Kirks, the group's director of marketing, said the stores have steadily built a library of these test drives since they began using them for the 2018 model year. Kirks said the pandemic has changed the way a typical customer purchases a vehicle, and more people began viewing the virtual drives after the crisis began.

If a customer wants to engage and gather information in a certain way, Kirks said, that's how the stores want to present it.

Surveys have found that consumers enjoy the videos, and the group has crafted digital ad campaigns around the virtual drives over the years via social media and other platforms to raise awareness of them.

"We're selling cars from further and further away because inventory is really tough to get right now," Kirks told Automotive News, "and a lot of these people that are buying used cars are only viewing a VR test drive before they agree to buy the car and have us deliver it to them two or three states away."