Fuse Autotech Chief Executive Officer Colton Ray and Director of Industry Relations Alan Krutsch recently sat down with AutoLeadStar Vice President of Marketing Ilana Shabtay for an episode of the “InsideAuto” podcast. In their discussion, they tackle modern auto retail pricing and process, supply and demand, the future of automotive retail, and more.
Give the episode a watch now:
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Like the band Timbuk 3 famously sang in its 1986 hit song "The Future's So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades," the retail automotive industry is currently “getting good grades” in terms of sales. However, to realize a future so bright — one for which donning shades is truly necessary, dealers today need to ensure sustainable success.
In this edition of the “InsideAuto” podcast hosted by Ilana Shabtay of AutoLeadStar, Colton Ray and Alan Krutsch of Fuse posit that the future of automotive retail is for dealers to compete on customer experience vs. price, citing the influence of other retail experiences and technology innovation outside the automotive business as the key drivers fueling this change.
Keep reading for highlights from the podcast:
Alan Krutsch: Customers just aren't going to stand for the lack of transparency in turning what should be a pretty exciting day getting a new car into this 2 to 4-hour marathon. And so, our perspective is that this is coming. We can either be out in front of it and create the future, or we can get dragged along…
I think one of the things that is holding us back is primarily success. Dealers are coming off of a couple of really good years. Most of them are probably going to have a really good year this year because of artificial supply constraints. So it is a seller's market, and you combine that with, ‘we've always done it this way.’ The motivation to change is maybe not acute at this point.
Ilana Shabtay: There's a lot of demand and not a lot of supply. That being said, it's not going to be like that forever. Dealers need to set up some kind of system so that they don't end up being a Blockbuster when there's Netflix around.
I think we're kind of losing sight of that when we’re seeing the gross numbers and the profits right now. It's hard to understand that there's still going to be a time when supply is going to come back to normal. And there needs to be a process in place to get your dealership to a point where shoppers are going to be excited to come to your dealership.
Colton Ray: We've been guilty of this in our business where we add vendor after vendor, and they don't talk to each other. Every vendor does a specific vertical and nothing else. When I think about advertising or marketing, customers interact with one ad, and then something completely different happens out of the CRM. There’s just no connectivity... and that's what customers expect…
These are the things that dealerships need to start thinking about now: how do we create a consistent online marketing / digital retail / in-store process that really never breaks the customer's expectations — one in which we know what's happening from beginning to end?
>> Check out the full episode transcript here.
Request a demo of Fuse’s software now to see firsthand how the right auto retail pricing and process can better align your dealership’s customer experience with today’s retail customer expectations.