If you had to identify the single most important aspect of a relationship, what would it be? Love? Empathy? Communication?
The partnership between dealer and digital vendor is a lot like any relationship. No, we don’t need to fall in love and buy each other chocolate (I mean, we’ll take them if you’re offering!), but effective communication from both sides is vital to reach your digital potential. Successful communication will lead to your dealership’s goals being met, whatever they may be; increased website traffic, increased lead generation, and/or selling more vehicles.
We believe in regular, open communication between the vendor and dealership, which is a significant reason why we have such a high retention rate with our clients. Mike Gignac, President and Dealer Principal at Richmond Chrysler, kindly sat down with us and gave us a performance review, mentioning that one of the things he loves about convertus is our communication. Click on the thumbnail below to watch the short video!
Without communication in a relationship, what happens?
There is a lack of trust from both sides and, if it continues, both partners may start looking for other options and the relationship may ultimately end. If a dealership decides to part from it’s digital agency, there may be an issue with the vendor not helping the dealer achieve the results that they were looking for, but what if the issue was in the fact that they weren’t communicating with each other and working together as a team? If they part ways without communicating about the issues and challenges on both sides, by leaving, the problem isn’t actually being addressed and will just continue to the next partnership. But, what if the bad experience is just miscommunication?
So what does effective vendor & client communication look like?
At Convertus, we know that dealers are extremely busy, so each month we send an email to all dealer partners with an invitation to book a reporting call with us. We invite dealers to book the time that suits their calendar as it allows for flexibility if things pop up. Invariable things get busy, so it’s quick and simple to change the time for the reporting call. We suggest booking at least one call a month to discuss your dealerships objectives, success and challenges over the course of the month while we dive into the results that we’ve achieved and ensure we’re aligned.
During these reporting calls, we value when our dealers engage with our team and provide insight into how everything is going on the showroom floor. We want to ensure our strategies and data are telling the same story online as they are at the dealership, then together we can ultimately improve our collaborative efforts each month, and we can more effectively design solutions to address challenges.
What sort of information do we, the vendor, want from our dealer partners?
To make our solutions and strategies as effective as possible, we want to know as much information as you can provide us! We ideally want to know anything that’s happening on the showroom floor so that we can more effectively and efficiently help you reach your goals.
We want to know:
- How is in-store traffic?
- How are sales going?
- What is your sales team focused on?
- What are the sales team targets?
- What are your internal goals?
- How can our marketing efforts align with those goals?
- What are the expected tangible outcomes for specific campaigns?
- Are the results what you expected and hoped for?
- Have your goals changed?
- How’s your marriage? Kids? Just kidding! Just making sure you’re still with us.
If we don’t receive valuable feedback such as the above, we may look at the goals set out originally by your dealership, and if the data shows that the campaigns or solutions are performing well, we may assume that everything is going perfectly, when the action in the showroom may tell a different tale!
Here at Convertus we have a saying:
“Teamwork makes the dream work”
– John Maxwell
As your digital vendor, we see our relationship with your dealership as a partnership, a true reciprocal and symbiotic relationship. We like to check in with our dealers each month to create a cohesive and collaborative digital strategy. If your goals are being met, then you sell more cars and ultimately make more money, and we get to keep your business.
If you’re wondering what it’s like to have a digital vendor that has your back, makes you feel heard and supported, shoot us a message and start the conversation. You’ll see why dealers like Mike Gignac in the video above choose to stay with us.