Coronavirus Pushes Auto Dealers To Remove Customer Pain Points

It may have taken a global pandemic to cure the miserable malady consumer suffer from with impatience and, often, a lukewarm cup of coffee—the interminable process of buying a vehicle. It’s a process that can often take more than three hours from walking through the showroom doors, taking a test drive, dickering over price how much you’ll get for your trade-in, the dreaded visit to the finance office and finally, finally, getting the keys and driving away, breathing in that new car smell. 

George Karolis, a longtime auto executive and current president of financial services company, The Presidio Group, aptly characterized the distaste customers have for the process as a “historical stigma” during a Center for Automotive Research webinar on the subject last week. 

While most dealerships have long adopted an online presence, customers still needed to pay the showroom a visit. But the social distancing and sanitization imperatives brought on by the coronavirus pandemic have sparked dealerships to find ways to do business remotely while protecting employees and customers bringing in their vehicles for service. 

Recent studies have found that customers like the idea of not blowing the good part of a day or night cooling their heels at a salesperson’s cubicle as the process goes through its lengthy peristalsis. Dealers are understanding that and realize their showroom traffic may slow, but not their sales. 

A survey of 11,000 global customers in April by international consulting firm Capgemini revealed 64% of potential buyers today said they prefer to complete the entire transaction of buying a personal vehicle online. That’s up from 39% before the pandemic. Just under half, 46%, said they’d prefer to avoid visiting dealerships to compare financing and deals. 

In another consumer survey by financial services company KPMG 75% of the 2,500 respondents said they’d prefer to complete the paperwork and take delivery outside the dealership. While 83% said they’d never buy a vehicle without test driving it, 51% said they’d like that test drive to happen either at their homes (33%), offices (13%), or virtually (5%). 

“This ecommerce train is going to continue to accelerate—it’s not going back,” said Anthony Pordon, Executive Vice President, the Penske Automotive Group, during the CAR webinar.  “If you look at the pictures we have on the website, it’s not just picture of the exterior of a car rom one angle, there’s multiple angles, looking at everything on the inside of the vehicle, showing them what’s under the hood, the mileage. From a safety standpoint I think what you’ll see are more videos, more teaching, more informational type things that come from the dealership to the consumers to show them why they should do business with us and that we’re doing things to make them safer and to make them want to do business with us.” 

French tech company Dassault Systemes is seeing increased interest in its 3DExcite virtual showroom platform which uses a combination of virtual and augmented reality to provide up to date product visuals and information online.

“What the pandemic is outlining is very clear that the first question every automaker and dealer has to ask themselves is how do they engage with their potential clients?” said Philipp Krambeer, senior director of 3DExcite Americas at Dassault Systèmes, in a phone interview.

He said the company is in discussions with one automaker to create a model where its showrooms require only one physical vehicle, with features and options being displayed via the virtual showroom, giving consumers a way to see what’s available and dealers up- sell opportunities.

The virtual showroom is “not short term to replace physical showroom but a logical extension to what’s happening in the physical showroom,” explained Krambeer. 

Cox Automotive Inc., which owns such brands as Kelley Blue Book, Autotrader, Manheim Auctions, is addressing the need for dealers to ensure their vehicles are safe from a health standpoint. Cox’s RideKleen vehicle maintenance brand just launched PureProtect, which comes in single vehicle kits and high volume drums with applicators for fleet use. The company says a vehicle can be sanitized and disinfected in 10 minutes using PureProtect. A quick wipe-down or spritz with cleanser no longer cuts in during this time of avoiding any chance of transmitting or spreading a potentially deadly virus. 

During the CAR webinar, Patrick Manzi, chief economist at the National Automobile Dealers Association enumerated other changes brought on by the pandemic which include:

• Dealerships offering online sales with vehicle delivery
• Online service scheduling with vehicle dropoff and pickup
• Pre- and post-service visit vehicle sanitizing services

Indeed, it’s a whole new deal for dealers, and potentially a less time-consuming and safer one for customers. While many of these changes were brought on by a global pandemic, they’re changes that were long overdue and now likely to become standard operating procedures. It’s what Penske Automotive Group’s Anthony Pordon calls a “new normal,” and what The Presidio Group’s George Karolis declares, “This is the biggest opportunity in the history of the industry to transform and change.”