By Grant Dunning
 There
is no question that the internet is impacting the way consumers
shop and buy automobiles. The question is: what are the
rules of the game for interacting with customers in a quickly
changing high-tech environment?
The internet has provided consumers with
a medium that allows them the ability to access enormous
amounts of information from the convenience of their home.
Although the internet saves consumers endless hours of research
time, it does not provide the human touch the consumers
are used to. The successful businesses of the 21st century
will be the companies that combine high tech with high touch.
Amazon.com has been extremely successful providing consumers
with a retail website that offers a huge selection of items
at reasonable prices. Even though Amazon.com based their
entire business model on technology, they have realized
the importance of trying to establish a bond with the consumer.
A friend of mine had recently bought a fair number of books
from Amazon.com. Several weeks later he received a nice
gift in the mail ( a nice coffee mug with the Amazon.com
logo) thanking him for his business. Did Amazon have to
send a gift to my friend? The answer is no. There is a reason
that they chose to invest in sending the consumer a gift.
Their mission is to capture that customer for life. They
want to create a high touch relationship with a consumer
whose internet buying experience involves a placing an order
without any human contact via a modem.
So how does this story relate to your dealership? More
and more customers are using the internet to research and
buy automobiles. Current statistics state that 60% of households
own a computer and over half of them are connected to the
internet. It is projected that 90% of households will be
connected to the internet by 2005.
In the future, whether your customers buy an automobile
from you over the internet or in person, the chances are
good that they eliminated a lot of the comparative shopping,
that happens today, with researching the internet. As the
human contact with your customers begins to diminish, their
needs to be a marketing plan to build relationships with
your customer. Just like Amazon.com, you need to reach out
and try to capture that customer for life. If you don’t,
your competition will!
In the impersonal computer world, you can separate yourself
from the competition by thanking your customers with a gift.
The gesture of letting your customers know how much you
appreciate their business means a lot. The amount of good
will that results in future business is invaluable. Make
sure that your marketing strategy includes increasing the
“high touch” side of your business as the industry
goes “high tech”.
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