What Should You Do At Your Dealership?

In the last chapter, we discussed the Internet and the impact it is having on RV dealerships throughout the U.S. In this chapter, let’s discuss what dealers should do to stay in touch with the modern world.

Firstly, every dealership needs to establish a web presence. When the telephone was first invented, many were reluctant to buy one because they thought it was a passing fad (they were wrong). The telephone became an absolute necessity to stay competitive and profitable. What about cell phones, FAX machines, and personal computers? It’s the same story; dealerships are finding that they must have all of these devices to communicate and process the paperwork required in the RV business. Eventually, RV manufacturers will require every dealer to     submit     its     warranty     claim     forms      and      parts orders electronically. Because we are children of the new electronic market, each dealer should budget a small amount of money to set up a website in order to display its electronic store marketing catalog. You don’t need to spend tons of money building a fancy ‘e-commerce’ site. Instead, what you need is a good, practical, useful, and economical website.

9 Tips on Establishing Web Presence:

1. Set up a website that displays your store, inventory, parts, service, rentals, directions to your dealership, and contact phone numbers. Pictures and videos are an absolute must! Remember, your website is your electronic catalog. When a person visits your site, they should get the feeling that they were at your actual dealership.
2. Market your service department BIG TIME! Believe it or not, you will sell more and more RVs on the net when customers feel that you will be able to provide for their service needs in the future. Service is the ticket to future Internet sales, so promote service on your site. I can’t stress this enough.
3. When you purchase your site, always buy both the .com and the .net sites.
4. When constructing a site, make it simple. E-shoppers don’t like to wait three minutes for pictures to appear when they first open your website; they are very impatient people. Speaking for myself, when a site takes more than a minute to load, I usually leave it and go elsewhere. The logic is that if it takes too long to open up page one, how much time am I going to waste looking at inventory?
5. Appoint one or two individuals to handle all incoming e- mails and telephone calls generated by your website. When you advertise on the web, offer special incentives which require them to contact these specific individuals in order to qualify for the ‘special e-price’. One of the biggest sins you can commit against an e-shopper is to fail to respond to them within the first 24 hours. Your selected e-team staff can be sensitive to the e-customers’ needs by providing digital pictures, e-mails, and customer support to the net shoppers on a timely basis. Don’t give your e-traffic to just anyone! You must appoint a specialist; otherwise, you’re wasting both your time and money advertising on the net.