I am amazed when making inquiries at the tonality of the person answering the phone. Although some are cheery and seem genuinely happy to assist you they are few and far between. These calls are being made to people in the "customer service" entities of the businesses I select to contact- particularly the automotive business.

     I contacted a particular dealership and one of the sales people answered the call. What I got was "Sales" in a tone of voice that it was an imposition…

The annual Swapalease.com March Madness Driver Survey results are in, and most drivers believe Duke will win this year’s tournament, while most say UCLA is their favorite team. The annual survey by online car lease marketplace, Swapalease.com, asks basketball fans to pair up their favorite teams with certain types of cars to coincide with the NCAA tournament. The online survey is presented to more than 2,500 drivers across the U.S. each year.…

Black Book, a division of Hearst Business Media that provides industry-leading used vehicle valuation and residual value forecast solutions, announced today the Black Book Used Vehcile Retention Index, designed to offer an unbiased, accurate view of the strength of today’s used wholesale market values. Click here to obtain a copy of the latest Index.

The Black Book Used Vehicle Retention Index is calculated…

New data reveals key tips to clean up websites leading to 42% increase in CTRs, 15% profit lift, and a 5-fold increase in lead data

INDIANAPOLIS, IN - MARCH 13, 2017 - Decluttering dealership websites and focusing on targeted messaging and “personalized” Calls to Action (CTA) can significantly increase click-through rates, lead data collection, and, ultimately, dealership profits, according to consumer website data(1) analyzed by PERQ. PERQ, who are experts in website…

Timonium, MD – March 13th, 2017-- Helion Automotive Technologies, a leading Information Technology (IT) Managed Services Provider, today issued proactive security recommendations for auto dealerships that may experience customer data breaches. The recommendations come on the heels of an incident that occurred last month and was widely reported in news outlets.

In…

Someone's always coming by the dealership selling "plate lunches." Good ole', waist-busting southern cooking such as Smothered Chicken with rice and gravy or Fried Fish and Crawfish Etoufee-these plates are so loaded down with food, you can literally hear the Styrofoam cracking when they hand it to you. 

Most vendors sell their dinners the same…

In your marketing strategies, you should be working hard to tailor your message to specific audiences. Luckily, Google has a tool that can be used to help you. It allows us to show a certain piece of content to an audience if it meets a certain criteria. Learn more by watching this week's Hard Facts with Samantha!…

With the massive onslaught of vehicle recalls it is pretty much guaranteed that all parties involved are paying attention. Today that ranges from consumers to OEMs to dealers to insurance companies; and tomorrow that will soon include rideshare companies like Uber and Lyft.

One of the biggest, and perhaps most well-known recalls, is unrepaired Takata airbags…

Many of us relate business travel tips to helping us enjoy our business travel and nothing else. If the tip helps us save money, time and energy while on a business trip, we accept it with open arms. However, there is more to these tips, and it can effectively make your life beautiful in every…

In today’s hyper-competitive industry, women buyers are crucial for dealer’s success. Almost 8 million new cars are being purchased by women alone. And, Certified Trusted Dealers are expanding their business to this powerful buying segment. In fact, these Certified Trusted Dealers have a cumulative 97.1% satisfaction score vs non-certified trusted dealers 85.5% satisfaction score. What a difference!

Women-Drivers has just compiled our annual comprehensive report on…

If you are a Facebook user – just like roughly one-third of the planet – then you have probably noticed that Facebook sends birthday alerts via text messages. If you google the words “Facebook birthday alert texts” you will get a ton of results from websites where people asked how to disable or turn them off. Annoyed by this or not, this issue has risen a lot of…

There is an interesting statistic that is use when measuring customer pay sales called technician hours sold per repair order. This takes the average technician hour sold in the dealership and is used to see how good there advisors are performing. I admit to monitoring this result very closely looking for opportunities for improvement. I’ve…

Welcome to this week's edition of Black Book Market Insights, with in-depth analysis of used car and truck valuation trends and insights straight from the auction lanes. Click here to download…

 According to Black Book® data, the average price of a used vehicle for model years 2011-2015 depreciated by -0.8% in February. Cars overall saw depreciation of –0.8% versus trucks, which saw –0.7% depreciation. All vehicles are averaging a 12-month depreciation change of –17.9%.

In February, Small Pickups preformed the best, increasing their value by 0.2%. Vehicles in the Small Pickups segment include the Toyota Tacoma, Chevrolet Colorado, Nissan Frontier and Honda Ridgeline.…

As stated in Automotive News by an AdvantageTec texting client,

“Jose Hurtado, service director at Irvine BMW, Irvine Mini and Rolls-Royce Orange County in Irvine, Calif., said that after the service…

Women are more emotional. Yes, I said it!

Emotions play a big part in most women’s purchasing decisions. Yes, I said it! It doesn’t mean we are less informed. It means we use a combination of facts and feelings to make buying decisions. In case you don’t believe me - gentlemen, when was the last time you spent an entire day looking for the perfect outfit for one…

Business owners and marketers alike have long been set in the idea that in order to make money you must spend money. While this is inherently true, the amount spent and on what mediums, can drastically vary. Since 2009, before the height of social media and paid digital advertising, I have been focused on finding alternative strategies for my clients and my own companies, instead of opting for the expensive clutter-filled traditional mediums like print and radio.

While…

I'm a big advocate for sales training. I think meetings and training are important aspects of building a strong sales team. However, there's more to team building than just meetings and trainings. Sometimes your team needs to step out of their comfort zone, get competitive, get physical and have some plain…

An associate of mine recently told me an interesting story about their 75-year-old father, who purchased an import, rather than a domestic vehicle, for the first time in over 60 years. This was sometime around 2010.

When it was time to replace his domestic minivan, the first thing my associate’s father did was to check the Sunday paper to see in any big sales were…