In the age of digital technologies, it is clear that customers demand more. What the customer wants must become a prerogative. Every store, every interactive kiosk, every car dealership. We all need to understand the power that digital signage has when it comes to improving the user experience.

Digital Signage Today recently published five tactics you need to keep in mind if you want to grab your customer’s attention. We wanted to expand on this a little further to help apply this knowledge to car dealers.

Digital signs and boards have the capability of grabbing your in-store customers’ attention quickly.  There are many ways to use this to your advantage to improve the customer experience at your store.

How to improve UX with digital signage:

1. Mind the environment

The first thing you need to keep in mind is the ’where’: where do you plan to present your content, so the customers can see it and respond to it? Since people have a very short attention span today (8 seconds, according to Microsoft), and they grab their phones the minute they feel bored or unstimulated by their environment, you first need to understand where exactly at your dealership this point is and reverse its effects.

So, where do they get bored?

The sitting room is a logical answer. While your customers are waiting for a quick repair or for a sales person to come and see them, you can place a digital board in front of the couch and present what you have. New cars, part sales, and special deals, you name it!

Another option is the POS – point of sale – somewhere near the cash register. If customers are waiting in line, you can distract them from their phones and grab their attention with digital signs. Here you can also add banner TVsocial networking buttons so customers can connect with you on social networks.

2. Dynamics

Another thing to keep in mind is the ’how’: how do you present content? Given the aforementioned short attention span, DST suggests introducing your signage ads more dynamically. For example, instead of boring your customers to death with the same song or video, you can create new jingles and slice your video messages into several shorter segments, lasting for about 5 seconds each. Make them fast, make them interactive, make them distinctive, and make them drive your customers’ engines!

3. High resolution

And last, but certainly not least, are the technicalities: on what will you present your content? We have recently discussed on our blog that digital signage is for everybody, not just the pros and big dealerships, and we stand by that. If you still do not have enough assets for a 4K TV, you can do just as well with a full HD device.

However, if you are lucky enough to own a bigger screen with better display – then make it worthwhile.

Mind you that the content you deliver on a 4K TV is supposed to be just of as good a quality as the device. As DST put it:

“If your display is positioned far away from consumers, they likely won’t notice the difference between 4K and plain old HD. 4K is designed to be viewed up close. Also, it’s important not to rely on 4K as a crutch for sub par content. As 4K becomes more commonplace, customers will likely stop being impressed by it.”

This means that if your dealership is spacey and you aim to attract users from another room, or even coming from the outside – you can adjust brightness and make it better visible to the people coming in. On the other hand, if you are in a tighter space, it would be best to stick to a lower quality content and regular display brightness.

Extra tip

The ‘what’: What you display on your dealership screens is supposed to be memorable. Now, every dealer has their products, but the textual content which surrounds the offer is also meant to grab the attention of your potential customers. We have recently published a blog post with five rules for effective digital signage copy, so if you have time – give it a shot and learn how to write texts that sell products displayed on your digital signs.

What about you? Have you used these tactics at your dealership? Do they work? Have you come up with some of your ways of improving user experience and sales with automotive digital signage at your store? Let us know on our Facebook page.

Like this article? Read more about digital signage:

• 5 facts about digital signage to uplift your dealership sales
• Digital signage trends in 2017
• A brief history of digital signage

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Article originally written by Ryan Williams and published on www.advantagetec.com on September 12, 2017.