This was my first ever NADA--though it certainly won’t be my last. One of my big aha’s was how well NADA synthesizes themes and focuses dealer attention on what is coming. They’re uniquely positioned to identify trends and create educational experiences to help the whole industry get sharper, and it was great to see them use that superpower. 

In the General Session, Paul Walser (2021 NADA Chairman and President of Walser Automotive Group) identified three key questions that I agree are massively important for dealers to ask and answer. 

If you missed his presentation, he asked:

HOW DO WE: 

  • Get rid of pain points?
  • Effectively share data?
  • Take the good from other models and incorporate it into the franchise model?

If you’ve just returned from Las Vegas, you may be like me--in that transitional moment of trying to catch up while also processing how to make good on what you learned at NADA. 

Foureyes has been grappling with the same questions that Walser identified in his presentation, and we’ve built solutions to help dealerships move quickly from consideration into action with each of them. 

Question 1: How do we get rid of pain points?

The process to help someone buy a car is complex. Your buyers are likely moving between your website, the phone, and in-person at your dealership, which opens up opportunities for customer pain points. Little things like missed calls, leads going unlogged in your CRM, or delayed follow-up can lead to customer frustration. 

Foureyes helps address this by bringing software into key moments in the sales process. Your salespeople sell, not our software. But our software can help them do a better job more consistently so that your customers experience fewer pain points. 

For example: 

  • Safety Net collects all your website forms, chat, and phone calls, and compares them with the CRM. If your legitimate sales leads aren’t present in the CRM within hours, Foureyes logs the leads for you. This is how we recover the 11.7% of unlogged leads every year. 
  • Sales Enablement gives salespeople visibility into the website activity of your sales leads. That way they know to call Sally, that phone-up from 28 days ago, who’s been back on the website six times in the last 24 hours.

Question 2: How do we effectively share data?

This has been the #1 question driving Foureyes recently. We’ve seen how hard the promise of big data has failed in automotive, and we’ve been innovating to solve that pain directly. 

At NADA 2022, we launched the Unified Data Platform so that dealerships can take the information that’s locked in siloed systems and bring it together to make more informed decisions. You can read more about the Unified Platform here, but briefly it:

  • Collects. The UDP brings together your website data, inventory data, and CRM data in a matter of minutes.
  • Connects. The Unified Data Platform unlocks the data from your siloed systems and applies hygiene so you can compare apples to apples.
  • Directs. The UDP starts with pre-built reports for visibility into the data needed to lead your business or import the raw files into your own data warehouse.

We believe that the Unified Data Platform is a key stepping stone to help dealers and dealer groups effectively use their data and get everyone on the same page on the problems in their sales and marketing ecosystem that need to be addressed. 

Question 3: How do we take the good from other models and incorporate it into the franchise model?

Other models demonstrate where we need to be in terms of the experiences customers are demanding, and Foureyes is at our best when we take what we know about technology, systems, and engineering and pair it with what our customers are seeing and feeling in automotive. You are the experts in your business, and we are the creative thinkers and technical problem solvers who can make it work in the context of automotive. 

Take for example Prospect Engagement. Similar to the experience you find in running for world-class e-commerce, Prospect Engagement helps automotive dealers deliver email follow-up experiences reminiscent of Zillow and Amazon. We love to make it work for franchisees. 

My NADA Takeaway

Walking the show floor, talking to dealers, and attending sessions, I can see how the experience is fun and also overwhelming for dealers. 

How do you know what to try next and what problem to focus on? 

My two cents: Take the clear synthesis of trends from NADA for your focus and give Foureyes a chance to win your business. We prefer to let dealerships try our software for free so you can see if it works for you. Get in touch, and we’ll get you set up right away on whichever products make the most sense for your dealership today.