Here’s why the purchase experience is more important than ever

Episode Highlights:

 

(0:00) – Introduction

(0:37) – Episode beginning

(1:19) – Some more background on Bob

(3:16) – What’s on the horizon for automotive retail, electrification and customer experience?

(7:02) – Let the consumer control the deal, the “trust factor”

(10:27) – Buying an electric vehicle is different

(12:18) – Bob’s take on CSI

(13:20) – How to get in touch with Bob

 

Links

Connect With Bob Lanham

Check out CarNow

Transcript

Elena: Bob is here from CarNow and aside from a little bit of a technical difficulty glitch, we made it – we did it technology is good. Bob, how are you this morning?

Bob: We battled Zoom, we won. We got the meet at NADA more specifically J.D. Power so I’m excited to be here and chatting with you so this is good.

Elena: Yes same here and Bob I’ve been I’ve been a fan of yours for a while actually saw you speak at J.D. Power last year. I saw you speak at ASOTU in Philly. Go Eagles. So you know doing an interview today is kind of coming full circle. So I’d love for you to talk about your amazing automotive background and bring the listeners up to speed. You were at Meta, you’re now SVP in charge of manufacturer relations at CarNow. So please fill us in on your background.

Bob: Yeah, I’ll make it short and sweet. So I had the privilege of selling cars right after I graduated from from college back in ’97 and I’ve said this to many people I was fortunate to be dating a girl whose parents owned a number of stores at the time so but I will tell you they treated me like any anyone else and I was the commission only salesperson on the floor. So after after a breakup a positive breakup, there’s no there’s no love lost. I jumped into the digital advertising space ultimately, but focused in automotive and that was simply due to the fact that the woman I was dating who’s now my wife to be clear, so it’s not like I’m date hopping here, who is now my wife and mother of our three awesome children lived in essentially the Detroit Michigan area, you know, the suburbs of Detroit, Michigan and by default with General Motors and Ford Motor Company and at the time Chrysler which I know has had a number of different name changes now. Stellanis. You’re automatically in automotive, just by default, so and it was fun. I got to jump into digital advertising with MSN if anybody remembers MSN with Microsoft and there was a product called Car Point which turned into MSN autos, which was a specific research site. And then I had the opportunity to go to Yahoo, automotive again and then I was fortunate to open up the Midwest office for Hulu when we when we just launched and then Facebook for the last eight years and now CarNow which I’ll tell you I couldn’t be any more excited to be here because I am now as close to the dealer as I was when I sold cars, and that’s where I want to be that’s exactly where I want to be. So hopefully that was short and sweet to the point.

Elena: I love your story, Bob. I love it. And this is really such a great segue into my next question about dealers and electrification and CarNow and how that big jigsaw puzzle is kind of all coming together. So what do you really see on the horizon in terms of automotive retail, electrification and customer experience?

Bob: Oh, it’s a it’s a great question. Because the the the outlier or the disrupter is the EV part. Right? Are the OEMs going to sell it directly? Are the OEMs gonna let their dealers sell them are the OEMs gonna let them sell them but charge a millions of dollars to upgrade their infant like wow, plus, we still have a number of electric OEMs that we know will hit the market. Right that will sell direct so its completely disrupt the industry but I’ll just I’ll answer it this way. My my biggest passion and has been for the last 15 years is the purchase experience. And I heard this the other day and I’ve said this, you know elsewhere so sorry if you’ve heard this, but hopefully it sinks in – a dealer sells to the consumer the way the dealer wants to sell, not necessarily how the consumer wants to buy now. Everyone has data. Well, a consumer doesn’t want to buy online. Are we are we for sure on that? Like what is your online process like? Does it stop somewhere where they have to? You know, I presented a slide at an event Brian Pasch is AAAS they call it now. And I had a slide which which was essentially the concept of are we getting the data that we ultimately want to get or are we getting unbiased data? And what I meant by that was and I might have said it probably better than I just said it now. But what I meant was that we set up specific processes online a certain way, and it’s the only way the consumer can go. So that’s the data we’re receiving. We’re not getting any omni channel unbiased data because we have specific setups. So you’re simply getting the data based on how you set up your platform or your purchase experience etc. So long winded I think the EV part is separate from from from maybe the purchase experience, but I think it’s a disruptor because the OEMs just said, Well, I can make more money people Tesla proved I’ll buy a car online. I’ll click click, click, click Buy, Rivian prove that I’ll click click click buy. So no one can disprove that people are willing to buy a car online because that was the only price so that was the only way you could buy a Tesla. Right? So I’m just torn because I’m on the dealer side, but just so you know like that, but I have to challenge them because there’s a better way to do this. Alex Flores who you may know who sits in Austin and has stores in Austin and and El Paso and he’s a great story said last week one of the comments that hit me in this comment was from Brian Benstock, a big voice in the industry and a great challenger for in the industry, he said my competition is not the Honda store up the street of the Toyota store across the street. It’s Amazon. It’s Apple. It’s all these companies that have built a phenomenal buying experience that now the millennials who are the largest population of car buyers, they own 17 of 27 car segments with a large population. How do they want to buy anything?

Elena: It’s customer experience, yeah, because we’ve all been programmed to have that experience of obviously I’m not a huge purchase like a vehicle, but every other purchase that I’m making could might as well fall in that Amazon bucket. So why can’t my car purchase fall in the Amazon bucket as well?

Bob: It’s a mindset. It’s an expectation, right. You know, when I was at Meta, we used to have a stat and don’t you know, everyone it’s I can’t remember the exact percentage but it was something 68% of people want to communicate with a business the same way they communicate with friends and family.
So what what my biggest initiative that I that I hope I am trying as others is when you let the consumer control the deal. You will win and win more and what I mean by win more, is they will pay you more it’s proven that customer experience slash convenience, which is the customer experience. People are willing to pay a premium for. It’s proven. In auto, outside of auto it doesn’t matter. I know we all have our own personal experiences. I totally get it and you know, they’re not all the same, right? Like just I’m just one little segment but and I want to give LaFontaine a huge shout out so they’re one of the larger dealer groups in Michigan. They’re up the road for me well, they they have surrounded me with stores now and and I had to take my son to a soccer clinic an hour and a half away but there was a vehicle that I have been I okay for a while and I went online just to see if it was still there. And it was and and I called my good friend Max Muncy who works there. I texted him and this they’re they’re unique. Their unique the LaFontaine family and Ryan who runs it is just they’re just very unique. And I texted him back said look, it’s 10 o’clock. I just want to test drive it like all I want to do is kick the tires. I have to get my son to East Lansing. Like, can you just set me up with someone that’s just going to let me do that and then I can be on our way and he was up in northern Michigan and he actually responded and he’s like, Oh, I’m sitting on the back porch and – dude. non emergency. He connected me with the GM and and I literally showed up with my son. And you know, after getting my driver’s license, as they 100% showed right for legality reasons. The sales rep gives me the keys he’s like, so yeah, whenever you come back, I came back. I flipped them the keys he’s like, just give us a call when when you’re like literally that was it. And I’m not ready to make a commitment on a car right now. But right now, I have an infinitive towards LaFontaine. Like right now, they’re my top choice because of how they treated me when I wanted to simply test drive and and I get it we have numbers to hit. We want to check the box on the board, right we I get it. But I do believe if we offer that experience up, that we can change this perception that buying a car sucks and that’s that’s factual in some data points right that buying a car sucks so I’ll close with my comment on this. It’s been proven statistically roadster came out before Roadster was bought by CDK. They came out with research in 2019. Okay, pre pandemic, that people cared more about the experience of buying a car than the price of the car. In 2020. Cox came out with a very similar study, and one of their data points was 64% of people cared more about the experience of buying versus the price. Why does that matter? We came out with a loyalty study that said 80% of people who had a positive buying experience from a particular brand. So brand slash dealership were exponentially more likely to stay loyal to that brand. There it is, we know what we have to do. We just have to do it.

Elena: Exactly. Now, here’s the million dollar question Bob. Does this all transfer over to electric vehicles?

Bob: Tesla’s the only reason why we look at buying an electric vehicle different it’s the only because they were the first to sell direct that’s the only reason why we look at evey separate if Tesla came out with a dealership franchise model, we then none of this would be a conversation. Right? Exactly. If they will fall in line with our current processes and we will be battling but they’re the only reason why. I’m not here to try to save the Earth generating the electricity is probably just as bad as like there’s all these back and forth. I love new things. I like to try new things like to be you know, on top of so I just want an electric vehicle. But I can’t get one right now. I was I drive too much with my kids on weekend. I mean we’re all over the place. We don’t have time to stop and charge for 40-50 minutes or whatever it is right. I don’t see why there should be a if people are willing to buy an EV online that’s $80,000. Why can’t I buy that Dodge Durango that I was testing out in the same way?

Elena: Right, exactly, exactly. No, it’s it just brings up so many so many different questions because it’s like no matter what propulsion it is, right, internal combustion engine, electric, hydrogen, right doesn’t matter, the propulsion… it’s just like customer experience is always at the heart of it. Right I think we can we can all agree that we want to be treated well we want it like that example that you gave it LaFontaine is such a great example because they treated you like family. And of course, the loyalty is super high. The NPS, the CSI I would say is super high, right? Because they treated you the way that you wanted to be able to transact.

Bob: You brought up something that that sparked something that I also have a passion because it ties into the purchase experience passion. I strongly believe and I’m willing to be debated and I would love a debate to help me learn more. I think debates are healthy because you can learn you know the personalities and what other people are thinking to adapt to try to hit is I think the whole CSI program platform is completely broken. It is causing it is causing what the OEMs don’t want. I think we could we could blow up CSI scoring for dealers and create a whole new process. That is a complete win win for both the OEM and the dealer and prove me wrong telling me I’m completely wrong. Tell me Tell Tell me I don’t know enough about it to be able to make that state I’m open. But I at this time having sold cars in the 90s when I begged people and people to give me a very satisfied a five because compensation was was it’s just broken.

Elena: I could talk to you about about this forever and ever. We didn’t even get to my last question about mainstream EVs. It’s all good. How do people get in touch with you, Bob? If I’m a dealer, how do I get in touch with you? Or if I’m just a super fan of Bob and I just want to follow what you’re doing.

Bob: I would love the one superfan if there is one that’s willing to be that but listen, I live on LinkedIn. I think it’s one of the most powerful social tools for me, who just loves to talk a business and whatnot. LinkedIn is the best is the best is probably the best platform. But long winded follow me on LinkedIn connect with me on LinkedIn. I’ll follow you back message me and we can look sorry if there’s a delay I will get back to you I tried to get my goal is to always get back to everyone that shoots me a message, but don’t sell me anything now if you’re gonna sell me which I cannot stand that LinkedIn is not that tool to first message is to sell.

Elena: Yeah, that’s crazy. That’s not right. And hey, I can vouch. Bob, you are absolutely lovely. I ran into you at JD Power and I was like, Can you please be on my podcast? So you’re so gracious and lovely with your time. So I thank you for that. And Bob is the real deal. So absolutely. Thank you so much for your time, Bob. I loved this conversation. I am so excited to share this with everyone. So thank you once again.

Bob: Appreciate you making our industry better. Thank you.