Cold Fried Chicken: The FTC's new online advertising guidelines

At this point, online marketing and social media presence are a given for dealerships.  From buying cars to setting up appointments, a good website can make or break a dealership.

Online advertising and social media marketing is hardly the wild west that it used to be.  A simple google search will reveal plenty of advice on various ways to brand yourself online, and what to offer to your customers.  Taking reign of your internet presence is only half of the battle however, staying abreast of new laws and regulations is also critical.

The Federal Trade Commission regulates online advertising, just as they do print or radio.  They recently published their new guidelines for effective disclosures when advertising online. (http://www.ftc.gov/os/2013/03/130312dotcomdisclosures.pdf)

At the heart of the document, most of the information should sound familiar.  The FTC seems to be striving to keep online advertising in touch with more traditional forms, closing out any loopholes and making the rules as consistent as possible.  The premise is fairly basic, you can't hide the ball or deceive customers when promoting something online.  If the regular customer could be confused by your offer, you are probably in violation of the practices.

One of the more interesting notes, is about ads that can be viewed on different mediums (i.e., laptops or cellphones) you need to make sure that any needed disclaimers are clear on both systems.  Often on a smaller cellphone screen, you won't view the entire webpage at any given time and some disclaimers may be off screen or missed.  It's important to be aware that every time something is posted the internet, it can be consumed in a myriad of ways.  Crafting messages that transmit well across multiple mediums is important for a variety of reasons.  Even changes between email browsers can affect the message, let alone size constraints when looking at something on a tablet or phone.  Preparing for these variances is critical in making sure you are utilizing every tool you have at your disposal.

Another of the FTC's colorful examples (of which the fried chicken cooler was one), illustrates how to go about using a compensated spokesmen on twitter/blogs.  It has to be abundantly clear that they are expressing an advertisement and not their personal opinion.  While understanding of the character limits that twitter and some social media platforms place on the writer, it has to be clear to the average user.  Once again, the basic question is, is what I'm writing deceptive or unclear.  Would I find this tricky or confusing?

Keeping everything in line with the new regulations probably won't through most dealerships through a loop.  Being aware of these changes and specifications however, will make sure you can continue to keep up pace and make sure that message is getting out to the fullest.

Automotive CRM and Customer Satisfaction

Customer satisfaction could not appear to be more straight forward of a concept.  As a business, we want customers to be happy. End of story, next concept, who has the best buffet at NADA (besides TCC of course)?

The concept of customer satisfaction and how it relates to your dealership and marketing is crucial however, to making sure revenue is maximized.  The correlation between customer satisfaction and share of wallet is a complicated one, based on a number of factors.  The connection between customer satisfaction and loyalty has long been recognized, but the importance of wallet share and satisfaction has not always been as clear.
A study of these connections revealed the significance that customer satisfaction truly has (Cooli, Keiningham, Aksoy & Hsu, 2007, http://www.owen.edu/vanderbilt/data/research/1668full.pdf).  The study focused on following over 4,000 households over a five year period, specifically looking at their banking choices.  They decided to focus on share of wallet, as the appropriate metric.  Ultimately, a brand wants to increase their share of a customer's expense in a particular area, and increase loyalty to include total spending.  Consumers have proven to be less and less "loyal," as increasingly they find themselves more open to using other brands (Bennet & Rundie-Thiele, 2005).  Cooli, et. al., found that there was significant correlation between customer satisfaction level and share of wallet percentage.  As customer satisfaction increases, firms are able to control a larger market share and bring these customers back away from competitors.

How does a dealer then affect and change customer satisfaction?

It is important to differentiate the initial meeting and subsequent changes in satisfaction.  Both were tracked as having significant influences on loyalty.  From the minute a potential customer walks in the door, to every moment thereafter, customer satisfaction is being cultivated.  The satisfaction level will affect not only loyalty in terms of returning for the same service, but as well as wallet share, so similar rivals are no longer used for related services either.  There is also a clear correlation between certain demographics and situations that can affect loyalty.  Age and income level were identified specifically in the study, targeting specific attempts to generate satisfaction will create a more specialized approach that takes note of these important differences.

Increasing revenue from loyalty will most likely come from increasing the wallet share of your loyalist customers.  Is your CRM system able to increase satisfaction and make sure that customers continue to return to your dealership? Do they understand the nuances necessary to increase your market share?  Can you afford for it not to?  TCC can tackle your customer satisfaction needs and make sure you are maximizing your retention of your hard earned customers.