What's New at FordDirect

Experience increased site stability and performance – Vehicle Locator now managed by FordDirect

Great News! Effective February 5th, 2012, the transition of online inventory services to FordDirect will begin with the D2D Vehicle Locator website. This is the first of many enhancements that will be made this year.

The February 5th Vehicle Locator transition will be seamless – with the same look, feel, login and user preferences as before. Even up-fit information and dealer trade flags will be migrated to the new platform. It’s as simple as updating any bookmarks you may have and you begin to experience the benefits of the transition:

• Increased stability and faster performance especially during peak times. Monitoring will occur every 60 seconds to drastically reduce downtime and ensure the health of the servers
• New application servers for increased performance, durability and availability. Benchmarked data shows a 40% performance increase over existing legacy environment
• Backend upgrades to the latest software levels to increase speed and performance

You will still access Vehicle Locator through the FMCDealer link, or to access the site directly after February 5th, go to https://www.vl.dealerconnection.com. Stay tuned for additional communications regarding Vehicle Locator as we continue to make enhancements throughout the year.

QUESTIONS? Contact James Casazza, FordDirect Vice President of Dealer Services, at (800) 783-5511.

Mark your calendar for February 4 – 6. It's time to visit FordDirect at NADA

You have been given an All Access Pass and are invited to a VIP experience at the FordDirect display in the Ford booth at NADA, February 4 – 6.

FordDirect will be providing you with a private VIP Dealer lounge with refreshments, Internet access and a quiet place to meet with FordDirect representatives. You can also schedule a one-on-one meeting with your Regional Operations Manager to review your FordDirect services. Please call 866-550-7812, option 1 or email kbullach@forddirect.com to schedule your appointment.

FordDirect staff will also be on hand to present valuable informational technology seminars at the conference. Here is the schedule:

Saturday Feb. 4 Seminars

• 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. Emerging Technology including the new iPad Dealer Experience
• 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. DealerConnection Elite and Website Best Practices
• 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. Reputation Management and Social Media

Sunday, Feb. 5 Seminars

• 9 a.m. DealerConnection Elite and Website Best Practices
• 10 a.m. Reputation Management and Social Media
• 11 a.m. Emerging Technology including the new iPad Dealer Experience

Anyone who attends an information seminar will receive a FREE Mustang wireless mouse as a thank you.

Hope to see you at the convention.

Dealer Spotlight

Happy New Year!! What New Year's resolution or plans do you have for your Internet department for 2012?

Our primary focus for 2012 is to have more interaction with social media. Not so much Facebook and Twitter but sites that deal with reputation management like Yelp. That's been really great for us. We're working with a company through FordDirect that helps us maintain all the accounts and it's definitely helped our sales as well as our service department business. We want to get more ratings and do more mailings to ask more of our new and existing clients to rate us.

— Amanda Acio, Internet Sales Manager
Serramonte Ford, Colma, CA

Our goal is to increase the total number of vehicles we sell online. Last year we attributed a total of 1,209 vehicles to online sales. For 2012, we'd like to increase that number to 1,500. To help us accomplish it we're going to do three things: sell them better, sell them faster, and sell them cheaper than everyone else.

— James Koser, Internet Sales Manager
Apple Ford, Columbia, MD

We plan on expanding our Internet department for 2012. We'll be adding salespeople to the staff. At Watson Quality Ford our Internet salespeople only deal with Internet sales. Our set up seems to be working fine so we're going to keep steady on our course, just increase our capability of servicing our customers.

— Peggy Watson, Internet Manager
Watson Quality Ford, North Jackson, MS

We're planning a full scale change over from an Internet department to a Business Development Center operation. We're trying to improve our contact ratio and the timeliness of our responses. When leads come in they will now be going to a customer service representative who will be responsible for making the initial contact and setting the appointment. When the customer comes in they will greet them and turn them over to a salesperson designated by the sales manager. We're currently thinking that the BDC will be staffed by two full-time and one part-time people.

— Roger Ellsworth, Internet Sales Director
Tallahassee Ford Lincoln, Tallahassee, FL

I think the one thing we can always improve upon is our long-term follow-up. It's all about maintaining a disciplined system to stay in contact over a long period of time with our customers. Not the week or 10-day periods but the longer 60- and 90-day mark, to do it effectively. We are currently doing a lot of automated emails beyond the initial contact. What I'd like to see is us doing a better job on doing more personalized long-term follow-up through an automated process.

— Jason Gudenkauf, General Manager
Louisburg Ford Sales, Louisburg, KS

We're really looking to add more staff. We see the Internet developing so rapidly that it's going to take increased staff and it's not going to be to long before it's not going to be a walk-in dealership but primarily an Internet dealership. At our dealership we have a dedicated Internet department that handles the leads, the customers, the delivery – everything is done through the Internet department. We presently have eight people in the department and are thinking of expanding to 11. We're putting our entire emphasis on the Internet. Getting more people Internet savvy, getting them more familiar with all the intricacies of the Internet, getting more active with outside sources like QR codes and mobile sites. That's where we see the future of the industry.

— Mark Sidweber, Director of Internet Services
Sam Pack's Five Star Ford, Carrollton, TX

Comment on Success

Tasca Ford Lincoln, Cranston, RI and Seekonk, MA

EDITOR'S NOTE: Bob Tasca Jr. of Tasca Ford and Lincoln was quoted in an article on Bloomberg.com about the successful December U.S. auto Dealers experienced. We thought we would find out what role the Internet played in Tasca's sales so we talked to Bob Tasca III to find out.

FD: Bob, the Bloomberg article said Tasca sells about 400 cars and trucks a month. What role does the Internet play in those sales?

TASCA: It plays a huge role. We survey our customers after purchase and ask if they visit Tasca.com, which is a gateway to all our sites. Year-to-date 88% visited our site at some point in the purchase of their vehicle. That's huge. Tasca.com is our virtual showroom and we take as much care of it as we do our showroom.

FD: You have Ford and Lincoln franchises in two different cities. Do you have separate Internet departments and managers or how are they set up?

TASCA: We centralize everything. All of the leads come into one location. They're handled by a team of four people. They handle phone and Internet leads. We have a process of how we handle the incoming lead. The main goal is to set an appointment with a salesperson at the most convenient location.

FD: Do you supply price?

TASCA: We will if the customer demands it. But if you don't push for appointment there's really no reason for them to come in. We also ask if they would like information on a similar or similar priced vehicle because over 50%, and I'd say as high as 70%, of customer ends up buying something different than they contacted us about.

FD: How do leads get to the correct dealership?

TASCA: All conversations are documented, so everyone has access to what the Internet person has gone over. When the appointment is set, the appropriate Dealership sales manager is notified. When the customer comes in they meet the sales manager who hands them to a sales person. The vehicle the customer is interested in has been pulled up so they can see it.

FD: What lead providers do you have?

TASCA: We have our own site, Ford and FordDirect and we use AutoTrader and Cars.com mainly for used vehicles. Other than that we don't buy leads because these give us a much better quality lead.

FD: Do you have any advice you'd like to share?

TASCA: Spend as much time on your virtual showroom as you do on your real showroom. Take your website to the next level. YouTube-type video spots are going to be very important. We're doing a lot with building our fan base up on Facebook. It's an ever-changing, ever-evolving monster and it needs the attention that it deserves.

Industry Update

Ford was one of six major brands to share top-line case study results of their Facebook marketing for the 2011 Ford Explorer with ClickZ. According to article Ford feels Facebook ads can help move cars. During the period it ran Facebook ads, Ford said shopping for the 2011 Ford Explorer jumped 104% on sites like Autotrader.com. Ford also said the number dwarfs the 14% increase in online shopping activity it saw after Super Bowl ads.

Fastcompany.com reports the next advertising battleground will be…the car! While many advertisers are presently consumed with securing space on social media sites or smartphones, a small number have begun to rush to the media industry. This is no surprise when the average driver spends two to three hours a day in the car. The writer cites a story where he was in Japan and received a phone message that he had a friend in the area. Would he like to know more? Responding yes, he received a message that Starbucks would like to host the meeting, along with a map to the shop and a coffee coupon. There he met a friend he had not seen in six years. Stay tuned boys and girls… this sounds very interesting.

According to ZenithOptimedia, paid search will grow 15% in 2012 and 2013. eMarketer also reports video ad revenue will jump in 2012, up by 40%. They say pre-rolls will dominate. As for Internet ad revenue, the Internet Advertising Bureau and PriceWaterhouseCoopers report Internet ad revenues were up 22% year-over-year in the 3rd quarter of 2011. This is the eighth straight quarter that Internet ad revenues have grown.

According to a report by Bloomberg, Facebook will be ready to start mobile advertising by the end of March. The story goes on to say that the ads will appear in mobile news feeds. According to Facebook’s own figures, more than 350 million people around the world access the site on their mobile devices. Facebook declined comment on the story.

Ryan's Blog...

Even if there are six inches of snow on the ground your virtual Dealership website is always open. However, there are some things you should always do with your site to continue attracting shoppers – like keeping the site up to date. Read more on this subject in Ryan's blog at http://dealer-communications.com/technology/dealers-can-attract-snowed-in-shoppers-with-full-featured-websites/

Ryan Soffa is Vice President of Product Development at FordDirect. He has held various positions in the retail automotive marketplace, wholesale, and third-party sides of the industry