Comments on: Dealerships are not a commodity

By: Electric cars

Electric cars — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 07:14:22 +0000

I do not know new thing about comodity if i not read this nice article. Thanks for increase my knowledge on comodity.

By: yhurg

yhurg — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 03:34:14 +0000

Gentlemen. Good to hear from you.

Ralph I dig what you are doing on those Ning sites. Building communities for dealers is a new level in CRM, and we have solutions for this I am happy to share with you. You have a knack for it.

Jeff dealers really do have long road ahead. It will take time for shoppers and dealers to figure out how to relate with one another using these new tools and opportunities. Remember just less than 2 years ago we were conversing about the possibility of dealers blogging. It’s happening.

I look forward to the coming year for sure.

By: Jeff Kershner

Jeff Kershner — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 20:01:15 +0000

Ryan, thanks for the mention! It’s been a long road for DealerRefresh and you have been there since the beginning Ryan.

I’m glad DealerRefresh has given others in this industry inspiration to grow there own sites and social networks. Kudos to these sites for wanting to help move this industry in the right direction. It would never happen with just one blog.

As for dealers, well, they still have a long road ahead of them. Though there are a select few of true leaders out there that really get this “web 2.0″.

It’s going to be an interesting year no doubt. The weak will continue to fall and the longer the current economy persists the narrower the funnel will get. We’ll see!

By: Ralph Paglia

Ralph Paglia — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 17:55:44 +0000

Great article… I agree that in 2008 we saw people working in the car business start to get far more engaged with online professional networking, information sharing, file exchanging, etc. and all kinds of interaction that will probably raise the overall level of competency and professionalism amongst Internet sales and marketing practitioners throughout the auto industry… That said, my biggest and most exciting projects in 2009 will be to try and successfully launch “dealership communities” using interactive Web 2.0, UGC type platforms to create online communities made up of a dealership’s (or group) customers, employees and suppliers… Maybe even a few OEM people who touch the store as well. If we can create the right combination of site platform technology and email database extraction for invitation lists, I believe it could work. You can check out my early efforts at the following Ford dealership “communities”:
http://www.SandersonFord.ning.com
http://www.SanTanFord.ning.com
http://www.FordOfKirkland.ning.com

This may be one of those concepts that will be tough to get off the ground, but for the dealerships that figure it out and are successful with it, I believe the results may be as significant as the best CRM implementations.