Jan
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- Are you paying for prime rib and being served mass produced burgers from a third world country?
- Is the service you are receiving comparable to the price you are paying for it?
- Are you paying a premium for “service” and when calling for help sitting on hold to only find out something you want can’t be done or will incur additional charges?
The real question is are you paying for a maitre d’ and the only time you hear from your provider is when they have a new offering or it is initiated by you for service that has to run through multiple channels?
The difference between a partner and a provider are huge.
- A partner helps you become more successful and their success is dependent upon yours.
- A provider sells you their product for you to leverage and your success is dependent how the product is utilized.
The problem lies in when a provider bills themselves as a partner to justify the cost and then moves you through their process to deliver their cookie cutter solution, mass produced hamburgers, and delivers the bill on a silver platter. We would not tolerate it in a restaurant but every day I see dealers accepting it with various providers.
I was amazed when I contacted a website provider for support for a dealer client to only find out that support would take three days to add a form to a custom page, the dealer spends over $100K per year and is tied to a contract. This was after going to top level contacts inside the company. Another consultant experienced a website provider claiming SEO work as their own. (See my automotive website predictions for 2009 to get the details)
In the coming year we will see some established accepted practices by automotive vendors fade from existence as dealers become more educated and learn to hold automotive vendors accountable by demanding value for their money with service levels commensurate with cost. A partner will over deliver a provider gives you widgets to work with. Quit overpaying for widgets disguised as a partnership and a long term high priced contract should deliver more than excuses with mediocre service and results.
Paul Rushing 
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Nov
It’s the user experience dummy..
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To often do I see sites, especially in the automotive industry, where the user experience is completely ignored in lieu of what the site owner thinks is the right thing to do. Usually these types of decisions are made by people who really do not have a clue about internet marketing, including the website vendors.
Just recently I made a suggestion to a Cincinnati used car dealer to remove the pop up from the home page and their conversion ratio jumped dramatically and decreased the bounce rate on the site. It is simple things like this that can make a site successful versus just being a waste of bandwidth.
To often businesses forget that their website is an extention of their brick and mortar business. A pop up on the home page shows that you do not value the visitors trust that they placed in you by visiting your site. If you don’t greet cutomers by jumping in their face when you visit your store why would you do it when they visit your website?
Spending your marketing budget on an inefficient website is akin to advertising in a paper 150 miles from your location. You may get a call or two but was it really worth the effort? Probably not!
Successful marketers will realize the opportunities that this down economy presents and execute on them. It does not matter if it simple things like creating a dealership blog or using sites like squidoo to leverage traffic on terms like buy here pay here to generate credit leads.
Please leave any suggestions you may have to improve website conversions below.
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I provide Craigslist and SEO services to car dealers all over the country. I also own several affiliate properties. I am always looking for ways to help others and myself market themselves and companies online.
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