thinking design, creative solutions
Get your business growing now and ready for whatever the future holds.
Here are a few detailed examples of the three steps in action across your dealership. Use them as a jumping off point to put your own stamp, as you always have, on your business.
Unit Sales
Taking your showroom experience digital!
- Publish your inventory online with crisp, high quality images, easy to understand pricing and a simple action to let customers get a hold of you instantly, via email, chat, text or phone. We recommend using Shopify or squareup.com as they are easy to use and come with a free trial.
- Promote your digital showroom via social media and tap in to as many lead generation sites as you can. Run competitions, publish promotional videos and keep your customers engaged. We recommend using Buffer to keep in touch with your customers on social media and Marsello for customer retention and marketing across multiple channels for a loyalty experience like no other.
- Use online calendaring to let customers book appointments with your sales team with a single click. Our favourite solution is the free appointment setting app Calendarly.com.
- Give your sales team video chat tools when they do connect with customers, letting them show off the unit and answer customer questions ‘virtually’ face-to-face. Zoom is price and friction free to get going.
- Work up a quote and email it in real-time from anywhere on any device; don’t hang up and leave your customer waiting. That’s one of the reasons why we created our cloud based DMS, https://blackpurl.com/
Parts Counter
Online, over the phone or at the curb!
- Before getting your inventory front and center with your customers, make sure you’ve got an accurate count of what’s on your shelves, so do a stock take – the last thing you want is a disappointed customer waiting or making multiple trips, especially right now!
- Why not move your parts counter to the front door or out into the open air? This gives you the space and the control to keep your customers and team protected while still doing business.
- Get rid of the line up and the paper by going mobile, meeting your customers out from behind the counter, and using email for receipts and invoices – straight from your mobile device to theirs.
- Keep an eye on your recent and historical sales activity to make sure you’re not over-investing in inventory right now while not getting caught flat-footed when business kicks back into high gear. We recommend Super’s Order Management app to keep you in that inventory “sweet spot” automatically.
- Offer delivery and curb-side pickup options anytime there’s a special order – eliminate that second trip to the dealership and make it as convenient and safe as possible.
Service center
From the driveway, to the service bay and back again!
- Arrange to collect and drop off your customer’s units, saving time for them and reducing risk for everyone.
- Offer curb-side check-in or even ‘drop and go’ service – make sure your drop-off area is secure and keys are handled just like we’ve all experienced at a car rental; safety isn’t just about keeping your distance!
- Snap and text photos of your service jobs to keep customers in the loop and get sign-off on work; this is a great service and speeds up delivery times anytime.
- Make that paper trail go digital here too, service is no exception. Work from a mobile-friendly DMS and use email, texts and pdfs to keep everyone in the loop – give the printer and clipboards a (permanent) rest!
- Space out your service work and your service team, using different times of day, alternate service bays and parts runners to keep people from congregating in one area – keeping a safe distance isn’t just for customers.
Every dealer has their own way of taking their dealership online, and ultimately, you’ll need to do what you think is best for your business.
The key though is to take action
As we continue to practice social distancing, the last thing you want is the operations of your dealership to be affected. Whether it is sales, accounting, or inventory management, you need to ensure that all arms of your dealership can operate without physically being at the dealership.
Some of these conditions will remain long after COVID-19 has left the room. You need to be able to operate your business as if you had no building, dispersed staff and no fixed hours of operation.
Impossible? Not if we have anything to do with it.
Blackpurl is entirely cloud-based
Which means wherever you are, you’re doing business.
Our solution to DMS is mobile, meaning you can run your entire dealership from the palm of your hand. Not to mention it also keeps all of your information across all departments safe in the cloud, allowing your team to work seamlessly together.
Support you can rely on
- Have your concierge assist getting you up in 24 hours or less.
- Get every member of your team trained and on the same page quickly
- Have access to a dedicated concierge when you have questions
Get your team on the same page
- Keep all your customer and inventory information in one safe place
- Don’t lose sleep over team members hoarding information
- Have a complete history of customer orders that won’t get lost
- Never scratch your head over the status of an inventory delivery
- Import vendor price files
- Build custom reports as you need them
Measure performance in real time
- Make real-time data-driven decisions
- Control your dealership from anywhere on any device
- Control your inventory with penny perfect accounting
- Keep track of your costs with linked service and sales depts
Customer service goes digital
- Communicate with your customers via texts & email invoices
- Track inventory and customer orders in real-time
- All your forms are filled out online and kept safe in the cloud for your team to access them
Run your dealership smoothly from home with Blackpurl
Make Your DMS work for you, not against you
As the owner of a dealership, the pressure is ultimately on you to succeed. The financial pressure. The operational pressure. The emotional pressure.
There’s a lot riding on your business and you can’t afford to let an out-of-touch, lacklustre DMS keep you from your future.
Rugged, reliable and easy to operate
The team behind Blackpurl are smart, funny and well…have a strong dose of pirate spirit.
After working in some of the world’s best dealerships, they embarked on a mission to end the complexity and heavy infrastructure of the DMS world.
