Mike War­wick
Direc­tor of Dig­i­tal Mar­ket­ing
Kelly Auto Group
Boston, MA Area

AutoUSA: Can you tell me a lit­tle bit about your deal­er­ship and your back­ground in the industry?

Mike: The Kelly Auto Group is an 8 store deal­er­ship group in the Greater Boston Area. The Boston mar­ket is one of the most com­pet­i­tive mar­kets in the coun­try and we have sold more Nis­sans, Jeeps, Chryslers, Infiniti and FIATs than any other dealer in New Eng­land. We fea­ture (3) Nis­san deal­er­ships, Honda, Volk­swa­gen, Jeep/Chrysler, Infiniti and FIAT. Founded in 1965 by Roland D. Kelly as a Dat­sun fran­chise, the busi­ness was pur­chased in 1982 by Roland’s son Brian D. Kelly. Over the years, the group has grown but our com­mit­ment to Roland D. Kelly’s found­ing prin­ci­ples of “Hon­est Sales and Excel­lent Ser­vice,” has remained the same.

I have been in the car busi­ness since 2001. I started as a sales­per­son and have held posi­tions as a Sales Man­ager, Inter­net Man­ager, Gen­eral Sales Man­ager and my cur­rent posi­tion of Direc­tor of Dig­i­tal Mar­ket­ing. In my cur­rent posi­tion, I am respon­si­ble for all Dig­i­tal Mar­ket­ing efforts as well as man­ag­ing our 8 Call Centers.

AutoUSA: What is the size and struc­ture of your Inter­net Department?

Mike: Our Inter­net Depart­ments are struc­tured as in-store Call Cen­ters. This allows our Call Cen­ter Agents to work closely with our Sales Man­agers and sales­peo­ple. Our com­pet­i­tive advan­tage is the team­work we have between these groups. Our com­mon goal is to pro­vide a trans­par­ent, cus­tomer focused process that makes car buy­ing a user-friendly, stream­lined expe­ri­ence. After exper­i­ment­ing with a cen­tral­ized Call Cen­ter, it became appar­ent that we were los­ing busi­ness because of the dis­con­nect that occurred when agents would build rap­port with cus­tomers and then not be avail­able when the cus­tomer vis­ited the show­room. Hav­ing the agents in the stores has increased our Inter­net clos­ing per­cent­age by 34% over the last 18 months.

AutoUSA: Do you use inde­pen­dent lead providers? And what is your expe­ri­ence with them?

Mike: We use var­i­ous inde­pen­dent lead providers and our results have been bet­ter than the typ­i­cal indus­try aver­ages. AutoUSA has always been an impor­tant part of our new car lead mix. We also use the AutoUSA Show Pro pro­gram to get more appoint­ments and their PowerListings2.0 helps us with great expo­sure on Craig s List. For our group, the key to our suc­cess with leads has been our speed of response and per­sis­tence with long-term fol­low up.

AutoUSA: What types of mar­ket­ing and adver­tis­ing do you do to increase web traf­fic?

Mike: We use all forms of tra­di­tional mar­ket­ing as well as Pay Per Click, Re-targeting, Dis­play, Social Media and blog­ging to increase our web­site traf­fic. All of these efforts are con­stantly refined to improve our ROI. They key to run­ning effec­tive Dig­i­tal Mar­ket­ing cam­paigns is to avoid part­ner­ing with ven­dors who employ a “set it for­get it” approach. All of these cam­paigns need to be tested and adjusted over time to deter­mine what is per­form­ing well.

AutoUSA: What do you do to cre­ate a great cus­tomer experience?

Mike: Our cus­tomer expe­ri­ence, both in-store and online, are extremely impor­tant. Our goal is to pro­vide a user-friendly expe­ri­ence that begins online and is car­ried through the show­room visit. When we sched­ule an appoint­ment to visit our show­room, the customer’s record, last three emails and any pric­ing that was given is placed in a manila folder at the recep­tion desk. When the cus­tomer comes to the store, they are instructed to check in at recep­tion. The recep­tion­ist will intro­duce the cus­tomer to a Sales Man­ager who will review the customer’s file with them, select a sales­per­son to work with the cus­tomer and review the sales process with the cus­tomer and the sales­per­son. This gives the cus­tomer a clear under­stand­ing of what will take place dur­ing their visit and allows for the Sales Man­ager who will be work­ing the deal to have an Early Man­ager Intro­duc­tion and build rapport.

KellyAuto.com

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