Ontario-based software development company helps dealers generate more leads while saving money with its digital retailing tools
Car dealers want digital retailing tools that will help them increase their sales while also reducing costs, according to Marty Meadows, co-founder and President of Automotive at Mobials.
The London, Ont.-based software development company launched about five and a half years ago, with the intention of meeting that first need: more sales.
“We had dealers telling us: ‘we need to increase our sales, we need higher conversion from our websites. Can you deliver us tools that deliver value to a consumer, deliver a lead back to us, and commission a contact in a way that gets us higher conversion?’ And that’s where we focused,” says Meadows.
At the time, Mobials offered a single product and it was strictly mobile testimonials. They discovered then that, within Canada, there was no consumer-facing marketplace like Yelp or DealerRater — but for dealers. And there were no customer reviews on any of the large classified websites. So the company created a review platform, sold it to dealers, and then signed syndication deals with auto classified sites.
Mobials has since evolved to offer a range of products that help solve key pain points that consumers encounter along their research journey. The more value a dealer delivers to consumers, the greater their chance of getting a lead.
The company’s digital retailing solutions touch on everything from vehicle accident verification (currently in beta) to dealership reviews, trade-in value, insurance and financing options and online reservations.
These tools are meant to help dealers boost sales through lead conversions from their website domains and marketing programs.
But recently Meadows says dealers have been telling them something else: they need to reduce costs. So Mobials relaunched their Automotive Suite of digital retailing and e-commerce products under one roof and named it AutoVerify.
Marty Meadows
“One vendor, with five, six, seven different value propositions and one price point” — allows dealers to reduce their costs and increase their ROI. “It’s a simpler value proposition to present to the dealer. And it’s the one that they were demanding” — Marty Meadows, co-founder and President of Automotive at Mobials
According to Meadows, putting it all under one umbrella — “one vendor, with five, six, seven different value propositions and one price point” — allows dealers to reduce their costs and increase their ROI.
“It’s a simpler value proposition to present to the dealer. And it’s the one that they were demanding,” says Meadows. “In a nutshell, at the highest level, we’re doing it because it makes it more professional. It’s an easier brand to be able to solidify in the market. And fundamentally, it’s what dealers have been telling us that they want.”
The AutoVerify brand launched in January 2019 with the goal to reduce costs, increase sales and satisfy customers. The suite focuses on three KPIs that dealerships typically struggle with: how can dealers reduce their costs; how can they increase their sales; and how can they ensure good CSI and SSI scores? And perhaps more importantly, how can they make sure they are satisfying their customer?
“We very much focused in on those three KPIs for our suite, and making sure we can deliver that value to a dealer,” says Meadows.
Meadows says dealers complain they have too many vendors sending them invoices each month for services like reviews, credit, e-commerce, and they are getting “500 dollar-ed or a thousand dollar-ed a month to death.’
Meadows says their philosophy has always been to look for inefficiencies and solve them for the dealer.
