🎙️ Webinar: Rethinking Walk-Ins: How to Radically Impact Your Dealership’s Close Rate

 All right. Hi, everybody. Thanks for coming. We really appreciate everybody who's showing up for the webinar today. Thank you for waiting for those of you who came on early. I appreciate everybody being here. We're ready to get started talking about rethinking walk-ins. I just want you to know that we will be able to answer questions today, so my team is out there. If you wanna post in the comments here, then we'll be able to answer questions for you while we're going through the webinar. And as well, you're very welcome to direct message me through the L-LinkedIn app if you wish and I'll try to get to your answers later.

A little bit about myself. I've been in the automotive industry for about three decades. I started in the early nineties. I actually started washing cars at car dealerships a long time ago. And I essentially- matured and evolved where g- starting through service, I essentially had every position that you could possibly have at a car dealership. I was working managing the service departments, and I also ended up o-on the sales side and overseeing sales and even overseeing dealerships and dealer groups at one point. In the late '90s I was hired by AutoNation. They were working on this thing that had to do with getting leads over the Internet. It was like, ahhh, amazing. And so I worked with a great team there. It was a very exciting time for the automotive industry, and it's obviously something that has matriculated into what's everyday use for all of you out there and all of us. I had spent a lot of time in development actually before I got into the automotive industry, so that was where I utilized that information. And then after I left AutoNation where I had been managing about four hundred and fifty stores that were getting into internet lead management and little business development centers at the stores, I started a company that was a technology company for the automotive industry, which was a CRM, and then in 2007 started Active Engage at that time, which is a messaging specific company, and we're actually the largest messaging specific company in the automotive industry.

So what I'm gonna cover today is something that I'm really quite passionate about. It's about understanding the customer's journey through the entire sales process and their intent at each point of interaction with the dealership, with the OEM, with marketplaces, with research sites, and so on. I'm also going to explain how those direct and indirect actions dramatically affect your close rate and what you can do to increase your close rate and even increase profitability for your store. It's time to rethink not just walk-ins, but the entire method of how and why customers interact during the current sales process. This process has significantly changed over the last few years, and while many dealers have made some adjustments to accommodate this new customer intent, I would say that most really have not. And so that's a concern, and you wanna be in the group that is paying attention to this. So this is why today I wanna shed some light on the metrics that you need to pay attention to so that you can better understand the performance And ROI you're getting out of each of the tools that you're using to interact with your customers, how to turn those tools into appointment setting machines, and the importance that building meaningful connections with your customers has on your sales funnel. So back when I was managing dealerships, data was, if not scarce, it was at least harder to find on vehicles that consumers were purchasing, and it was much more complicated to trust that data.

There were only a few repositories like some-- and they were usually like documents on paper and things like that, so they didn't have a live update to 'em that had vehicle information, pricing and other datas that you could access as a consumer so that you were knowledgeable when you came into the dealership. And because there were so few of these, there was really very low confidence in the data because it was not ubiquitous, right? So it wasn't everywhere, and there weren't a lot of people updating it or even using it, so it didn't have a lot of credibility. And so it made it very easy to dispute or argue against that data that a customer might, have retrieved from wherever from the available sources because there wasn't a lot of uniformity to the data, and there was no real community that was verifying or validating the data for them. There was just these very limited resources to do it. So because of that, the dealership itself became the main source of f-truth for most dealers.

So as a customer, you had to talk to the dealership to really understand what was possible and what options were available, what o-offers were available even what pricing would be, any-- and what the process would even be at the store and so on. So that gave dealerships a huge amount of control over all of the information and the entire way that was going to be the process that the customer was gonna buy. So very often this first interaction with the dealership and the customer was the very first connection to the current truth that the customer had, was when they physically came into the store. That was where that connection was made, and that was where they started to believe in the information and understand what was happening. So they had a short period of time to do that, and often they would be in and out of the store, a few times. They didn't just come in and generally buy. So certainly there were other types of connections at that time. There was absolutely phone calls also. I'm not quite that old where, I'm talking about before phone calls, but even at that time there was very little data that tended to exchange over phone calls, and a phone call for the dealership was mostly used to procure the visit of the customer to the store, and they promised more data, more accurate data, more relevant data if they came in. And so that was the value of a phone call. So really, in-store was where the real data exchange for both sides, for the customer and the dealer, and the education for the customer started at that particular point.

Now, as time has gone on, the internet has proliferated so much information, so much more information, and so many redundant sources of information that it affords customers a tremendous amount of access to validated and detailed data that they use to make decisions well before they ever come into the store. So they're looking for this information, and they're going out to find this information, which isn't really that hard to find because there's just so much of it today, that they're gathering all this well before they come in. So this level of access to information has literally changed the way that generations of customers shop and how they see their environment and how they see the world because they just have access to it all the time. It's those two factors that have created a new customer with new and different expectations of the sales process for all products, but especially in the automotive industry. I'm quite sure that all of you here today, all of you who are watching from dealerships, have a very common incidence of customers coming into the dealership who have so much detail on every possible version of the vehicle, on the pricing, on the sales pricing, on the options that are available, that it really rivals your sales pros that when the customer is actually getting there, they have so much information at hand that there's not much more that you can deliver to them from a data standpoint that's gonna enhance their understanding of the purchasing process or of the world. And because the dealership is no longer the single or at least the primary source of truth, the best way to affect the sale as a dealer is the customer experience. That's where you're going to have the most impact. And that is a paradigm shift.

That's a big paradigm shift from where we were just even five or ten years ago, especially since COVID, the shift has really gone to Looking online and gathering data in a massive way till the customer is very comfortable with the information that they have, and the knowledge that they are confident in what they know is correct before they actually engage even with the store. It's a shift in how people buy cars, in the journey that they take, and what they expect at each point in the sales funnel once they enter the sales funnel. It's the dealers that have adapted to this new path and the change in what the customers expect to achieve at each of these points that not only expedites the sale, but is more likely to even increase revenue for each purchase that you make or that you-- that the customer makes. So each sale that you make to the customer is gonna be impacted massively just by the experience that you offer the customer, because that's where their expectation is today. And if you deliver, you're gonna have success. And if you don't, it's not necessarily that you won't sell a car, but you won't sell as often and you won't sell for the pricing that is gonna make you more profitable. So let's look at this new customer journey because it starts much earlier. As we all know, today, the customer journey starts online. There's so much data proliferated around us that it's almost ever present.

And numerous studies and reports in two thousand and twenty five from sources like Forrester Research, Zatista, Auto Trader, NADA, and others have found more than ninety percent of car buyers conducted extensive research online before ever visiting a dealership. On average, they spend about seven-plus hours researching online before they ever submit a lead. And so think about that. That's just the density of them doing search online, focusing on data, details, options different versions of the vehicle, different brands of the vehicle, trying to figure out what it is that they want. They're doing this heavily on Google, and now they're using AI to be able to do it. But, what's happening is they're not doing this kind of research at the dealer websites. They're doing it in advance of that. So think about the way that you would interact if you were looking for something. If you were looking for A new office chair, for example. Then would you try to identify who the local office chair company was and then go to their website and see what offers were available? Or more likely, would you just open your computer, open your browser, it goes directly to Google, and you would just type in, "Looking for an office chair." You can even be more specific, and with AI, it's even enhanced. So now you can go on and go, "I'm looking for an office chair that has a headrest, and I want arms that go up and down, and I wanna be able to lean back, or I don't wanna be able to lean back," whatever the deal- detail is that you want, you can just type it into Google and it'll show you all the places that you can buy it, and it'll show you all the different options that you have available, all the colors, all the pricing, all the specif- specifications that they have, warranties and things like that. That is exactly what your customers are doing. That's how they're shopping, to be able to identify the information that they wanna gather before they actually go to test drive, actually go to the store. So what does this tell us about customers today? It tells us that you're not competing for an engagement on your vehicle data. They're doing that in advance.

As a dealer, you're competing for their trust. You're competing for them to engage you. You're competing for the communication and the relationship building that makes them feel that they have confidence in what you are delivering as well, 'cause that's why they're doing this research first. The data is the data, and they're gathering it in advance, but the only way they're gonna find out if they wanna work with you is by interacting with you and building trust with you specifically. So by the time they reach you, their decision has already been shaped by many notable research and review sites all around the web. They're going through and they're identifying people who have bought these cars before or who don't like certain things about these cars. What this is all telling us is that they're taking action online. That first point of contact is replacing what used to be the walk-in because they already have their initial information and requirements for purchasing acquired by them in advance. They're seeing, like I said, they're seeing what they-- what other people like and why did they like it or why did they not like it. They're reading reviews on these vehicles and on the dealerships. They're researching everything about the vehicle that they think they want or trying to identify what do I want? Here's the features that I want." They're trying to identify what they can afford They're checking inventory. They probably are checking with their bank or with other bank or financing options online that have specials, specifically for purchasing vehicles. All of that is available to them without ever engaging with you at all. They can do it all online, and most of it is done before they can even, they need to even come to your website. So it's important to take that in and to realize how much they can do before they ever really engage, not only with you directly, but even engage with your website. They don't have to spend their time anymore at the dealership doing research on this pure data play. They really don't even have to pick up the phone. They're getting a huge amount of very specific data online. So when they do connect, when they choose to actually engage you, it's clearly not to regurgitate what they've already found online, what they've already found on the web. So it is so that you can start presenting yourself and selling yourself when they engage. That's what they're looking for. So when someone goes online and submits a lead, or when they go online and they actually choose to say, "Hey, I'm reaching out to you," or if they're reaching out to you by phone on the s- at the store, then what they're looking for is to understand you. They want you to sell yourself and the reason that you should be buying from the dealership. The vehicle information is just impertinent at that moment. That doesn't mean that they won't ask questions about the vehicle, but it's more to identify the truth to... that the truth is the same as what they found out on the web, and to understand the kind of interaction that they're gonna get when they're working with you at the store.

So when they engage, it's imperative that you start presenting yourself to the customer and showing the value of what you bring to the process, and that's when the sales process starts. So how do we deal with this newly evolved customer? Here, I think it's important to understand some other metrics about these new buyers. So we're huge consumers here in the United States. In this country, we're consuming more than ever before. In the last decade of GDP, it has been the steepest increase in GDP over the past forty years, just this last decade. And because of advanced manufacturing technology and improved logistics for international shipping, we also have more choices than ever before of what to buy. So we're just buying a lot more. But what's motivating the choice of what to buy? According to a Forbes study, 58% of consumers will not only choose the option they believe has a better customer experience, but they'll even pay more for it. So I wanna make sure that you heard that, that they'll pay more for a better customer experience. In fact, when we asked them or when Forbes asked them directly, 70% of the customers that were asked the question, "Would you pay more?" They said they would pay more if they knew that they would receive a better or more convenient experience. That percentage goes up when you narrow the customer base down to just the Millennials and Gen Z. So the larger portion of consumers and all these newer consumers that are buying cars now, those are the people very specifically that want the interaction. It's the interaction that makes the difference. It's the trust and understanding who you are, and it's the trust that the experience is gonna be efficient, satisfying, easy for them to get through, and not complicated or difficult or where they don't feel confident in what it is that they're doing. So that's what you need to be able to offer them when you're going through this process with them. I think if you think about it, you've probably heard someone say they are a little bit more expensive, but it's worth it, and likely you've said that yourself. I know that I say that commonly. I'm looking for a better experience, and I am willing to pay more for it, and I will even tell the vendor that I'm willing to pay more for it to be able to get a better experience because I'm not talking about where I wanna spend a ton of extra money to buy something, but saving time, we're-- we live in a hectic world, especially here in the United States, and I think that, the ability to save stress, save time, have someone who's interested in what it is that I'm trying to accomplish, where they're trying to help me through that process, a-a hundred percent I would pay more for that because it's gonna save me money in the long run as a consumer.

And so I think it's important to understand that's what these studies are telling us, is that everybody feels that way. Everybody is willing to pay a little bit more to just not have to go through all the garbage that can take place in the process of buying things, especially things that are complicated, like buying cars. And isn't that the kind of perception that you want customers to have of you? Don't you want them to say, "You're great, and I would pay more just to buy from you because you're great." They trust you. They trust the interaction. They understand that it may cost a little bit more, but there's value to them in the and the extra expense that it may be, as long as it's not significant, to actually have that process to know and trust and feel comfortable with the people that they're buying from. So you should be asking yourselves, does the customer experience you provide overshadow a price difference between you and a competitor? Because that's really the only thing that you have to overshadow the difference between you and a competitor, is that experience. And where does this customer experience start? It starts the moment they try to engage. So the moment that the customer tries to reach out to you, that's the starting point. That's where they enter the funnel. This is why your interaction with your customers at this first point of connection online is likely the most important, and you really wanna pay attention to them at that point. Okay. Now, what drives this behavior, all of this behavior that we've been talking about, is trust. There was a 2026 research study from Salsify and the Harvard Business School, and yeah, it's that Harvard, found that trust makes sixty-eight percent of shoppers pay more for products. And while trust comes in multiple forms, fifty-four percent of the shoppers surveyed highlighted that it was mainly the customer experience that made the difference. That's where the trust comes from. So their belief in you, their confidence that you've conveyed to them that you're a trustworthy source of information, that they can rely on the experience from you, that they can see that they're comfortable with you as you're interacting with them from your dealership to them in their home or wherever they are, that is building trust.

And that trust is not only gonna turn into more purchases, but based on this study from Harvard and Salsify, it's gonna turn into more money per vehicle that you sell. They also found that one of the best ways to establish thru- trust is through paying attention and connecting with your customers interpersonally. So actions like allowing the other person to speak first, opening your conversation with a question, and helping the other person to feel understood are all very important assets of interacting with your customer. Whereas attempting to be the more dominant one in a conversation could make it harder for the other person to trust you, and it may even shut them down completely. So you need to work on active listening Whether you're texting or working on a phone call or verbally conversing with a customer in or out of the store. But you have to remember, it's all about conveying your personality and building the relationship with the customer. The deeper the lay-- mo- the relationship you have, the more trust the customer is gonna have with you. A separate study by Amy Cuddy, who's a social psychologist from the Harvard Business School, conducted extensive research about how we evaluate the people that we meet. And the research indicates that most people respond more positively to those who come across as trustworthy rather than those who exude confidence.

So again, it's not about your confidence in you or about what you're delivering. It's about their confidence that what they're getting from you is trustworthy. It's their belief that you're satisfying their needs and that you're the right person to interact with on their behalf. So being an advocate for that person during the sales process goes a very long way. The same Harvard study of communication suggests that we need to rethink the way that you make your fu- your future impressions. These future first impressions are very important. The deeper that you can interpersonally connect with your customers during their first interaction with you, the more likely you are to gain their trust and to complete a transaction, period. That's the reality of the situation, and there's numerous studies that document it. I've only chosen to single out the Harvard one here. The key here is, again, the trust factor. It's not about trusting the data, it's about them trusting you, the person that they're working with at that moment, the person they're interacting with. That's who they need to trust. And it's not gonna come from just throwing up a bunch of data on the customer. It's about the way you're interacting, the fact that you're paying attention to them, using their name in the conversation, and focusing on solving their problems, and trying to dive into more about why they're buy- they're buying the vehicle or trying to buy the vehicle they're trying to buy. So you're their connection.

You are their connection to the car they wanna buy, to the way they wanna buy it. You're their connection to the company that you work for, to the brand that you work for, all of it. That's you. It isn't the website, it isn't the tech. It's not the building you're in. It's just you. You're the connection. You're the one that they need to trust. So since you are the one that they're working with, meeting with you, talking with you, you are the one that they need to trust. For me, when I read this study and I looked at all the data, I really felt that I really innately already knew this from all of my experience, and I feel like I've been told this many times before, but it's interesting to read it in such a recent study. I've always found that paying attention to my customers, actively listening to them, and giving them the time and space to express their wants and needs has been extremely effective in both decreasing objections to price and expediting their purchase timeline. It always has. And I think that many of you have learned the same thing and likely feel the same way. How many times have we been told as a salesperson coming up within the organization that you sell yourself, not the product, right? The customer is buying you, and they're buying that interaction. So when you're representing your dealership or your business, there needs to be a you, an individual engaged with the customer so that your personality or the personality of the person representing you is conveyed to the customer so that they can start to build a relationship with that person and with your brand. So use whatever tools that you want to be able to gather information, get data, so that you can make it a part of the conversation, 'cause it will be a part of the conversation. It's just not gonna be what they're focusing on. They're gonna focus on what you're doing, and if there's no interest, if there's no interpersonal interaction, if there's no relationship, then it's likely not gonna have the effect that you want.

Be there for your customers, and they will commit to be there for you as well. So there's a powerful quote from Gil Fisher, who's the director of service, process, and design at Booking.com, and he recently said, and I wanna... He was at a speaking event at the Qualtrics Explore Conference in Seattle. And let me just read this for you 'cause I think it's really valuable. He said about Booking.com, "The travel platform is heavily investing in AI in customer service, but human connection still matters. In fact, it's what will differentiate Booking.com from its competitors. We are the biggest online travel agency in the book, but we have big competition. We're all on that same journey in time trying to understand what technology can do and how we can use it to create a better qualitative outcome. So the actual difference that we can make is in those moments when customers reach out to us. It must be that they don't talk to technology, they don't talk to AI or some other kind of tool, that they talk to a human. As we see the new world tech unfolding, we truly believe that the differentiator is going to be the human connection." So it's a really powerful quote, and that's the connection that makes the trip to the store a trip to buy and not a trip- Just to see who you are. By the time they come into the store, it should be a sale for you.

It's a s- it's a sale for the dealer to lose, and it's because it should have already been won based on the interaction that they had or the interactions that they had prior to their visit. Again, it's what makes the first engagement so meaningful. So now that I have us so intently focused on these first impressions, these initial online interactions, let's talk about the leads for a bit. Just the leads in general, because I feel like it's important. Leads are such a big part of what dealerships do every day. And we've made the concept of customer shopping online and leads inseparable. It seems like one must convey to the other always. And because everyone's idea of a lead is that it induces the sale, I hear many dealers saying that they don't have enough leads. And while there is a level of truth to that sometimes, you have to know that all leads are not created equal. Truly, as CEO of two different automotive technology companies over the past twenty years, over the past two decades, and running stores before that, I can tell you that more often than not, these stores do not have a lead problem. They have a closing problem. In fact, some stores actually have too many leads. So what does that mean? It it means that they're not closing enough. They have a closing problem, and you can have too many leads. It-- if you're one of these dealers who's saying, "I just constantly feel like I need more leads," this is a big ROI issue for you because you're investing in traffic but underperforming during engagement. Now, I want you to think about that for a minute. So while you're not just paying for lackluster leads, but also the time and personnel to handle poor leads, and it takes more effort, it doesn't make any sense. Moreover, often dealers are facing a bottleneck issue because they have so many leads pouring in that the staff can't really handle them, in which case the higher quality leads the ones that could have really higher closing ratios, they don't really get the appropriate interaction. They're not really getting the attention they deserve, and yet all of the leads need to get attention. But this overflow of leads is simply just diminishing your team's ability to be able to convert on the volume that they're getting. So it's not just the good and the bad leads, it's the sheer volume of leads that's coming into your dealership can damage the ROI or diminish the ROI that you're trying to get, and it'll even diminish overall profitability. It can also po-- it can also make your team focus on certain types of leads and ignore others, and that's also something that you won't want because it destroys customer confidence in your store. So now you're really diminishing your overall ROI, even outside of just the leads that are happening there.

This entire idea of, "I need more leads because I'm not really cultivating the leads before I develop them into better customer assessments," is called autopilot, and it means that you kinda keep overfilling your pipeline and you're giving your team too many things to handle, and it just destroys your overall ROI. So then when your margin goes down because your total conversion is poor, you think you need more sales to keep your level of profit that you want for the store. In turn, you look for more leads instead of focusing on quality and the interactions in those leads, and it's a dangerous spiral because your ROI just keeps shrinking while your costs keep rising. There's no way as you're producing lower quality lead-leads and pushing more and more of that conversation to the dealership that you're gonna maintain a high ROI and have the effect that you want from profitability. So your best option is that initial point of contact, this online engagement, should absorb some of the effort of the sale so that customers are further down funnel when they reach the dealership portion of their journey. It's your job as a dealer to analyze and verify your own conversation... I'm sorry, conversion ratios and how effective your lead providers are. You must commit to success here in this area to truly impact your ROI and your gross profit. Focusing on sales conversion instead of lead volume, that's the more important factor. Evolving your engagements online by maturing your customer's intent to purchase from you and your store as you create the lead before they come into the store. That is a key factor all the way across the board.

So don't expect a visit that won't happen if the level of communication does not pla- take place while they're still interacting with you pre-visit to the store, while it's happening online or on the phone if they're actually working with you on the phone. So let's translate all of this that we've discussed into what matters most, which is making money, making revenue. According to that same Harvard Business Review study that we discussed earlier, ninety percent of purchasing decisions are driven by emotion So that's important. So remembering that the most successful and most profitable consumer purchases can only occur after trust has been established, and that emotions play this significant portion in the process, is extremely important to understand. What has a direct impact on trust building-- on the entire trust-building process, and that is engaging customer emotions. That's why you put them into a test drive. That's why you want them to smell that new car smell. That's why the new car smell exists, I think. It's just the glue, right? But people are producing that in little spray bottles because that creates an emotion for the customer of buying a new car, having something new. It's to a great extent... I know when I w- when I got my first car, it was like a sense of achievement. And as I got older even, and I got nicer cars, then that as well was a sense of achievement. So that's an emotional response, right? You're having an emotional response to it, and if you can leverage that's where the meaningful connection is gonna be, and that's what's gonna drive the customer to be more involved with you and to be more likely to buy. Harvard also defined a way to accomplish this is through the use of deep questions. Deep questions invites the customer to talk about their values, their beliefs, their experiences. It really engages, excuse me. It really engages their emotions and exper-- significantly. That means that your job isn't just answering questions. There's not gonna be this kinda quid pro quo about data, and if you allow it to be that way, then it's gonna be very superficial, and you're really not gonna build any relationship with the customer. Just delivering the answer to the question that they ask you point-blank and not diving in more with the customer is gonna do nothing for the sale.

So what you wanna do is understand why the customer is buying. Instead of engaging the customer on facts, you must engage them on how they feel, what is motivating them to wanna buy this car? Why do they like it? Or why do they not like something else? Or why do they need it, right? That's gonna be what it is that's important when you're going through this with the customer. Because when you do that, they tend to reveal what they're trying to accomplish. They're gonna give you the why they're doing this, and then you have something to address, and you have something to address conversationally They'll not only tell you what it is that they want, but how they wanna be perceived and what matters to them the most. And this is the best way to have a significant impact on your closing rate with your customers, is actually diving in deep and really understanding their entire perception of what it is they're trying to accomplish during the purchase of this new car. So let's take a l- a moment to look at that conversion and how this makes you money in the way that you're spending this ef- extra effort and focusing on the customer and not just on the volume of leads. So as before, we're talking about sales conversion, not lead conversion. It's certainly possible that as you go down this road of deeper engagement, it could filter out leads that are simply just not at the buying stage, so you won't see as many leads. It's possible, but you'll still end up with more sales and more revenue, and here's how.

So let's take a look at this chart that we're gonna bring up for you. This is an actual study that we did with a large group of dealerships. It was a direct sample study of about a hundred dealers. And here at the top you can see this is a group of stores that had about a seven percent conversion ratio on an average of about five hundred leads per store. And that amount to, at the current dollar rate of an average vehicle, that worked out to about one point eight five five million in sales revenue. Whereas as we kinda go down here a little bit, just a small percentage increase in closes creates this notable increase in revenue. So just three points in closing even with, this slightly lower, as you can see here, we've shown it with a slightly lower number of total leads, you're actually at two point one two million dollars at the same per vehicle rate, even with this twenty percent decrease in the overall volume. So it's really important to recognize what that is. So if you add a decrease, and I'm not saying that you will, but if you add a decrease in leads because you are paying more attention to the type of lead and not just arbitrarily creating leads, then you would still produce more profit and more sales for the dealership simply by paying a little bit more attention to the customer. Now in this study, what I'll tell you now that I've made that point the actual study when we ran it, with these customers that we pulled over, the actual increase was not just from seven, it was up to fourteen percent. It wasn't just to ten percent, and there was no real difference in the total lead volume. It, it really can increase significantly past that. I want for those of you who understand, if you're at seven percent, that is the national average. That's why- We use that number, and that was what we looked at for the mass of the stores that we were using for this particular study. But it can increase much past that just by focusing on the customers and by focusing on driving them to the sale, not just to produce a lead when you're working with them online.

So it's really the point that I wanted to make to show you i-it was more about paying attention than this standout number that we had that I really wanted to bring up. So remember that it's about doing it correctly. That's what I want you to take away from this whole statement, is pay attention to the customers online, develop them before they come into the store, so that by the time they get there, they're already ready to buy. They've already got that relationship. It's not hard to get a lead today either. So that's why so many leads can come into the store, and you should not be looking at just arbitrarily increasing your lead volume. I can tell you that if you have a customer come in from a chat perspective and you just say, "Hey, give me your name and number," they'll give you their name and number. Is there any commitment to that? There's no commitment to that at all. It's ridiculous. They just don't-- There's no meaning to them to be able to have that. They'll give it to you, and then when you go to call them, they're never gonna take the call. They're never gonna respond to an email because you didn't give them what they wanted, which was interaction, communication. They wanted to understand who you were, and you just blew them off because all you did was give them data or you didn't give them anything at all you did was take information from them and give nothing back. Again, it's not about data either. It's about engaging with them. It's about understanding why they're doing what they're gonna do. So if you don't focus on this deeper engagement, you'll have to add the cost of the effort to try to convert all of these bad leads that you're getting that have very little commitment by the customer, and a lot of them won't convert. The ROI drops considerably because you're spending time on working on leads that may never close. You have a lot of bad phone numbers and emails because you think you're getting something, and they're not really giving you anything that they're gonna communicate with. And you're getting customers who probably are not really ready to buy. And so you're fighting through a lot of those kinds of leads. And that was what we talked about earlier in this presentation, is that you're better off spending the extra time now at that first impression to try to get the customer engaged and to open up to you than you are just saying, "Hey, let me get your information and drive you to the store." Because they're not gonna come to the store. They can do all this in advance today. The most expensive leads that you have at your dealership are the ones that you're gonna chase and never close. So to close up a little bit, just to give you some final thoughts about where we are.

I'm the same... I'm really of the same mind of Jason Arzola, who's the CEO of Deloitte, who I think said it best, "The irony of a tech-driven future is that it's more human." Technology will continue to evolve, it will continue to optimize, but it will not replace the one thing that drives decisions, which is that human connection, that emotional connection to another person. And now that you know your customers are willing to pay more for a better experience, we've shown you that it's scientifically and statistically proven in numerous studies that this is true, that by the time the customer walks into your dealership, the sale should already be won. It won't be because of price, it's not gonna be because of inventory, and I think many of us already realize that. It will be because the connection to the trust and empathy you build with them well before that they arrived is meaningful for them. So stop chasing more leads. Start building deeper relationships. While technology has changed a lot recently, and people are basically the same, people are basically the same as they've always been. They wanna believe you, they want good service, and they want an advocate to help them through difficult processes. The dealers that will win with all of the newest tech are going to be the ones that remember you're still selling to people, you're selling to humans, and that they want what you want. They wanna be seen, they wanna be heard, and they wanna have an emotional connection that makes them feel good about purchasing with you. So please remember that. All right. It was great having all of you here today. Again, I wanna thank you guys for attending. I really appreciate everybody who signed up for the event. If you have any questions and you haven't posted them already, then certainly don't hesitate to direct message me either through LinkedIn, or you can send me an email at ted.rubin, R-U-B-I-N, @activeengage.com, and I'm happy to answer any questions that you may have. Thanks very much.