Navigate Used Car Shortages with Better CSAT Scores

If you’re trying to improve your dealership’s margins, the best thing you can do in today’s market is get smart about used cars. It wasn’t that long ago that shortages were increasing the value of used vehicles to the point that the average gross profit on a used car was higher than that of a new one.¹ Although prices have come down from their pandemic peak, inflation and other economic trends have kept used vehicle prices high. While that represents an opportunity for your business, it poses challenges as well: Higher-value used cars mean higher margins for you, but that increased value also drives more competition among dealerships for each sale.

Focusing on capturing those sales needs to be a big part of your dealership strategy if you want to maximize your revenue, and a pillar of that strategy should be improving your CSAT scores. After all, if prices are similar, people will want to work with the dealership that makes the process easy and hassle-free. With Kelley Blue Book® Instant Cash Offer℠, you have a powerful tool to win more sales and trade-ins, all while improving the consumer experience.

Get Happier Customers with Kelley Blue Book Instant Cash Offer

Consumers today have access to more pricing tools than ever before, giving them an edge when it comes to getting the best value for their used vehicle. On top of that, the increasing value of used cars means sellers are benefiting from more dealership competition for their business. With more dealerships working harder to capture used car sales, you’re in danger of missing out if you don’t have a solid inventory strategy that differentiates you through better pricing and a superior customer experience.

Fortunately, Kelley Blue Book Instant Cash Offer can help in both areas. We’ve talked in previous posts about the ways Instant Cash Offer can help you compete on price, but today we’re going to look at how Kelley Blue Book Instant Cash Offers improve the customer experience, leading to higher CSAT scores that represent an advantage for your dealership — when customers like working with you, they’re more likely to give you the sale this time around and stay loyal when they have car needs in the future. As more new customers turn into loyal customers, you’ll see higher revenue and steadily increasing traffic, both online and in-store.

First, Kelley Blue Book Instant Cash Offer provides value through pure name recognition: Kelley Blue Book is the most trusted source for vehicle valuations² and the #1 most used third-party automotive site for research and online car buying, with more than two-thirds of sellers using Kelley Blue Book at some point in the process.³ That means customers are already primed to feel confident and secure in the valuation they get with an Instant Cash Offer, leading to faster sales and more satisfied sellers.

Customers also love how easy Kelley Blue Book Instant Cash Offer is to use and understand. Whether they’re getting a valuation online or on-site at your dealership, Instant Cash Offers are fast and transparent, so customers can quickly understand how much they can get for their car and why. That leaves them feeling more confident in your offer, improving the chance that they’ll close the sale and walk away happy.

Kelley Blue Book Instant Cash Offer also helps keep customers engaged throughout the selling journey, a vital component of any used car strategy. In fact, 46% of consumers take over a month to transact,⁴ even after getting an Instant Cash Offer, so it’s imperative that they keep your dealership in consideration while they decide.

How Kelley Blue Book Instant Cash Offer Makes Your Dealership “Stickier”

Kelley Blue Book Instant Cash Offer provides you access to a number of tools you can use to keep your dealership top of mind during the customer’s journey. That stickiness pays off in increased consideration when they’re ready to transact, giving you a better chance to capture the sale.

Here are some other ways you can leverage Kelley Blue Book Instant Cash Offer to keep your dealership fresh in customers’ heads while they consider a sale or purchase of a used car:

• Retailing tools, like the Instant Cash Offer interactive banner, make it simple for customers to get a valuation anywhere on your dealership site using a dynamic module that lives at the top of each page. Customers love the ease and transparency, and it’s good for your bottom line, too: Dealers who add the interactive banner see a 32% increase in offer volume, on average.⁵
• Kelley Blue Book Service Drive Acquisition turns your service lanes into an opportunity to win more sales while boosting customer satisfaction. By generating an automatic cash offer for every vehicle that comes through to be serviced, dealerships are able to source fresh inventory at little cost, and customers feel confident they’re getting a good offer from the people they trust to service their car. Dealerships using Service Drive Acquisition have seen up to three cars out of every hundred that pass through their service lanes result in an acquisition.⁶
• With Kelley Blue Book Instant Cash Offer, you get access to the deep market data underlying each valuation, allowing you to walk customers through exactly why a vehicle is priced the way it is. And after you’ve given them the offer, it’s easy to keep them engaged until they’re ready to sell with digital tools like RE-ENGAGE, which automatically sends targeted emails to customers whose offers have expired. Dealers using RE-ENGAGE have seen a 13%+ acquisition rate on viable opportunities.⁷

Turn Satisfaction into Sales with Kelley Blue Book Instant Cash Offers

Kelley Blue Book Instant Cash Offers can be an important part of your dealership strategy, speeding up the buying and selling process for used cars while giving customers a great, hassle-free experience, no matter what they decide. When you use all the tools Kelley Blue Book Instant Cash Offer has to offer, you’ll see happier customers, higher CSAT scores, more repeat business and, ultimately, the higher margins you’ve been looking for. 

SOURCES:

1. National Automotive Dealers Association, “2023 NADA Data: Midyear Report,” January 2024.

2. Q4 2023 Consumer Brand Tracker.

3. 2023 Cox Automotive Car Buyer Journey Study, Cox Automotive.

4. Cox Automotive Instant Cash Offer Dealer Transactions (Jan 1, 2022 – Dec 10, 2022).

5. Data based on a ten-dealer, three-month pilot during 2023. Not a guarantee of performance.

6. 2023 Cox Automotive Car Buyer Journey Study, Cox Automotive.

7. Based on dealer acquisition data of 10 early adopter dealers as of 8/22/2023.