It's that time of year again when we all resolve to lose weight/be kinder/spend less/eat better.  In the spirit of "new year, new you" here are 5 AutoPlay resolutions you can make to get the most out of the AutoPlay suite of products.

1.  I will respond to leads faster than ever before
I'm not going to define for you a suitable time to reply to customer enquiries as every dealer and region is different, with different expectations and different resources (though 2 hours could be used as a good benchmark).  Your first resolution is simply to work out firstly how long you are taking to reply to customer enquiries - check out the Email Reply & Allocation Report.  Once you know how long you are currently taking, knock 20% off and make this your new target.  It doesn't have to become part of your salesperson kpi's, but the addition of a documented goal to respond to all new leads will help all the salespeople understand the expectations on them.

2.  I will re-market to my existing leads...using the tools I already have available to me!
Many of our customers would have heard various members of the AutoPlay team bleating on and on about the fact that on average dealerships only convert 50% of their leads to Test Drives, and 20% to Sales.  We really hammer this point home because if you do the math it shows that 80% of the leads you've generated will not actually result in a sale.  Clearly this represents a huge opportunity for sales people to really work their lead database.  The Dashboard makes it super easy to identify the progress stage each lead is at, and built in tools such as Live Leads, In Market Leads and the Email Response Tool make it easy to target these customers for no additional spend.  Get someone responsible for sending Live Leads out each month and make the most out of every cent you spend.

3.  Personalise your customer comms
As detailed in make-2019-the-year-you-personalise-your-comms.html the internet continues to be an impersonal space, and building rapport with prospective customers is key to enage with them.  AutoPlay's suite of products offers ample opportunities to inject personality into the online space with Virtual Demo Videos and Video Email Response Tool.  Depending on your package these tools will not cost any additional and can be a great way to drive engagement with your dealership.

4.  Start using In Market Leads & Wishlists to connect your deals
The benefit of using digital tools to manage your leads is that everything gets captured.  The weakness of many digital lead capture systems is they don't help salespeople connect deals together.  At AutoPlay we've worked hard to provide tools that help sales people digest all the overwhelming volumes of information they have access to.  The Wishlist is used when your sales team cannot pin a customer down to a particular vehicle in stock.  It will automatically alert the salesperson when a matching vehicle comes into stock, or is appraised on another deal.  In Market Leads serves a similar purpose - when a new vehicle comes into stock or the price of an existing vehicles is dropped the system will look at all of the leads that have been captured (based on customisable criteria), and alert the manager to those customers that might be interested in the price dropped or new listing.  These tools are built into the standard Sales Pipeline so will not cost any additional money - use them!

5.  Understand Reporting
It's hard to make decisions if you don't understand what is happening - so understanding reporting is critical to your success with AutoPlay Sales Pipeline.  Reporting can be more than just tracking the past - it can also identify opportunities for the future and now.  If you know you convert 50% of your Test Drives to Sales via the Lead Conversion Report, and you know you've got 40 leads sitting at Test Drive Progress via the Sales Pipeline Report then it's easy to connect the dots and work out a plan to convert 20 of those leads into Test Drives.  AutoPlay has a wealth of reports from raw data extracts in the form of the Lead Audit, to the 15+ reports in reporting.autoplay.co.nz.  If you are a Sales Manager it's critically important that you understand what the reports are showing you.

If you want to talk to someone about any of these functions contact support@autoplay.co.nz and one of our Account Managers will get in touch.

Recently I stumbled across one of the ubiquitous “top digital trends for 2019” articles that you see at this time of the year, every year.  One of the key trends I’ve seen identified repeatedly is the need to personalise your communications with your potential customers.

Video is one way you can easily personalise your communication, with the added benefit of being one of the more effective ways to engage with potential customers.  As you can see from the images above, according to Google 56% of shoppers could be convinced to buy a car from a 360-degree video without having to test drive the vehicle.  In addition, 40% of shoppers who watched a video about cars or trucks visited a dealer as a result.

It is said that some industries are already seeing up to a 30% increase in close rates (Adpearance).  At AutoPlay we’ve run our own surveys about the AutoPlay Video Email Response tool and have had dealers report back increases of 60% when replying to customer enquiry with video, as opposed to tradition text-based emails.  There’s clear evidence that personalising your customer comms will drive higher engagement from potential customers.
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So how can you utilise the AutoPlay suite of products to personalise your customer communication?  

Personalising your customers web experience is difficult, however steps can be taken to inject personality into the online space via AutoPlay Virtual Demo videos.  These videos let dealerships customise their own recording scripts, and record their own unique voiceovers on listing videos – a great way to introduce the dealerships personality into the online space.

If you have an AutoPlay Vehicle Display Page you will be able to embed a Youtube video into the VIDEO LINK field in the AutoPlay Studio.  This allows dealerships to embed any video they have rights to use, within their AutoPlay vehicle stock page.

​The AutoPlay Video Email Response Tool was one of the first digital communication tools that AutoPlay built and is still going strong to this date.  The Email Response Tool allows salespeople to inject their personality into the online space, and has proven to be an effective way of building rapport with prospective customers.  Although we are a tech company, we have an old school mentality when it comes to emails – you are not likely to sell a car directly from an email, but how you reply to email enquiries will directly affect your prospective customers decision to visit the dealership.  The default mode for the email tool is to stitch the audio onto the existing images – making it extremely easy to build straight from the app.

​If you are using the iOS App you can utilise the camera on your iphone/ipad to film a true video walk around of the car – hopping in and out, opening the boot and engine bay and even starting the engine.  Filming a true video definitely takes more skill and confidence than recording a voice-over, but can really help to personalise the experience for potential customers.

In 2019 AutoPlay are phasing out of website work.  Building sites has always been something we have done as a value add for customers using our Data Management or Sales Pipeline services, and is not our core focus.

As such we've made the decision that we will focus on continuing to develop our core products, and will not be taking on any new website work (though we will continue to support our existing websites).  

Working in this space it's inevitable that we will be asked by our customers to build sites.  That's why we are pleased to be able to recommend Adtorque Edge for all your website needs.  Adtorque Edge have a proven track record in Australia and the GM for NZ is Todd Fuller - who will be well known to many in the industry through his time with Driven.

Welcome to 2019!  The December results are in and with public holidays and the general December slowdown it was a quiet month across the board for AutoPlay customers.  Overall the volume of leads captured or loaded by AutoPlay customers was down 11.3%.  There were 9.7% fewer Test Drives and Sales were down 11.2%.  Given AutoPlay has a significant market share of franchise dealers in NZ, this represents a pretty sizeable downturn for the month.

‘Web – Classified’ was the only Lead source that bucked the trend with an increase of 0.9% in the number of leads captured in December 2018, vs November 2018.  This is to be expected as whilst the discipline of manually loading leads can lapse around the holiday period, electronic leads from the likes of Trade Me, AutoTrader and Driven are automatically captured to dealers AutoPlay Sales Pipeline.  The ‘Web – Dealer’ source dropped by 9.8% and although still accounting for the third most leads, ‘Brand’ leads dropped by 38.8% as head office marketing drove fewer leads to dealers.

With the overall volume of Test Drives recorded dropping by 9.7% month to month, it’s not surprising that in December Test Drives attributed to most sources took a hit.  Test Drives from ‘Web – Dealer’ decreased by 1.3% and ‘Direct’ Test Drives fell by 3.2%.  As with Leads, the ‘Web – Classified’ source again bucked the trend an increased by 1.6% in December.

​Mirroring the slowdown in Leads and Test Drives, dealers recorded fewer sales across the board in December 2018.  ‘Web – Dealer’ continues to be the number one source of sales despite decreasing by 4.7% from the previous month.  ‘Web – Classified’ decreased by 7.2% and sales attributed to ‘Repeat’ customers also fell by 12.9% in December.

​Make sure to check back in February to see whether the volume of leads bounced back in January 2019.  To find out more about the range of reports available via AutoPlay contact us on sales@autoplay.co.nz or +64 9 361 1505.

As 2018 winds to a close we wanted to share with our customers an update on our progress with rebuilding our Desktop Studio as an HTML5 application.  We've been working hard as this project for a number of months and it's starting to come together.

At this stage our goal is to have the new Sales Pipeline in the hands of a select few dealers for a BETA trial around March/April 2019.  Once we have run this trial for a month or two we will look to roll-out to the rest of our dealers in a staggered approach to ensure we can support our customers with the new software.

As we are getting to the pointy end of the project we'll keep the updates coming as regularly as possible.

If you have any questions about the HTML5 project, or would like to put your hand up to get early access please contact matt@autoplay.co.nz 

EV Sales recently launched in NZ to give dealers and buyers alike a dedicated place for all things Electric Vehicles.

As an AutoPlay customer we've made it easy to advertise on EVSales.nz directly via the AutoPlay Studio.  Once you are signed up your Electric vehicles will automatically be sent to EV Sales via our API - simply load your listings as per normal and your EV listings will appear on the site.
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EV Sales were recently an exhibitor at EV World South and report that they experienced overwhelmingly positive feedback from the public, saying how great the idea was and confirming the need for a central place for buying EVs.

Interest, site traffic, and listings are growing, and its the place you want to be!

2018 is almost in the books.  From everyone here at AutoPlay we'd like to wish you all a happy holidays and best of luck for the new year.

AutoPlay will officially shut down for the year on Friday 21st December at 3pm. 

The office will be reopening at 8am on Monday 7th January, 2019. 

Over the official shutdown period you will be able to email support@autoplay.co.nz for any emergencies - this email will be manned and one of our Support Team will get back to you as soon as possible.

We have officially started our development freeze for the year so any new set ups or improvement requests will need to wait until the team return on Monday 7th Jan, 2019.

If you have any questions about AutoPlay Support over the holiday period you can reach us on +64 9 361 1505.

From the team here at AutoPlay 
Merry Xmas and Happy New Years!

After an up and down last few months saw strong growth in Lead and Test Drive volume in October 2018, November bucked the trend with decreases across all 3 KPI’s for AutoPlay customers.  Leads decreased by 2.5%, Test Drives by 5.2% and Sales by 4.1%.

Reflecting the overall trend of a decrease in Lead volume, most sources decreased in the month of November.  ‘Web – Dealer’ leads decreased by 6.8% from Octobers high, and whilst ‘Web – Classified’ still accounted for the second most leads across AutoPlay customers, dealers also saw a decrease in the number of leads from this source by 2.5% from month to month.  ‘Brand’ generated leads continue to provide dealers a reliable source of leads and were one of the few sources to buck the trend – increasing by 4.7% from October to November.

As with Leads, the overall number of Test Drives decreased in November (vs October 2018).  Test Drives from ‘Web – Dealer’ generated leads decreased by 7.8%, but dealer websites still remain the most fruitful place to generate Test Drives.  ‘Direct’ Test Drives continue to firm as the second most popular source of Test Drives with a small 2.0% increase from October to November.  As with October, Test Drives generated from ‘Brand’ leads accounted for the 3rd most Test Drives, but decreased by 11.7% from the previous month.

Sales across all Lead Sources decreased by 4.1% from October to November 2018.  The same three sources accounted for the most Sales in November with ‘Web – Dealer’ decreasing by 1.5%, ‘Web – Classified’ decreasing by 0.5% and ‘Repeat’ decreasing by 3.3%.

​Lead Source reports are just one of the reports available to dealerships and OEM’s who use AutoPlay Sales Pipeline.  To find out more about the range of reports available via AutoPlay contact us on sales@autoplay.co.nz or +64 9 361 1505.

Although we are dedicating most of our time to rebuilding the Desktop Studio in HTML5 we have managed to squeeze in a few small improvements into this release.

Event No Shows
We have been receiving a lot of feedback from dealerships that they want to track how many customers don't make it to scheduled appointments.   To facilitate this request we've added a new option on Calendar Events called "No Show".  This option can be selected when the customer does not turn up for their appointment.  No Shows are tracked in the Morning Meeting, Overdue and Daily Health Check Reports.  In addition we've built an Appointment Conversion Report which is available via the Desktop Studio under Generate Reports.

Pending Leads Criteria
In 18.4 we've modified the criteria for a lead to appear in the Pending Leads screen.  Where previously if the lead was automatically allocated to any user the system would determine it wasn't "pending" and the lead would not appear in Pending Leads.  In the latest release we have modified the criteria so that the lead will display if it is Awaiting Action, has no Calendar Events, Emails, SMS or forms created by a User in AutoPlay.
(FYI in the HTML5 rebuild we have created a better way to handle this on the existing Lead Dashboard without the need for a dedicated screen for Pending Leads).

Improvements To Customer Search
We've improved how the iOS and Desktop apps search for customer records with two names in the first name field.  This will make identifying these customers in your database easier.  Records returned are now ordered by first name match first, then company followed by last name.

Drivers Licence Scanning Will Now Scan Address Details
If Address details are located on the front of a customers Drivers Licence the DL scan will now pick up these details and populate within the relevant address fields on your lead or Test Drive Form. 

Appraisal Valuation Details Removed From Email Appraisal
If you use the 'Email Appraisal' function on the Appraisal Form to email wholesalers we've now removed the Valuation and Customer sections from this information.  

New Setting To Restrict Lead & Customer Export To DMS Until Closed Won or Closed Lost
In the past it was possible to restrict exporting Customer and Lead exports to the DMS until the lead made it through certain Progress steps.  With the latest release we've expanded this functionality to include 'Closed Won' and 'Closed Lost'.  This will provide dealerships with an additional mechanism to restrict what is exported to the DMS.

In Market Leads Matching On Sold Listings
18.4 includes several fixes to the In Market Leads functionality.  We've made several tweaks to the engine behind this functionality which have helped make this function run faster.  In addition we have tidied up a small issue where In Market Leads were including listings that were already marked as sold.

Tidied Up User List In Standard Response Screen
We've cleaned up the 'User' drop down in the Standard Response screen to exclude users that are 'Deleted'.  This brings the drop down in line with other User drop downs throughout AutoPlay.

Improved Notifications When SMS Fail To Send
We've improved the error handling on SMS sending when the SMS fails to send due to an incorrectly formatted phone number.  AutoPlay will now trigger an email to the sender letting them know the SMS failed, as well as displaying a notification against the lead, and the Notifications panel on the Dashboard.

Storing Photos When Licence Scans Fail
In 18.4 we have added the option to store a photo of the customers Drivers Licence even if the scan fails to scan any customer details due to blurryness/poor lighting/movement etc.

New MotorWeb Appraisal Report Replacing the MotorWeb VIR
In the latest version of the Sales Pipeline, the MotorWeb VIR will be replaced with a brand-new Appraisal Report.  The new report allows salespeople to return vehicle details & easily view comparative model listings on Trade Me to help meet customers trade price expectations.  Check out the link here for more details.

Assorted Improvements

• Improved flagging of Undeliverable email addresses
• Converted americanised date fields in Email Campaign screens
• Fixed a time display error when checking FTP folders
• We've modified the message that displays when an update to the Desktop Studio is available
• Added Created Date to Export of Closed Lost Reason Report

We are aiming to have the HTML5 project in the hands of some customers for preview on March 31st depending on how much resource we can dedicate to this project.  More updates will follow in February 2019.  If you have any questions about this project please email matt@autoplay.co.nz

Once you have signed up to list on The Dealership Network they will contact AutoPlay to enable access to your listings.  The Dealership Network (TDN) have hooked up to AutoPlay’s listing API so the moment you load a listing, it will be live on www.thedealershipnetwork.co.nz – with no need to manually select listings for export.

The Dealership Network introduces a completely new concept to help users find their next vehicle. With their Feature Finder they provide an alternative to the standard make, model, year search criteria, allowing their users to search by, feature, function, technology and other criteria to find all the makes and models from around the country that suit what they want from their next vehicle all from one simple search enquiry.
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The Dealership Network is proud to only work with dealership listings, to give their users the trust and confidence when looking at any listing on their website. By integrating with AutoPlay they enable their users to "Book a test drive" or "Request a call back" that feeds straight into your lead API, connecting their users with your dealership and stock. The Feature finder search function incorporates the needs based selling approach onto an online platform. Allowing users to search from a combination of requirements and being able to recommend the specific makes and models that suit their needs. The refinement feature then makes it even easier to narrow these results for the user to find exactly what they are looking for