3:47 pm, April 30, 2020
Autoweb Design has announced a package of new online features to help groups and independent dealers adapt to ‘the new normal’ as smoothly as possible.
The digital marketing and website design agency is making e-commerce and digital sales process features part of the standard tier on its new dealer website platform at no extra cost.
Existing website customers will be upgraded free and the features will also be offered to non-website customers for the first time.
Autoweb Design, which has been highly commended at Car Dealer Power on numerous occasions, said that as a result of the lockdown, consumers’ habits will change noticeably in at least the short to medium term, and although e-commerce has long been a daily staple, the extent to which customers use it is likely to rise.
The features will be rolled out as standard to all Autoweb Design customers, but they’re also being made available as standalone bolt-ons for non-Autoweb Design websites, and have been engineered to be seamlessly integrated with third-party websites without having to be an Autoweb Design customer.
They include a customisable e-commerce system to allow an end-to-end buying journey, or it can be tailored to just offer the elements that the dealer wants, including online reservations.
In addition, a video portal – to be released in the coming weeks – will let dealers offer live tele-conferencing between their sales team and the customer, including showing live video of the vehicle or a pre-recorded video walk-through.
Martin Dew, digital solutions director, said: ‘As we step towards ‘‘the new normal’’, it is clear already that the public will be looking to limit, where possible, in-person interaction with brands and retailers in the near future.
‘This includes the vehicle purchasing journey, and it is imperative that we ensure our customers are braced for this by offering the options they need to continue to interact with their customers on the customer’s terms, more and more of which will be online.
‘We also wanted to make sure these tools were made available beyond simply our customer base.
‘It’s been inspiring to see how the industry has really pulled together over the last month, and we wanted to offer our help as widely as possible and ensure that not being a customer of ours is not a barrier to implementing the solutions we can offer to embrace the fallout from this unprecedented period of change.’
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