Newton Nissan of Gallatin, Tenn., has found a way to connect with loyal customers and new shoppers on their own time, while aiming to make their dealership experience easier.
The dealership launched its first mobile app in February. Since then, the marketing tool has led to more service appointment bookings and helped the dealership sell vehicles, said Katie Rosenbaum, marketing manager for Newton Motor Group, a four-store dealership group near Nashville, Tenn.
General Manager Ryan Martin heard about the app, Rosenbaum said. It has allowed the store to serve customers who have smartphones at their convenience, she said. It's also helped retain customers by offering service appointment scheduling, loyalty rewards, coupons and click-to-call features for service and roadside assistance. The app is powered by vendor Mobile Dealer, formerly known as Mobile Einstein.
Newton Nissan of Gallatin, Tenn., says a mobile app has helped it retain customers, make service appointment bookings and sell vehicles.
"Pretty much every section of our website is housed in this app, so it's just easier," Rosenbaum told Automotive News. "We already know shoppers are on mobile, and most people who are on mobile also are tech-savvy enough to know about apps."
As an example, Rosenbaum says that in August customers using the app made 21 calls to Newton Nissan's service department, resulting in 11 service repair orders, two vehicle sales and an additional $9,000 in revenue.
While service orders have been a popular use for the app, it also resulted in more than 1,500 page views in August, mostly for vehicle inventory.
Vehicles on the lot feature QR code stickers that shoppers can scan to view inventory details, Rosenbaum said.
"If you're on the lot on a Sunday afternoon, so no one's around, and you see a car that you like and you want to know more information about it, then you pull out your phone, download our app and then go to the new inventory page in the app and search the stock number to be able to see information and check availability," Rosenbaum said.
Newton Motor Group is so happy with the results that it plans to launch an app in January for its Newton Nissan South store in Shelbyville, Tenn., Rosenbaum said.
"We're rolling it out to our Nissan store because it's bigger and the [general manager] down there really believes in it," Rosenbaum said.
Newton Motor later will consider launching an app at its Ford and Chevrolet-Buick-GMC stores, which are in more rural areas, she said.
Inside Newton Nissan of Gallatin, signs advertise the free app, and a kiosk in the service department shows customers how it works. The dealership, which sells about 200 new and used vehicles a month, is averaging a steady 110 to 120 monthly app downloads, Rosenbaum said. More than 1,700 people have downloaded it this year, she said.
Rosenbaum said Newton Motor Group considers the app to be a key retention tool in the digital age.
"We've seen traffic with [coupons] enhanced because [customers] just bring in the app, and it's right there on the screen for the adviser and the cashier to see and apply to their bill," she said. "Beyond that, there's a loyalty rewards button. We have our own code to enter every time someone gets an oil change into the app that provides a stamp. Once they get four stamps, they get their fifth oil change for free."
The app's tools are easy to use, Rosenbaum said, and Mobile Dealer provides analytics that tally page views, coupon redemption, stamped loyalty rewards, referrals and events that were shared via social media or email.
"We just really liked it from the get-go and thought it makes things so much easier for our customers," Rosenbaum said. "And one of the big selling points was it links to our DealerRater page."
The Mobile Dealer app is customizable for dealerships and includes geofencing capability, allowing a dealer to draw a virtual boundary around their dealership or competitors' stores and send push notification offers to shoppers, said Tony della Busa, CEO of Mobile Dealer.
More than 200 dealerships in the U.S. and Canada use the app technology it launched in November 2017, according to della Busa. Mobile Dealer charges dealerships $249 a month for the app.
"We are helping more dealerships sell and service cars," della Busa said.
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