Purchasing any items online has steadily gained popularity over the years.
Even the car buyers are now more inspired to get up close and personal with their new car while they lounge at home on their favourite sofa.
By creating a digital showroom experience you can cater to their preference and deliver an in-person experience no matter where your customers are.
But how does this affect the online car buying process, and what steps can dealerships, marketers, and sales teams take to leverage this for their benefit?
Here we'll go over how to set up your very own digital showroom using the best practices in automotive sales and lead generation.
What is a digital showroom
Benefits of digital showrooms in automotive
Car buying tends in 2024
3 Ways to create an automotive digital showroom
Digital showroom best practices to increase sales
Checklist
At its core, a digital showroom is a solution where salespeople can showcase physical products and collections on their website.
For the automotive industry, this could mean exhibiting specific elements through live videos, such as
For other industries, salespeople might showcase different fashion pieces, electronics, or sporting equipment in their virtual showroom.
The aim is to make the viewer feel like they are as close to being in the actual showroom as possible.
Digital showrooms in the automotive sector offer many advantages, revolutionizing the traditional car buying experience.
Some of these are:
✅ provide potential customers with the convenience of exploring a wide range of car models and features, and even take virtual test drives from the comfort of their homes
✅ facilitate seamless live support that answers customer queries, personalising their experience efficiently
✅ by embracing digital showrooms, automotive companies can significantly expand their reach, engage with a broader audience, and provide an innovative, hassle-free, and informative car purchasing journey
Think about it, almost all car buyers start their research online.
Then, buyers might visit a physical showroom to see their prospective car in person to only learn it’s not what they were looking for.
This causes customers to return online for continued research before they feel confident in visiting another showroom to fulfil their needs.
But to help guide your car buyers through this car buying process the first time, you should provide the customer with a smooth and seamless experience from research to purchase.
In fact, 18% of car shoppers say they would buy a car sooner if there were an online buying option.
Automotive companies investing in technology have successfully began to attract their new audience by providing a range of services, effectively bringing much of the dealership experience online.
However, replacing the traditional showroom experience might seem challenging. But there are many easy ways to do it that have gained traction among auto shoppers.
For example, giosg assisted Hyundai Mexico in this transition, using their one-to-many livestream project to create an interactive showroom.
This digital showroom allowed customers to explore cars, interact with staff, and ask questions, and just in the first year this resulted in:
🔥 461% more leads
🔥 11,000 customer questions answered
🔥 447% increase in related sales
This is just one of the different ways you can bring your digital showroom to life on your website. Here are a few of the straightforward ways you can make that happen:
With a live selling or live video shopping platform, you’re able to give your customers video tours, live service, and helpful guidance all in one.
A one-to-one live video solution is the ultimate way to overcome any friction that usually comes with online car buying.
You can sell more cars online with live video calls by building trust on the video call and immediately addressing customer questions about car features with live footage.
With intuitive tools, like giosg’s live video solutions, you can start a video call, send messages, and review customer information all from your mobile or desktop conveniently.
Live video should be a part of your digital showroom because it is quite literally bringing the customer inside of the actual showroom through video.
In most cases, live chat can be the glue for your automotive website.
Almost any uncertainty a visitor may have on your website can be cleared up with speedy service via live chat.
The key to making live chat useful for your digital showroom is by administering quick responses.
Being available when a customer needs you and when their buying intent is highest can be game-changing in their decision-making process.
Take a look at Riddermark Bil for example.
They've been able to sell 30 additional cars per month with giosg live chat.
As mentioned previously, you can engage with visitors wisely through live chat based on their time spent on the page or what page they’re currently browsing on your website.
When you put your agents in a position to speak to potential car buyers in real-time, this adds another realistic aspect to your digital showroom.
Car buyers who don’t want to drive to their nearest dealership right away, often look for online alternatives to initiate their buying decision.
Car shoppers see car review videos as the 2nd best alternative to visiting a dealership. Use this to your advantage!
Depending on where a visitor lands on your website, you can launch an engaging chatbot to guide them through more information.
Within this chatbot, you can place a video for visitors to watch.
Having a video bot is better than having a video embedded on one of your pages because you won't have to wait and see if a website visitor stumbles across the video as it pops up at the right time to the right people.
Another great thing about automated chatbots is that they can work after hours even when your salespeople are offline.
Keep in mind that 84% of people say they’ve been convinced to buy a product or service thanks to videos.
Now that you know how to set it all up, here’s a quick preview of what needs to be front and centre for an optimal digital showroom experience.
This may be the most important part of your digital showroom if you want to allow customers to explore cars in an immersive experience.
Using live video will give you the power to leave a lasting impression on expectant customers.
The reason consumers shop online is because it is more convenient than having to travel to the nearest dealership.
Not making customers wait 2-4 business days for a response is important to making the online experience favourable.
Unless it’s a pre-recorded video, you don’t want to offer a live video call to every person who lands on your website.
Website visitors at any given moment are at different stages of their buying journey.
You want to be a bit selective with your video calls because you don’t want to exert your resources for someone just browsing cars for fun.
Of course, you want to close a deal, but overall when entering a video call, your first goal should be to be helpful.
When you are helpful with your prospect, it builds trust and awareness, leaving them with a better overall impression of your brand.
Establishing a digital showroom on your website can be the key to garnering more car sales, so enter each call with top-value service, because every video call matters.
Would you say that you have one foot in the digital-first world for your car dealership yet?
Check out our free checklist to see where you measure up on the digital front! Or download our recent guide to learn more about live engagement in the automotive sector 👇