Andrew Street
Colby, we are here talking about engaging customers digitally during the buying process. I know that you are focused on this right now with your group, uh, coming up with ways to be much more relevant with customers during that buying process. How is it coming along? I know you’ve done this for years, but what’s the latest, uh, with your stores?

Colby Joyner
Well, I would say, you know, really kind of taking a look at the, the latest iteration of. Technologies that’s out there. And um, you know, there was something interesting. So I went to, uh, Business Bourbon & Cigars. The J&I Marketing, Scott, Joseph, Sandy Grimy, uh, went to that a couple weeks ago in San Antonio. Fortunately it was in my hometown. So went to that a couple weeks ago and David Spisak said something during that that really resonated with me. And I said, how many of you are using technology, personal technology that is dated back to 2004? Um, nobody does, right? I mean, I don’t use a home phone. I don’t have a home phone. You know, I use my cell phone. I mean, I, I use everything in my house is pretty updated. Um, and so his question was, okay, then why are you allowing your business to utilize technologies that’s dated back to 2004? Like, why are you using, using antiquated DMSs, antiquated CRMs, you know, um, Any kind of tools that you have, any kind of strategies that were data back then, like, why do you keep using that? You’re not gonna grow as a business and you’re not gonna, you’re way behind the bell curve. Like you have a mile to run before you can start running up the hill. Um, so that’s kind of the way that I’m looking at it with, uh, this new group is what kind of technologies are we using? I, I can’t rely on the stuff I did a year ago, two years ago, five years ago, because it’s not necessarily relevant anymore. Um, either everybody is doing the same thing, which then doesn’t isolate me as a unique dealer or unique, uh, you know, business for customers to shop at. Um, or it’s just doesn’t work. It doesn’t integrate and it’s not, it’s gonna be the slowest piece in your, in your whole tech stack. So we are looking at and currently executing on really that, that seamless communication. So how do we get from when the customer initially engages with us? And I don’t mean by, you know, technically talking to us or submitting anything, I’m just saying like their first point of engagement is usually at, at, whether it’s on social media or they’re searching and going into your website. How do we have it and allow the customer to be able to just like a single click right into communication. Why do we have to have all these barriers in place? And why have we had all these barriers in place, um, to kind of slow down the customer? We’re trying to speed up the customer in our heads. Our, all of our sales processes are developed around speeding up the customer. How do we get ’em from the top of the funnel to the bottom of the funnel, in and out of the store? See you later. Go bus bugs on the road. That’s what’s been on our head, but yet we, our process of doing that in our communication is like, whoa, whoa, whoa. You gotta do this first, and oh, you gotta do this, fill this out. And hey, once you fill that out, I’ll get back to you as soon as I can. That’s how it’s been. And so there’s no wonder that people are getting frustrated or irritated with the car buying process. So if we can eliminate that, the, the speed bumps on the Indy 500, then it’s gonna be a lot funner race to watch. So our whole goal is trying to eliminate those. I, something that’s been in my head lately is CTAs, all the different call to action buttons that may be on a, on a website, on a VDP or an SRP. They’re like the modern day voicemail who listens to voicemail. We don’t even listen to ’em anymore now, like on an iPhone, you read ’em. Right. You don’t even, you don’t even have to listen to it. But those CTAs are a modern day voicemail. So how do we take that CTA, reduce it down, have just one, and it’s a single click where the customer has direct access to somebody at the store immediately. Not a chat bot, not somebody that’s gonna collect information, be like one, “a member of our team that gonna get back to you as soon as we can.” How do we get it to where it’s like, “Hey, I’m Colby, I, yeah, I work here. How can I help? Oh, you’re looking at this. Yeah, we have that on. I’m actually, I see it right outside the window in, in front of my. How soon are you able to come in or do you not wanna come in? Do you want me to send you the information over to you?” Right. That’s my whole goal. That’s what we’re trying to do here. Streamline. 

Andrew Street
I love it. And it sounds like the platforms that you’re looking at doing this on are starting with the website. Uh, is it branching? Not their platforms? 

Colby Joyner
Not necessarily. Um, I actually had a conversation, I can’t really talk too much about it this, but I had a conversation this morning about doing that effectively and mirroring the experience on socials through, you know, messenger, WhatsApp. 

Andrew Street
Okay. And, and it sounds like it’s, it’s geared on your team being present. 

Colby Joyner
Mm-hmm. 

Andrew Street
It’s not an outsourced BDC. 

Colby Joyner
Correct. Yep. We have a 25 person in-house, centralized BDC, um, that will be fully functioning and answering that. 

Andrew Street
And then it’s going to be one CTA and it’s to start chatting.

Colby Joyner
Yep. One CTA have questions, question mark. Then it’s price, payment down, payment, financing, uh, availability, trade value, whatever the case may be. Giving some suggestions to the customer of saying, Hey, yeah, you can ask. Pretty much anything that you want. And then it goes right into the combo. 

Andrew Street
So it’s gonna be multiple choice. Like, okay, you’re about to start the– you tap it, 

Colby Joyner
It’s not even a multiple choice conversations coming up. 

Andrew Street
Here’s some topics that you could have. 

Colby Joyner
It’s not even a multiple choice. That’s the CTA. The CTA is a dynamic view. So it’s like a gif. Imagine a gif, you know, GIF has, you know, the, the moving pictures, it’s like a movie, right?

Andrew Street
Mm-hmm. 

Colby Joyner
It’s a, it’s a gif and so at that point it’s able to, Say, “have questions?” and it rotates and it says “price?” “payment?” “availability?” “trade value?” Chat now, ask here. They click into it, it goes right into a chat thread, and then they ask the question, whatever the question may be. Hey, have you have that? Do you have that red 2023 Yukon Denali on the lot? Hey, Andrew. Hey, thanks. Thanks for chatting in. Let me go ahead and check in on my inventory real quick, and you just start chatting with them. 

Andrew Street
And then that person’s gonna be at the centralized BDC and going to be able to have current inventory, 

Colby Joyner
Current, valid, relevant information.

Andrew Street
And then are you thinking about like having people be specific to manufacturer and be more knowledgable?

Colby Joyner
So the way that we have our, the way that we have our, our centralized BDC set up, we have three teams. So it’s 24 people plus our BDC director. So we have three teams of eight. Each team, it’s in a big room. Each team is separated by eights. So you have a, a long line of, of cubicles, another long line of cubicles and another long line. Each one of those teams, they work the same hours and they’re off the same. So this team works eight to five, then nine to six, and 11 to seven, and then off on the next day. And then this team does the same kind of rotation, same days off. So they work together as a team. Every person on that team is certified in one of our brands. So the BDR, uh, and our, you know, the, the staff and the BDC, they are certified in one of our brands. So you have this collective team that works as a, as a whole, that all have access to the entire group as a whole. And you have one person in there that is like the expert on Ford, one person that’s the expert on Buick, one person that’s the expert on Chevy, right? One person that’s the expert on Jaguar. So you have those experts in there. So if something comes in and they’re wanting to know detailed information, that chat can be handed off to that person and they can go ahead and dive in and answer it.

Andrew Street
And you feel like it’s all gonna be chat for the foreseeable future people typing on their phones, on their computers? 

Colby Joyner
I think it, I think it’s the, it’s the most valid entry point. 

Andrew Street
Mm-hmm. 

Colby Joyner
Right. It’s building the rapport. Look the, and you know, the older we get, the more that we have to understand the younger generation. I’m, I’m not even saying that I’m that old, but it moves so quick. Right. I was talking to somebody on, here’s a tangent. I was talking to somebody earlier today and they were talking about how, you know, the move from MySpace to Facebook took a while, but Facebook took over. Then Instagram came out and it was pretty quick from a move to Facebook, to Instagram, and then Instagram to TikTok. And each time that there’s a transition in one of these mediums of communication and, and you know, content and all this other stuff, each one of those moves happened closer and closer and closer together. Technology and communication and all this stuff moves at a very dynamic rate. It’s like that rate of exponential growth. How quickly are we moving and adapting and changing, especially with all the technology out there now to be able to type in something saying, Hey, write me a Python code, or write me this C++, or write me whatever this code is, um, to develop this kind of software. And then it goes and it plugs it out, right? So you, you probably have this 15 year old in the basement, you know, creating a, the new version of TikTok right now. And he’s not, he’s not formally educated on it. He’s just plugging it into an AI that’s developing it, developing it for him. So with that being said, communication has, I think, has adjusted. It’s now, it’s a lot harder to build rapport one-on-one, you know, human to human on the phone or in person without having some kind of precursor or pre-conversation. Most of the communication that happens with the, with younger generations, starts on some form of communication app or social media. They’re on text message, they’re on WhatsApp, they’re on Facebook Messenger, Instagram Messenger, or you know, the blend of that. They’re chatting on Snapchat or they’re on TikTok or they’re on these, uh, other various channels and they build rapport that way. So when they finally meet, they’re comfortable because they don’t like being uncomfortable. So I think moving forward in the future, the conversation, or at least in the, in the near future, obviously things are gonna move very quickly, but conversations that start via instant message or, you know, direct message or however you want to label it, are more important than that phone call because you have such a wall built up in trying to understand how to communicate properly with your voice. A lot of people understand how to communicate, just thinking about it and typing it out. Plus you can edit that before you send it, right? So you can be a little bit more concise and clear. So I think that building rapport is really crucial in this communication medium of text or chat to be able to then quickly jump into the personalized phone call or the, the, the in-store appointment or the video chat or whatever it is, because now you have, you, you’re comfortable with the person, you’ve, you understood how they are dynamically as a person, how they communicate, how they explain things. You like it, you’re like, okay, cool we’ll move to the next step and I’ll get on a phone call with you. I think it’s easier to say, great. At this point I think it’s probably easier for us to hop on a phone call. How soon can I give you a call? Or when are, when’s the first time that you’re available in the near future. Hey, I’m available at three o’clock when I get off work. Great. I’ll go ahead and call you at three 15 and give you a little breathing time after work. 

Andrew Street
How long have you been wanting to build this out? Here’s why I’m asking this. Like I feel like you have like a very formative experience on all different sides of the desk with dealerships. Um, And it’s, it’s kind of like put you in a unique position. And what, what’s your title now? Is it Marketing Director? 

Colby Joyner
Uh, VP of Marketing and Strategy, 

Andrew Street
VP of mar– Okay, cool. Like that’s like, this is such a broad scope of, of what you’re building out. That’s mar–. It is marketing sort of, but it’s super. Marketing 2.0 down the road marketing of really tying the hands closer between marketing and sales, it seems like.

Colby Joyner
Mm-hmm. 

Andrew Street
And I feel like now you’re in the, I shouldn’t seat to be able to do it. 

Colby Joyner
You shouldn’t be siloed in any of this. All of those departmental roles need to be, you know, blended. And I’m not saying that you need to have just one person that manages all the roles. Like you need to have your marketing staff and your variable staff and your fixed stop staff and all of them be able to communicate and understand things all at a high level. So, you know, is this marketing? No. But in, in doing this, can I execute on marketing strategies that are different than others? 

Andrew Street
Mm-hmm. 

Colby Joyner
Yes. Right. Do I have a value proposition now in terms of how I can explain to the public of the ease of communication with us? Yes. So developing the strategy around how do we communicate now allows me to have that uniqueness with our group that I can leverage as a value to the public.

Andrew Street
I love it, and I wanted to argue with you about that, but I think it’s like the nebulous role of like the marketing director at a dealer group at a dealership. Is all, you know, it’s evolved so fast from being the IT guy who understands computers and it’s sort of, there’s marketing and computers and digital, and now it’s, you’re overseeing the computer setups for the new employees. Now you’re overseeing our website development and, uh, do you know how to manage vendors? You need to stand on vendors. What’s BS, what’s not? And now it’s, you know, what’s, what’s around the corner? Like, how can you get out way ahead? What other dealers are doing, like what tools are available. Um, and you talked about like using platforms to develop code, which is amazing. And I imagine you’re talking about like chat GPT.

Colby Joyner
mm-hmm. 

Andrew Street
And, and uh, uh, creating conversations with that. Is there any application you feel like with what you’re working on right now for ai for chant, GPT essentially? 

Colby Joyner
Um, I mean, I leverage chat GPT a lot more to, uh, unify my thoughts because I’m all over the place, and I mean, I, you can’t see it right now, but if I turn my camera, I have two, eight by four whiteboards that are full. And it’s just, I get up and I’m like, I just start writing and I have ideas on there. I have my to-do list. I have each store broken out of what things I need to do at each store. Like my brain is going a thousand miles an hour. I was kind of joking this morning. I, I woke up at 3:20am and just had ideas and started writing ’em down and trying to figure it out. And I’ve been awake since, so it’s 11:30am right now, so I’ve already been through an entire day it feels like. But, um, I utilize chat, GPT to target and kind of hone in on what is actually the important part of that and how, how do I calm that initial idea down enough to where I can actually create something from it.

Andrew Street
Mm-hmm. 

Colby Joyner
Or try to build something from it. And then not every one of them is gonna be a good idea. I’ve had. Way more bad ideas than good ideas, but every once in a while you’re gonna get that little diamond in the rough. You’re like, okay, no, this makes sense. And so you start presenting it out to people and you start saying, Hey, how about this? What if, what if we tried this and let’s try doing this? And I think it, you have to allow. Your marketing person and even all the way down to your sales staff, to your, to the sales managers, to your service advisors, you name it. You have to allow them to be creative in their exploration of how to serve customers. If you allow them to be creative on that, you’re gonna be surprised at what they can offer you.

Andrew Street
Unlock the human potential there. 

Colby Joyner
Mm-hmm. 

Andrew Street
And it’s like the, you know, the, the trick to having a good idea is having a lot of ideas. Then you find that good idea in there. Um, do, do you feel like there’s, are there, feel free to mention any products or competitors or whatever, but like, are there cool, um, products that you feel being that, that you could plug in along the way during this journey? For the customers to be able to engage. 

Colby Joyner
Yeah, I mean, so, you know, with our single point chat and all that stuff, I’m using CARnow, so CARnow, I’m using their chat. We have their full suite of items and so, um, 

Andrew Street
I’m a big fan. 

Colby Joyner
Yeah. So, you know, message now by now, um, convert now, you know, we, we haven’t launched any of it yet, but we have, you know, we signed up with their showroom and desking tool, um, that they have in there, which is, is really cool. Um, But yeah, I mean, we we’re leveraging the technology that other companies have, but kind of tailoring it, I guess, more to us. 

Andrew Street
Mm-hmm. 

Colby Joyner
Like we’re not mm-hmm. We’re not utilizing their, um, their, their, their response ai or the response bot that they have in there of, you know, Hey, this is so-and-so, let me get your first name and last name, and then it transfers over to the chat. And then they have an outside BDC that gets more information and then it finally hands over to the sales staff as a lead. We’re catching it beforehand and, and communicating with it. And the way that our BDC is set up is they traditionally don’t even get any of this new customer communication. They’re working on outbound manifest lists, equity, mining, you name it. But we’re leveraging them to, to communicate right now on the immediate. That way if they end up being able to answer something, get the appointment. Because we know that sales staff, they’re busy, you know, most of the time they’re busy and. They’re not gonna jump in and answer a chat in the amount of time that’s necessary. So in order to, uh, I guess, I guess you can say my goal is to try to remove the KPI of response time. I don’t want to measure response time anymore because it, there should not be a response time. It should just be a response. So then we can start really diving into, 

Andrew Street
mm-hmm 

Colby Joyner
What is our response, the quality of response versus how quickly do we respond, who cares? How quickly we respond if we don’t respond appropriately. So yeah, I utilized that where it’s a direct communication. I eliminated some of the things that they had on there in the pathway that that ran. But their technology, I’m, I, I love it. And that’s what I’m using for, for that. 

Andrew Street
Do you feel like there’s a, an application for this that you’re gonna try to build out for vehicle acquisition for fixed ops?

Colby Joyner
Um..

Andrew Street
Things outside of sales?

Colby Joyner
Yes. Would love to tell you about that, but I’m holding that one a little close to the chest right now. Um, but yes, there are, there are a lot of different varied opportunities that I don’t think that dealerships are necessarily looking at. You know, I think, I think, you know, for instance, Cavender Auto Group, the, the group that I’m a part of has been around for 83 years, um, 84 years since 1939. Um, and you know, I don’t know very many companies that have been around and are still flourishing after that many years. They either get sold off or they go outta business. You know, even with as, as popular and as, as profitable as, you know, all the social medias are and all the, all the, you know, Google and all this other stuff. Apple, you know, uh, YouTube started in 2006. That’s when my son was born. So it’s, it’s very weird to think that something that you see as like, just mainstream, this is what it is. It’s not that old. Right. But us being around for so long, we know that there’s very few things in the world that are still just gonna be around, dealerships are gonna be around, but we also have to be prepared for the different, different economies. Cuz I know, you know, automotive has been in, you know, super great economies and very bad economies still survived, albeit with some, some help. But we have to be prepared for the new iteration of communication and technology and all this stuff that’s coming, we still in, in the majority, kind of operate, um, uh, very antiquated. So we, we’re not very tech forward, we’re not very, you know, future minded. And so in order to make sure that I do my due diligence as a, as a member of the Cavender Auto Group, I wanna make sure that we’re setting up the, the organization to survive any of these changes that are coming. The only way to do that is to leverage as much technology as I can inside without losing the human element of what it means to work in the dealership.

Andrew Street
Yeah. And it’s kinda like aligning with the right partners, and it’s a, it sounds like, you know, ca– it’s a good size group, but it’s small enough to where it sounds like you’re still nimble

Colby Joyner
mm-hmm. 

Andrew Street
Where you’re able to make quick adjustments and it’s, you know, it’s the. With my company as soon as like, so, so I’ve got an ad agency that, that works with dealerships and our marketing firm was able to see the pandemic, uh, and reach out to, you know, over a hundred clients and see are you guys able to still sell cars? What can we do from our desks to help? Do you need help with organic content? You guys need help with graphic design. The elements that we have that aren’t our core offerings, it’s how can we get out in front of this and it’s okay, you’re still able to, to sell cars, but you don’t have cars. Let’s go into vehicle acquisition mode. We’re gonna go after everybody driving. Tacomas, you know, Tundras and Corolla, you know, Tell them that we’re buying that specific nameplate right now and start to pull in, uh, vehicles onto the lot for you guys to appraise or do the five minute appraisal or, you know, the value props to our dealers. But it’s just working closely with each other to see what can we do and do it quickly based on this, how quickly the economy is changing and interest rates and inventory levels and staffing issues. And do we need to help with recruiting now? Okay, we’ll go after blue collar, uh, tech school graduates and try to recruit them. And it’s the same with with what you’re doing. It’s what, what can we do to leverage technology at the same time? Be relevant to customers and be able to move quickly with what’s going on, uh, in the automotive market. Um, I like the idea of, you know, going, going back to, you know, the, the focus of this conversation with engaging customers, making it relevant to where they are, uh, in the buying process. Cuz like a lot of my focus has been eliminating shitty cookie cutter ads and having that ad be really relevant to that customer and where they are, what they’re looking at, do they know who we are as a dealership or have they never heard of us and they just moved to town and they drive my manufactured nameplates? Let’s get them into services. Introduce ’em to our service department versus somebody who’s shopping, uh, car loans, or somebody who’s coming by our website. Looking at pre-owned pickup trucks should get a different message. And have you looked, are, are you working with, it sounds like you’re working with like Facebook Messenger and social media platforms for this, uh, for the BDRs to be able to start those conversations with customers through multiple different channels.

Colby Joyner
Yeah. Yes. But we’re, we’re trying to funnel everything into kind of one centralized channel. Not, not that, not that the various channels are, are, are poor, but we want to be able to reduce, like my, one of my biggest pain points is. How many browser windows do I have to have open with all the different technologies that we are communicating with?

Andrew Street
Mm-hmm. 

Colby Joyner
That’s, I, I, that’s a pet peeve of mine. Um, so if we can take that and have the varied ways of, of inbound communication into one spot, then they now have freedom to be able to be a helpful resource versus just getting stuck on, oh wait, where’s this person replying? How do I need to get ahold of him? All this other stuff. Um, but yes. Uh, It kind of leads me into that helpful resource in terms of the, the types of ads and the ways that we’re trying to capture customers is we’re really gonna be focusing on, and there’s a lot of things that we’re putting into play now of advertising more about being that helpful resource and having helpful content. Than, hey, here’s a vehicle that we have, or here’s a service. Right. Like, cuz that’s a limited, that’s a limited retained customer. Yeah, that’s a, that’s a, that’s a one and done type situation. Um, what we really want to do is showcase, there’s a reason why people buy here. So if you’re new to the area, let me explain it to you and if you see this as a helpful, a helpful place to get in just to, even if you just want information or if you need assistance or whatever it is, we’re here to do. If we happen to have a vehicle that you like, great. We’re, we’re gonna show it to you. If you need, you know, parts or service, great. We have that and we’re able to provide that for you and trying to make it as convenient as we can. Um, but yeah, everything that we’re gonna be doing kind of moving forward is that being a helpful resource to the community.

Andrew Street
Mm-hmm. 

Colby Joyner
I think that builds on the legacy and everything that Cavender stands. Is being very much a part of the community. And so we don’t wanna get away from that as we add technology. We don’t want to get away from that. Now, are we advertising vehicles? Yes. Are we doing VLA Yes. Are we doing Facebook ads? Yes. Are we doing all this stuff that’s VIN specific? Yes, of course. There’s, you know, mixed marketing in all that, but main message of everything is Yeah, we’re, we’re here to help. 

Andrew Street
Yeah, it’s the evolution, you know, leveraging the carousel ads of here’s our cars, here’s our cars, here’s our cars, opposed to here’s a car just like everybody else has cars. Give us your contact information. Give us your contact information. Give it– you know, to trying to, to pull those pieces together to, to meet the customer where they are. Um, well I love your pursuit, Colby. Um, it’s cool, it’s audacious, dude, and this is like, there’s only a handful of minds in our industry thinking the way that you’re thinking and, uh, you know, especially it sounds like you’ve got the seat and the resources to make stuff happen. Uh, where, where can people find you? I know you’re running around, you’ve got Digital Dealer, you’ve got NADA, you’re, you’re at the shows? 

Colby Joyner
I’m at the shows. Um, you know, we have, we have some big stuff going on in the month of April. So unfortunately some of the things are kind of popping off in April. I’m not gonna be at, but I’ll be at Digital Dealer, uh, in Tampa. Um, obviously we’ll go to NADA next year, probably Digital Dealer in the fall. I’m in San Antonio, so if you happen to be in San Antonio, hit me up. You can hit me up on Messenger or LinkedIn. I’m really on, you know, kind of between Facebook and LinkedIn, depending on what the content is and what we’re talking about.

Andrew Street
I love it. Colby Joyner, Cavender Auto Group. Man. It was a pleasure talking with you, my friend. 

Colby Joyner
Ah, absolutely. I enjoyed it.