Technology is a “Force Multiplier” for your dealership. The force multiplier concept comes from the military but to explain it simply, think of a hammer. A hammer amplifies your effort to produce more output. 

This idea fits exactly with the flywheel analogy for building a good to great (G2G) dealership as the leveraging of technology tools exert forces, speed and connection to increase a dealership’s momentum.

In this G2G series we’ve covered the bottom three spokes of the flywheel, plus leveraging leadership. Now we’ll explain the leverage of technology at your dealership in 3 areas:

  1. Inside your dealership for internal operations
  2. To increase your customer’s productivity and
  3. For marketing 

In each area, we pose a series of questions both: 

a) to assess your use of technology and 

b) to spark your interest to use new technologies.   

The questions to assess your dealership come from previous articles in this series (see below.) Plus, the current COVID-19 crises has caused many dealerships to add technologies to help them cope.

1. Technology Inside Your Dealership for Internal Operations

  • Do all of your employees have company emails? Many dealership did this for quick and timely communication to everyone at the beginning of COVID-19.
  • Do you use bar codes or RFI tags to track parts, machines or special tools?
  • Are your vehicles equipped with GPS, and do you use software to more efficiently route service trucks to customers and their machines? One dealer told me this technology paid for itself simply by preventing technicians from getting lost.
  • Have you purchased tablets for your employees to access information wherever they are — think of technicians with access to schematics?
  • Do you have a real time work order scheduling system that all departments can access to see the status of machines in the shop?
  • Do your parts people have multiple monitors and headsets to increase their productivity?
  • Does your dealer business system or OEMs have a parts ordering analysis that uses artificial intelligence?

2. Technology to Increase Your Customers’ Productivity

  • Are your parts and service departments setup up to text and receive timely information?
  • Do you have a customer support center to monitor telematics and machine inspections to avoid downtime?
  • Do you have a knowledge-based system to quickly answer trouble-shooting questions, including serial numbers and specifications for each customer’s machine?
  • Are you capable of managing the mega-data from machine guidance, telematics and/or agronomic data?

3. Technology for Marketing and Connecting to Your Customers and Prospects

  • Do you have your own dealership app?
  • Does your website and CRM provide for tracking leads from first contact to sale?
  • Do you employ now standard digital platforms – Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, SEO, etc.?
  • Have you used the Internet of Things (IoT) to do proximity tracking for machines and customers yet? 

In your dealership, there are many technology tools available to you to use as force multipliers. These technologies are much more subtle than a hammer and more powerful.

More information and a complete list of articles from the Technology for Profit series can be found at www.Farm-Equipment.com/TechnologyForProfit.