DD 24 November 2008 DigitalDealer-magazine.com

D IGITAL Dealer COVER STORY

DigitalDealer-magazine.com November 2008 DD 25

Shaun KniffinDirector of Internet Sales

and Business DevelopmentGermain Motor Company

Shaun KniffinDirector of Internet Sales

and Business DevelopmentGermain Motor Company

Germain Motor Company, headquartered in Columbus, Ohio, consists of ninedealerships in central Ohio and seven dealerships in Florida, as well as dealerships in

both Arizona and Arkansas. The original company was established in 1947 by WarrenGermain, and continues to be led by members of the Germain family. In one of manyhonors, Steve Germain, company president, received the 2008 AYES Dealer of the Yearaward, in recognition of his commitment to and participation in the Automotive Youth

Educational Systems (AYES). The company offers consumers a wide selection of cars andtrucks, including Acura, BMW, Cadillac, Chevrolet, Ford, Honda, Hyundai, Lexus,

Lincoln, Mercury, Mercedes-Benz/Smart, Nissan, Scion and Toyota.

A strong commitment to customer service has evolved into what’s known as the“Germain One Thing.” This reputation, combined with attractive product offerings and

active community involvement, has created a stable yet thriving enterprise. Shaun Kniffin,Director of Internet Sales and Business Development, is representative of the kind of

employee Germain attracts: committed to co-worker and community, and willing to dowhatever it takes to enhance the car buying experience, especially over the Internet.

Read on to learn more about Kniffin and Germain Motor Company.

Germain Motor Company, headquartered in Columbus, Ohio, consists of ninedealerships in central Ohio and seven dealerships in Florida, as well as dealerships in

both Arizona and Arkansas. The original company was established in 1947 by WarrenGermain, and continues to be led by members of the Germain family. In one of manyhonors, Steve Germain, company president, received the 2008 AYES Dealer of the Yearaward, in recognition of his commitment to and participation in the Automotive Youth

Educational Systems (AYES). The company offers consumers a wide selection of cars andtrucks, including Acura, BMW, Cadillac, Chevrolet, Ford, Honda, Hyundai, Lexus,

Lincoln, Mercury, Mercedes-Benz/Smart, Nissan, Scion and Toyota.

A strong commitment to customer service has evolved into what’s known as the“Germain One Thing.” This reputation, combined with attractive product offerings and

active community involvement, has created a stable yet thriving enterprise. Shaun Kniffin,Director of Internet Sales and Business Development, is representative of the kind of

employee Germain attracts: committed to co-worker and community, and willing to dowhatever it takes to enhance the car buying experience, especially over the Internet.

Read on to learn more about Kniffin and Germain Motor Company.

P

DD 26 November 2008 DigitalDealer-magazine.com

LEASE TELL ME ABOUT YOUR BACK-GROUND. (e.g., how long have you beenwith the dealership? How did you getstarted in Internet sales?)

I started in the business in 1993. Ispent about four years in fleet and com-mercial sales at a large Ford dealership.From 1997 to 2000 I left the auto indus-try and became a corporate recruiter andthen in 2000 came back to the business asan Internet manager for a dealer grouphere in Columbus. It turned out to be oneof the best opportunities of my career. Iam thankful to have learned quite a bitabout Internet sales and BDC in nearlyfive years with that organization and froma dealer-consulting firm called theMillennium Group. I came to theGermain organization in 2005 and wasable to build upon all that experience.

How many people work in yourdepartment?

Currently there are seven people staffedin our BDC. Their responsibilitiesinclude Internet response and follow-up,service appointment coordinators, cus-tomer advocacy and BDC support. Theysupport Internet operations for ourColumbus stores only. This has to be theabsolute best team of people that I haveworked with since starting BDC develop-ment. They come to work to work, do agreat job, and I honestly don’t worryabout them. They have contributed great-ly to the success of our organization.

What percentage of your dealership’soverall sales is generated from theInternet?

As a percentage of our overall business,our current year-to-date number is up 38percent from 21 percent in 2007 to 29percent.

What tools or lead generators havereally worked on your site to pull inleads?

We have had some great success withAutoUSA and Dealix, but are also gettingtremendous results with UsedCars.com,Cars.com and AutoTrader.com. We arevery focused on optimization right now

and making sure that every lead gets aquick response, and is followed up andassigned to the BDC and the sales teamslong-term. Every lead is gold right nowand we don’t like missing opportunities.We track data on our Internet partnersthat we know most dealers aren’t lookingat, but it helps us make strong objectivedecisions about which advertising andlead generator partnerships are profitable.Over the course of the last year, we havefocused on optimization and narrowedour list of providers significantly due topoor vendor performance and prohibitivecost-per-lead factors. Ultimately, if therelationship isn’t working, we will makecertain that it is not because of any lack ofeffort or process on our part.

It’s important that our vendor partner-ships work strategically to enhance ourbusiness. Our vendors don’t feel like theyneed to come in and “sell” us anything.They are solution providers and when theyhave an idea that looks like it will fit intoour business models, they get involved andpartner with us in making it successful.

What interactive media resources doyou utilize? Please tell me what services

they provide and why you decided togo with them.

We are currently speaking with a fewvendors, especially our web provider,Reynolds Web Solutions. We have a fewstrategies in the pipeline right now, andhave finalized some new ideas on how wethink video will work best into our busi-ness model.

We have been very pleased with theresults of Outsell’s Live Chat service atour Ford location, but scratch our headssometimes when live chat doesn’t performas well at some of our other locations. Wehave also been extremely pleased with theresults of X-Time online scheduling at afew of our locations.

We tend to test products and services atvarious locations to see how they perform.We track the data, consider variables suchas the brand and the market conditions,and then make determinations and rec-ommendations with the GM of that storeas to whether it’s a good fit for their oper-ation. There are quite a few great ideas outthere right now. We know some ideas taketime to “bubble-up” before they becomenew tools in our operation. Most of thetime we have to wait for the right timing;

The BDC staff Kniffin (far left) credits much of the dealership’s success to is, (leftto right), Liz King, Molly Martling, Courtney McDowell, Meagan Anne Moore,

Kathy Armstrong, Melody Lewis, Luke Daniel and Ashley Clark.

D IGITAL Dealer COVER STORY

DigitalDealer-magazine.com November 2008 DD 27

when the operation is ready, we make ourmove with the GM and sales managers ofa store and enhance the process with thesenew ideas.

Do you help design/update your deal-ership site? For example, update inven-tory, create specials, add photos, etc.

We have great partnerships withReynolds & Reynolds, R.L.Polk,Mercedes-Benz, Harte-Hanks, X-Time,Vital Insights, FordDirect.com, Click-Motive, DiamondLot, Auto DealerTraffic and Cobalt. These alliances aregreat support mechanisms that keep ourbusiness humming. Getting things donequickly when it needs to be done quicklyis done through these vendors. With thehelp of Reynolds Web Solutions, we are inthe final development stages of re-launch-ing Germain.com. We’re introducing ahost of new ideas and improvements. Weknow we can’t do everything, but we dowant to take advantage of what is workingon the Internet. Take, for example, ournewest site, GermainGreen.com.

Our director of operations, JohnMalishenko, was the GM at one of ourLexus stores at the time thatGermainGreen.com was just an idea.Having worked with him directly in thepast, we have always had a great relation-ship when it comes to incorporating newideas. Earlier this year, with the publicwatching gas prices climbing higher andhigher, we came across the EPA web siteand discovered a whole world of informa-tion at the click of a mouse. In theprocess, John called me and asked, “Whatdo you think of this?” and away we went.It evolved into GermainGreen.com wavebanners and vehicle decals to a fully oper-ational, extremely dynamic site interlacedwith effective Germain family televisionadvertising spots that were also embeddedin the web site. GermainGreen.com is aninformation site more than anything,incorporating the EPA SmartWay desig-nation for vehicles that meet fuel econo-my and emissions standards into our newand pre-owned inventory listings.

DiamondLot and Reynolds WebSolutions were extremely responsive in

getting this “idea” to a web site in a shortperiod of time. There is an awesome teamof people who worked diligently to getthat site live, and it takes a great team ofpeople to implement changes as quickly aswe bring it to them. We are thankful forpartnerships like that and are proud of theresults of that endeavor.

With the involvement of Steve, Zachand Jessica Germain and some great offlineadvertising, our GermainGreen.com site ispicking up some traction in this market ata rapid pace and it is so dynamic that weneed to have flexibility to keep imple-menting change. It is a great experienceand a lot of fun working with some of thenext generation of the Germain family tomove the business forward. We havemore ideas that are ready to be launchedin the coming months. Our corporateteam avoids being over reactive to themarket and we continuously look forstrategic methods with our vendors andstaff to create more traffic to our sites andto our stores.

How do you use e-mail campaigns togenerate leads? Can you give me anexample of a successful e-mail cam-paign that pulled in a good numberof leads?

Talk about strong partnerships … whatwe have been able to accomplish withAutobase and IMN has been outstanding.We have had a long-standing relationshipwith Autobase as our CRM vendor. We

are an Autobase Platinum partner andhave developed an in-house process ofcreating web ads using permission-basedmarketing that has produced results near-ly instantaneously. When we coupled thateffort with our IMN eNewsletters, weimmediately began tracking sales fromthese efforts and lowered our advertisingcosts. It’s a bit more involved than this,but we know it is working because wetrack it and act on the information.

If you could keep one tool from yourcurrent interactive tool chest to gener-ate leads, what would it be?

The most important asset we own isour owner base. I would not give upAutobase; it’s a major component of oursuccess now and into the future. Alongwith our owner base, I would keep ournewly developed phone system. The tech-nology we installed in our phone systemin the past two years has allowed us tolook at things we never even thought ofbefore. It’s amazing what we learn aboutour business by looking at phone traffic,both in and out of the dealerships. Wemanage all of our own phone advertisingcampaign numbers. By not going to anoutside toll-free number vendor, we save alarge amount of money that paid for thesoftware and hardware. I have greatrespect for the toll-free number vendors;they have some great products, but in oursituation we found a better, more eco-nomical way that worked well for us.

Please take me through the processfrom when an Internet lead is received,to how it is eventually closed (via asale or a long-term prospect). Howimportant is follow-up in closingInternet leads?

We have a great deal of consistent datathat shows how successful follow-up is inclosing a lead. In fact, I rank it right upthere next to breathing; we don’t eventhink about it anymore, we just do it.What a great opportunity to distinguishourselves from the competition. In amarket like this, low hanging fruit isharder to find so we are glad we learnedit early. Our BDC-scheduled appoint-

“It’s amazing what

we learn about our

business by looking

at phone traffic,

both in and out of

the dealerships.”—Shaun Kniffin

we are more strategic in our development.SEM is handled by Auto Dealer Traffic

and we have some exciting new processesbeing developed in that technology spacethat at first glance are beginning to pickup some very serious traction. A few yearsago, when everyone was jumping off ofthird- party leads, we kept our cool andmaintained our third-party leads alongwith an SEM presence. It was one of thesmartest things we did that year.

What trends in automotive sales areyou noticing and how is GermainMotor Company adapting to thosetrends?

It is sometimes difficult to imagine howdynamic our business has become in thepast few years. As a whole, our industryhas had to embrace change at a remark-able rate and historically we aren’t used tothat. Bill Gates said in his book, Businessat the Speed of Thought, “The Internetchanges everything it touches and ittouches just about everything.” All I cansay is look at how it has changed andenhanced our industry! Someone askedme recently, “What keeps you awake atnight?” I had to say; “It’s the opportunitiesthat present themselves during marketconditions as they are right now.” We aregoing to be a “whole bunch better” at a“whole bunch of things” when we getthrough these times. Each day, we findnew ways to re-discover or re-invent our-selves. It’s amazing to me to think of howmany dealers have still not come to therealization that they are going to have todo “something” … soon.

Combine the Internet surge over thepast few years, with a downturn in theauto industry and then welcome the“green” initiative. We see this “green” ini-tiative sustaining itself for a long time.When was the last time that we saw some-thing like concern for the environmentimpact everyone, from school children tothe top executives of the major automo-tive companies? If your house is like mine,you are probably recycling more now andit might have something do with influ-ence from your children.

This is a major shift in consumer think-ing that is impacting not only the auto-motive industry, but also the world as awhole. We are all going to benefit fromthis as we also figure out how to profitfrom it. But more importantly, look at thegeneration of consumers that will be com-ing into the market in the next five years.Right now, most of them are walking the

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ments are up for the year and the organi-zation is pacing to beat last year’s num-bers. The BDC is responsible for assign-ing the lead after they respond to the ini-tial request, and for addressing any issuesor questions that the customer has. Wehave really been working hard onresponding to the customer’s questions,not just responding to the lead. Once thelead has been assigned to a sales represen-tative, it’s the BDC’s responsibility to bal-ance their follow-up with the salespersonfollow-up. It is like a relay race. This islargely possible because of the AutobaseBDC functionality.

Specifically, I have a BDC representativewho has been with us since we started theBDC three years ago. Last month, shehelped deliver a car from a lead that cameto us in the fall of 2005. She had main-tained consistent follow-up for nearlythree years. If it can happen that far back,imagine how serious we get about leadsthat are 90 to 120 days old. CSI is higherand the customer appreciates the cus-tomer-focused approach. Obviously thiscustomer wasn’t ready to buy when hesubmitted the lead back then. We gener-ally see fewer examples of this because, onthe other hand, a lot of customers arecoming out of the funnel so quickly thatthe unsold customer life cycle is shorten-ing. Follow-up is still very important. Wetrack this data, and even though it variesa little from month-to-month and brandto brand, we don’t see customers commu-nicating to the dealers as much so early intheir research as they once did. They tendto stay out of “dealer-land” until they areready. But when they are ready, we wantour relationship to be the first thing theyremember when it comes to buying a car.Based on data from our vendors, we knowa very large percentage of third-party leadcustomers do purchase vehicles. They justdon’t always buy what they were inquiringabout at your dealership.

There are a lot of new tools in the spacegetting attention – blogs, social net-works, SEO and SEM—do you use anyof them? If so, how have they worked?If not, do you have plans to use any ofthese tools?

We currently have developmental proj-ects going on in all of these areas. We havea blog and social networking site inprocess. We respect the new technology,but don’t necessarily jump right in. Thatdoesn’t mean we aren’t serious about it orat least considering it. I tend to think that

halls of our high schools and junior highschools. Think of how they communi-cate, receive information and socialize.When these new millennial’s are willingto give us their information, they expectus to do something more with it. How wesell cars in the next decade is going to beupon us quicker than we probably wantto admit. One thing is for certain; theonly constant we are going to see formany years to come is change.

In light of this comment, another trendwe see comes from a good industry friendof mine, who recently spoke up and saidthat there needs to be an overhaul of thethird-party lead distribution system. Icouldn’t agree more. It has been the sameway for over 10 years now and much ofhow it works needs to be changed. Wethink there will be sweeping changescoming to that space soon because oftomorrow’s consumer. We still have greatrespect for those partnerships, but it willbe interesting to see how they respond tothe changing market conditions. I amsure companies like Cobalt are ready withtheir Dealix division to make sure they arethere for the emerging trends.

As a sales professional, what do youlike most about the Internet?

I have been working in this “space” forabout eight years now and I have alwaysthought that CRM and ILM are really thesame process and I think the Internet hasbeen especially terrific in enhancing howdealers work with their consumers. WhenI was developing my first BDC, we wereusing the same processes to enhanceCRM as we were with the Internet cus-tomers. That is even more prevalenttoday. Once we got so many things digi-tal, it became much easier to enhance thecustomer experience with their own auto-motive web pages, online credit approvalsand paperless deliveries and now text-coupons, permission-based marketingand eNewsletters.

For some of our customers, they appre-ciate live chat while others still enjoy hav-ing a face-to-face conversation. We seemajor differences in consumer behaviorbetween our multiple stores and also thebrands. We have seen online schedulingincrease in popularity in one store andbarely get used in another, much as wehave seen live chat vacillate betweenbrands. What we have learned more fromthis is that each store is different: the cus-tomers, the culture, the management, andthe team. Treating each store the same is

DigitalDealer-magazine.com November 2008 DD 29

the same suicide as treating each customerthe same. Behind all this technology,however, we learned early on are real, livepeople. It’s the hardest part of theeCommerce business model: community.Content and commerce were relativelyeasy once we figured it out, but where wereally are making strides is in the area ofcustomer development and relationships.Our next project, which should be com-pleted by Q4, is going to capitalize on theInternet and technology to elevate ourcustomer experiences like nothing else wehave done before.

One more comment: the disparitybetween brand loyalty and store loyalty isbecoming more apparent. Some strongbrands generate little store loyalty. We’refinding the trick is to get them to returnto your store because every time a cus-tomer returns, there is a 5 percent increasein store loyalty.

If you could enhance the Internet, howwould you improve it?

I think the Internet is improving all thetime. It has to! What “wowed” us a fewyears ago doesn’t impress us much any-more. We have come to equate clickingyour high-speed Internet and having itinstantly appear to buttoning your shirt. Itjust happens. We expect it to be fast andwhen it isn’t, we immediately start lookingfor solutions because we have grown sodependent on how it impacts our lives.Sometimes I think back about 10 or 12years ago and remember what the Internetwas like then and just shudder if I had togo back to dial-up.

But if we are going to see the Internetimprove anything, I would like to see itimprove the auto industry sales process. Iam still amazed that we are still negotiat-ing prices on vehicles and at the sametime offering the incredible discounts thatwe offer on vehicles. Let’s face it, whatdoes retail price really mean in an econo-my where leasing is becoming obsolete forsome brands or an industry where the dis-count on some vehicles is advertised at$11,000 off, or even higher?

I am truly convinced the customeronline experience would be significantlyeasier if we all just sold the cars for whatthey are priced from the manufacturer.When was the last time we went into agrocery store and negotiated the price ofgroceries? Or how about a furniture store?Or a parts store? Or a clothing store? Orbetter yet, what about the price of gaso-line? If the Internet could change any-

thing, it should allow the customers topick up their preferred vehicle of choicefrom their preferred dealer. Better yet,there are programs beginning to pop uparound the country that claim you canbuy from “click to brick” … your brick …your driveway. No negotiating. Just aprice and outstanding service. If theInternet can help facilitate the sale, then itbecomes a matter of distribution and cus-tomer satisfaction, not negotiation.

What sets your dealership apart fromothers in the market?

This should have been the first ques-tion. I think of myself as a “fence-post tur-tle” most of the time. You know, if you seea turtle on a fence post, he had some helpgetting there. I was given a great opportu-nity a few years ago by the Germain fam-ily and my career is checkered with thesuccesses of so many people around me. Ijust got caught up in the slipstream.

This really isn’t about me; it’s moreabout the people that make Germain thegreat organization that it is, and is becom-ing in the future. We are probably not awhole lot different than most dealergroups. We have very smart people work-ing with us that come from a variety ofbackgrounds. We work extremely hard atbeing the best and mediocrity does not setwell with us. We have vision; we strate-gize, implement, track, benchmark,respond and develop. What we try not todo is react. Response takes thought, andreaction is mostly an emotion brought onby fear and lack of experience. We worktogether as a team to make the Internetwork for us. I am just part of the formulaand it isn’t always about what I think willwork. It takes everybody from the manu-facturer to each person in the dealershipto make the Internet process work thebest it can be. It makes sense when youlook at the number of people (nearlyeveryone) who use the Internet to pur-chase a vehicle. This is why we establishedthe Internet process we currently use.

We watch what others are doing in themarket and realize that we can’t andshouldn’t try to do everything. AbrahamLincoln said, “Whatever you are, be agood one.” Somewhere along the line, wedecided not to be “good”; we decided tobe the “best.” And we are constantly look-ing to improve. Good is the enemy ofgreat. It’s about perspective. If the marketis off 20 percent, we don’t complain. Weask ourselves, “What are going to do toget our unfair share of the 80 percent?”

Dealership partners in profit:Dealership name: Germain Motor Co.

Web site URLs:www.germain.com

Web site provider/hosting: Reynolds Web Solutions

Web site vehicle photostaken by:Diamond Lot

DMS provider: Reynolds & Reynolds

BDC software/vendor:Autobase

Online lead generatorsnot including the OEMsources:AutoUSAcars.comDealix

Vehicle history reports: Carfax

Third-party sites whereinventory is posted: AutoTrader.comcars.com

Other vendors not listedabove:Auto Dealer Traffic (SEM)

Like many of his colleagues at GermainMotor Company, Kniffin is the consummateprofessional. He measures the impact of theInternet on company sales constantly andkeeps on the lookout for new web tools andprocesses that will help the many stores underhis Internet domain. He meets regularly witheach brand’s general manager, where theyreview lead generation and sales progress. Hemakes recommendations on improving per-formance. Above all, he loves his job and thosehe works with. Kniffin understands that suc-cess, when it happens, is not the result of luckbut the logical outcome of a dedicated teameffort, whether that team is a co-worker or anoutside vendor. At Germain Motor Company,under Kniffin’s watchful eye and enthusiasticsupport, not only does great defeat good, butattention to detail defeats guesswork.

skniffin@DigitalDealer-magazine.com