General Motors began piloting its Shop-Click-Drive online sales program through a network of about 100 dealerships earlier this year. Now the company has announced the expansion of the program to all of its 4, 300 U.S. dealers.
Every General Motors dealer in the U.S. now has the opportunity to offer Shop-Click-Drive on its website. The service enables customers to get estimated pricing on a vehicle, see current incentives, choose financing and insurance products, get information on a trade in and book a test drive, all online.
“We want to make it easier and simpler for dealers to connect with customers who are looking to combine the convenience of online shopping with the personal service of a neighborhood dealership,” said GM’s Kurt McNeil, vice president, U.S. Sales Operations. “We engaged dealers to help us develop ‘Shop-Click-Drive’ to address this need.”
It is not required for dealers to participate in the program, although feedback from dealers included in the pilot program have been generally positive.
“It’s been a good partnership and has given us a tool to grow our business and reach out to new customers.” Said Todd DeNooyer, General Manager of Denooyer Chevrolet in Kalamazoo, MI. So far, GM is the only automaker to offer an online sales service of this kind to its customers.
Comments
Waste of time and resource. Any dealer worth his/her salt already does these things. GM probably just wants to get the middle and take some sort of cut, but they will most likely just screw it up. They need to let the retailers do what they do best: retail, while they do what they do, build the best cars and trucks possible.
I agree totally with Bob Lutz, good dealers know what they are doing. Please your customer and they will buy.