Could you tell us about your role and responsibilities at the organization?
As the Vice President of Digital Marketing, I managed over 300 websites and was responsible for ensuring brand visibility and optimizing online vehicle merchandising. My responsibilities included search engine optimization, website content and personalization, reputation management, and conversion rate optimization. Evaluating new online products and services that contributed to providing a world class customer experience online and to driving more online customers looking to purchase vehicles into the dealerships was a key part of my role.
Discovery and Decision-Making Process
What specific challenges or pain points prompted you to start exploring solutions like CarCutter?
With over 300 store locations and a wide variety of space-challenged staging areas for vehicle photography, our photo presentation and photo quality varied tremendously. This proved challenging when presenting vehicles side by side online without any consistency. Our goal was to provide professional, consistent imagery and a common look and feel for over 100,000 vehicles online. This included standard photo ordering and a single background on every photo, both interior and exterior, as well as on all stock imagery.
We wanted backgrounds to have company branding elements to make our vehicles stand out online, both on our proprietary websites, but also in our digital marketing ads and on 3rd party marketplaces. Our objective was to ensure each vehicle stood out and to deliver a superior online showroom experience to customers, but we weren’t achieving this.
What criteria led to your decision to choose CarCutter over other options?
We reviewed a number of photo backgrounding companies and solutions that could help us accomplish this goal, and tested CarCutter on many of our live sites. CarCutter stood out due to their robust technology and support, and their solution felt right for us. Given our mature inventory and photo process, it was critical to find a partner capable of fitting into our existing technology infrastructure without disruption. CarCutter's ability to seamlessly integrate with our systems, combined with their technological resources and expertise, were key determining factors in our decision.
Onboarding with CarCutter
How would you describe the onboarding process with CarCutter?
Onboarding was a key determining factor in deciding to partner with CarCutter. We started with a small pilot to begin integrating CarCutter's technology with our internal systems and websites. The pilot's success allowed us to scale up to a daily batch process, increasing the number of stores and photo volume.
How would you rate the level of support and guidance provided by our team during the process?
CarCutter's technology and support teams managed the high volume efficiently, enabling us to fully transition all 300 stores and all vehicle photos in 30 days. They ensured a steady, fast-paced process, managing the high volume of images efficiently and with no issues. The support and guidance from CarCutter were outstanding. The transition was smooth and professional, making the process worry-free.
Results and Outcomes
After implementing CarCutter, what improvements or benefits did you observe?
We saw a steady increase in Vehicle Detail Page (VDP) views and in website engagement with the vehicle photo gallery since implementing CarCutter backgrounds and vehicle Hot Spots. This contributed to an increase in both online conversions and close rates for online customers. While these improvements can't be attributed solely to the new vehicle backgrounds, they were a significant factor.
What feedback have you since received?
The feedback was overwhelmingly positive from our teams. Our streamlined day-to-day operations and the professional and consistent vehicle imagery ensured customers a modern online buying experience, similar to shopping experiences in other retail vertical channels. Our vehicle photos are often praised by other automotive retailers and are easily recognizable, and we regard our vehicle photo approach as best in class for the industry.
Renewal and Expansion
As you approached the end of your initial contract with CarCutter, what factors influenced your decision to renew and expand the partnership?
We renewed our contract for an extended period, a departure from our typical annual renewals. Cost was certainly a factor, however the overall quality and technical superiority of CarCutter’s backgrounds versus other vendor solutions was decisive. We highly valued CarCutter’s innovative approach and continual technological enhancements like vehicle hot spots and 360 spin images.
Our decision to continue this successful partnership was also reinforced by their best-in-class quality assurance that detects and corrects poor images, using both automated and human intervention. Their excellent customer support and dedicated account management took the time to understand our processes, goals and objectives and worked with us as a true partner, not just another typical vendor solution.
In conclusion, how would you summarize the impact of CarCutter on your organization?
CarCutter has been a key partner and instrumental in enhancing our online presence and customer experience. The partnership has driven significant improvements in our operations and metrics, solidifying our reputation as a leader in automotive retailing.
Want to find out how CarCutter can help your dealership?
Contact us today to speak to one of our experts and set up a free trial to test CarCutter on your vehicles.
