Jamie Oldershaw, GM, DealerRater

Kyle Mountsier: 0:00This is In the Dirt with ASOTU.Paul Daly: 0:04

Hey, we are here with Jamie Oldershaw, the General Manager of DealerRater. And you have a longer title than I remember VP of Reputation Strategy at CARS.com. Jamie, it's so good to be with you again to

Jamie Oldershaw: 0:15

Good be back with you guys. Nice to be with you in person

Kyle Mountsier: 0:17

I know, right? Yeah, the last time we did this, we we got all everything that we shared on government documents. And we did

Paul Daly: 0:25

our very official, official source in the NADA response to the CFPB thing like that was a good time.

Jamie Oldershaw: 0:31

I know. I mean, any marketing is good marketing, right?

Paul Daly: 0:35

That's beyond marketing, that's going to be a part, our grandchilden will be able to find us because of that. That's how I like to think about it. Well, thanks for spending some time with us. It's good to be on the floor. There's so much going on when it comes to consumer experience. And you have a very unique view in the industry, because you're kind of the funnel point where a lot of people happen to tell you what they thought about their journey. So what's that looking like in early 2023?

Jamie Oldershaw: 0:59

Well, 2023 is the year that we're gonna go bigger and deeper with the content that we collect. I mean, it's it's such a thrill to be part of the Cars.com platform, because the opportunity that we have now to collect data across so many different touchpoints, and the Cars.com platform journey, and that sort of connected suite of of, you know, the marketplace and the website solutions. And so we were really taking it to the next level with leveraging the platform to collect broader, broader and deeper data across automotive. So what does that mean? So, you know, what, what's exciting for us is that, I mean, look, Google reviews, we all know, it's a one click right. And, you know, maybe you can share a few words about the experience. That's not helpful to car dealers. We want to be able to get you know, we're automotive specific, we're experts in the industry, we think it's much more helpful to collect data across various dimensions of the experience, I think one things that's a huge competitive advantage for Cars is that we enable dealers to compete on dimensions other than just price. And so we're collecting feedback now on price transparency, and the trade and experience and the financing experience and speed of transaction. We just launched what we call a micro survey where we're just asking consumers to just click star rating on the lead handling experience, right? So every lead submitter on Cars.com, gets an email three days later, that just asks them to share their experience, like how did the dealer do responding to your lead. And what we found is that 30% of the folks who respond to us say that the dealer never responded. So 70% of dealers are returning, and this is across 50,000 responses so far in three months. So we're getting a ton of data, that we can now take back to dealers and say, Hey, you made sense for your

Paul Daly: 2:55

Okay, so that's 15,000 unresponded.

Kyle Mountsier: 2:59

Like, I was like, he did the math, that's amazing. That kind of blows them. I'm like, okay, so if we took those 15,000 people, and I just like handed them to a BDC right now, could I sell enough cars this month at a brand new dealership that I own funnel that? Just that to me? We gotta go?

Jamie Oldershaw: 3:17

Yeah, I mean, what we want to do is take this data, and not only say like, holy cow, there's a problem, but also like, here's how you can fix it. And what's cool is that now we can take that data to a dealer and say, like, here are the 10 leads that you didn't respond to this month. And by the way, here are the like, here, they are here, the email addresses, here are the people now go to your BDC and figure out who dropped the ball? Where's, where's the process gap? So that's what I mean, when I talk about going not only sort of broader with how we collect the data, but deeper in the dimensions of the consumer experience. So we collect data on.

Kyle Mountsier: 3:53

Well, that's real time. And like, that's real time feedback, that triggers real results, right? If I'm a Dealer, and I was able to know, like, three days after that nobody's gotten back to that person, maybe it's a drop in process, or maybe there's a technology issue or we're not getting through to the customer. There's any that right, that's probably very likely, in a lot of cases, all of a sudden, I've got the opportunity to go make decisions in my business to really impact the bottom line based on real customer feedback. I think that the way you said that, and the way you set that up is like basically, what a Google or DealerRater or Facebook review does is tell us what we did in the past. Like how what does that mean to what we're going to do right now with that customers what you're now offering up to Dealers?

Jamie Oldershaw: 4:36

Yeah, we're gonna launch what we call the experience review. In fact, we have sort of a prototype of it here at the show, where we're mining the data from millions of reviews to bring insights to Dealers say you might think that everything's great. But here's some areas where you're not doing so well. This is not Cars.com saying that you're bad or you need help, but it's the voice. We're channeling the voice of the Customer providing actionable insights back to the Dealers. And most importantly, we want to help them to track it over time, right? So it's not just like, hey, you have a problem. See ya later, it's we'll be back next month, to see how you did and give you information along the way to help you along that journey of process improvement, which is so important to automotive, we take a lot of pride in being that sort of trusted, transparent voice of the customer.

Kyle Mountsier: 5:23

Are you seeing any opportunity to do that? Across the store? Because I'm imagining, let's just say I'm a store that gets 100 dot, you know, Cars.com leads a month, I'm probably getting another, you know, 800 to 1500 leads that I need to understand what's going on with - Have you have you looked at like, where can we plug this into other ecosystems within the dealership or into the CRM or anything like that? Or maybe I'm just tossing up a product idea?

Jamie Oldershaw: 5:48

Yeah, no, I think there's, I mean, we want to be sort of, you know, the sort of the definitive voice of the customer for so we're going to be looking across all potential touchpoints, where we can collect consumer data on the experience, even if it's off the Cars.com platform, we want to get that experience data, because we think we're uniquely qualified to then translate that data, help the Dealers understand where they need to improve. And then back to the Cars platform for a little bit. I think what what is also helpful, as we think about other ways to use the data, is that we can use this rich data to help curate the marketplace experience as well, because as a platform, we want to make sure that we're sending consumers to dealers that we know are treating the customers the way that they expect to be treated and the way we expect

Paul Daly: 6:36

Y our reputation is on the line as well, right? Yeah. We don't think about that. We talked about yesterday, even from an OEM standpoint, that when people buy a Ford or an F 150, at Bob's Ford, right, a lot of them think they bought it at Ford, right? Like they bypass the Bob's part. And so Ford's reputation is online. But if I go to Cars.com, to look for a car, like there is a level of the threat of Cars.com, that's still sending them to the end to the end Dealer. And they're going to rate their experience with Cars.com, somewhat based on their experience with the Dealer. So I think the way, the way you were saying like, Hey, how can we champion the process all the way through to make sure and give feedback in real time to make sure what they get at the end? Is something good, because your business depends on that as well.

Jamie Oldershaw: 7:22

Yeah, it's a two sidedmarket place. They want everyone to win and win. But you know, but the cars reputation is on the line, when we send a lead to a Dealer comes from Cars.com. If the dealer drops the ball, that's a great for the platform.

Kyle Mountsier: 7:35

So we want to now hear the word. I don't know, I don't know if you're one of these unicorn people that actually doesn't buy things, but I'm guessing you're a consumer and the rest of life. What how are you utilizing your experiences at coffee shops and businesses and retailers and things like that that kind of influence? Have you taken some of the things that other verticals or other industries are doing and started to influence the way that you're operating within the automotive ecosystem? Or can you point something

Jamie Oldershaw: 8:02

I write a lot of reviews? Because I always I always love to see what's the technology? And what's the experience? How's it used? I think we I I'm a product guy at heart. And so I like to take the things that I like the best about different experiences that I get from all the things that I buy across with both online and offline.

Paul Daly: 8:21

Are those super reviewers like you have some badges?

Jamie Oldershaw: 8:24

No, I don't I don't do I don't spend a lot of time on on the output to do some Google stuff. And I visit some other sort of non automotive class,

Paul Daly: 8:33

you get stuff you get emails, you're like I'm in,

Jamie Oldershaw: 8:35

I get emails to see what the experience is like, is it easy and and we'd like to sort of take the best of everything that we see and put it put it forward. But I think that's it's important if you're in this business to make sure that you're always trying to be a student of what you're trying to profess. And so it's it's it's just it's it's a lot of fun. It's a great industry. I love being a part of it. And I'm excited all the all the good stuff we're going to be getting into this.

Paul Daly: 9:01

So good. Well, Jamie, thank you so much for spending a few time I know this won't be the last time. Thanks for sitting down. We'll start working on the next government document we can all get

Jamie Oldershaw: 9:12

it sounds good. Happy to help.

Kyle Mountsier: 9:15

Thank you for listening to in the dirt with ASOTU. We love the automotive industry and the people who make it run day in and day out. We would love to connect with you more through our daily dose of fun, a free email that you can sign up for at ASOTU.com That's a s o t u.com. We put our heart and soul into it every day. Thanks again for listening. Join us next time for more Conversations In the Dirt with ASOTU.

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