How we built a business out of recession - Chapter 6 - A new secret weapon
The story of CitNOW*
This is the sixth chapter about CitNOW, the company started from a kitchen table in Winnersh, Berkshire. If you’d like to read from the beginning, here’s a link to chpt 1. Each chapter is roughly a 5-minute read and is an early draft of a book.
CitNOW was founded by Andrew Howells and Donna Barradale in 2005, although the company was only registered in 2008. In February 2018, we sold the company to Tenzing, a UK private equity company. It has been sold again since.
It was obvious when I thought about it, probably driving somewhere in my trusty Vauxhall Corsa with no radio. Dealers doing well, hitting sales targets every month, were always going to be less interested in what I had to say; a few smart ones, the exception. Struggling dealers, there weren’t all that many, listened with enthusiasm and signed up quickly for pilots. But we didn’t offer much of a sticking plaster for their underlying structural issues, which didn’t magically disappear when our new tech was installed.
On that first, crisp Monday morning, Honda Holdrcoft was the only dealer with a live video presentation tool anywhere. Anyone enquiring on the phone from hundreds of miles away, the next town or five minutes down the road, could now view vehicles on the forecourt without moving a muscle.
Hello, Honda Holdcroft; how can I help?
Hi. Is the grey Civic with 19,000 miles still available?
Hello Mr ……?
Smith.
Mr Smith, hi, it’s Lisa here. Let me just check for you.
Yes, it’s still available.
What’s your best price?
That is our best price Mr Smith. Where did you see the vehicle advertised?
Conversations like these were happening all over the country. With the advent of the internet, consumers were quick to welcome the accurate second-hand prices at their fingertips; it had never been easier to price match. Consequently, many telephone conversations opened with potential buyers wanting to know whether the car had been sold and the best price. (Stocklists weren’t always up to date, meaning sold inventory remained for sale on the dealer’s website, hence the question).
Before CitNOW, you would have to drive to Stoke if you wanted that Honda Civic. Plenty did. I was amazed at how far people were prepared to travel. One morning, a retired couple turned up. They had driven from somewhere north of Glasgow to buy a Honda Jazz. They’d seen the car they liked online. A deal was agreed on the phone, including a part exchange figure, the proviso being they liked the Honda Jazz and their old car’s condition was accurate. Several hours later, they drove back to Scotland, a happy Holdcroft customer, having a day out and saving a few hundred pounds.
It was the perfect scenario for any dealer. It’s a long way to go, only to return empty-handed without your new dream car, which you’ve already told your friends and family about. If that Jazz wasn’t quite right, there was a good chance that Holdcroft would have another, which might suit just as well. Maybe even better.
A phrase I learnt quickly when unable to fathom why live video wasn’t the answer to every sales enquiry was - bums on seats sell cars. It was the golden rule of selling; everyone I met understood this. To be successful, you had to appoint the customer wherever and whenever possible.
A salesperson will sell a car roughly 50% of the time if a customer comes to the dealership. It now made sense. Why bother trying to present the vehicle remotely? Much easier to encourage them to come and visit instead, especially as any sort of distance presentation was untried or tested.
When I finally got to spend time with Anthony and Lisa that morning, I probably learned more than they did. I was on a crash course about how dealers sell cars, an education that was just beginning.
The training I gave Anthony and Lisa proved to be short and inadequate. They’d both seen a lot of me in the months before with my testing, so they had a pretty good idea of how CitNOW worked. We ran through the process and discussed how they might start a presentation.
Assuming the initial conversation went well, they could ask whether the person on the phone was anywhere near their PC. Assuming the answer was yes, they would then offer the customer an opportunity to see the vehicle now, taking the customer’s phone number in the process so they could ring them back. People were often reluctant to provide numbers when enquiring. They were also usually armed with their short list of possibilities and didn’t want to commit anything to one dealer until they’d checked out all their options.
The salesperson would use the telephony headset and call the customer back to start a presentation. They would also need their CitNOW laptop with a web page open; a 4-digit security code would pop up on the screen when the customer reached the website address they’d been given.
Code selected, the camcorder on the desk began broadcasting a live video stream, allowing the customer to view a presentation from the comfort of their home or office on their PC. From there, the salesperson popped their netbook (small laptop) into a shoulder bag, picked up the camera and walked the customer out to the car they wanted to see.
There was just one tiny issue, which was easily overcome with a little practice. The audio on the telephone arrived two seconds before the video. Do you remember when transatlantic phone calls used to have a delay? It was a little like that. But once you knew and learnt to lead with the camera—point and then speak—it worked fine.
Why was that first training session not good enough?
I showed them how to use the kit, and then they did their live demo, with me playing the customer. It was all done in ten minutes, which somehow seemed inadequate and unfulfilling. Neither was particularly excited. They said thanks and went straight back to their day jobs. I couldn’t help but think that the chances of them now offering a live demo to a phone enquiry tomorrow, the next day or ever were pretty slim.
I was also struggling to get time with Chris, their boss. Even when I did, I knew I wasn’t getting anywhere. It was all annoyingly polite enough, but in between answering his phone, I wasn’t getting much buy-in. We may as well have just talked about Liverpool FC for 10 minutes, the team we both supported, a bit of common ground and ignored our differences.
But I didn’t know what I was doing yet, so Chris had no reason to seriously consider how this new secret weapon could help his sales team achieve even more success.
*CitNOW was our company’s trade name before we sold it in 2018.