Everything You Need to Know About the CDK Dealership Xperience

Margin compression and changing customer expectations have auto dealers working hard to find new process efficiencies to boost profits and customer satisfaction. However, despite a somewhat strong current industry focus on customer experience and satisfaction, the most recent CDK Friction Points study found 41% of Sales, F&I and Business Development Center Managers say lack of system integrations make it hard to do their jobs efficiently and deliver the faster, easier buying experience today’s customers expect.

Too many bolt-on solutions have been a problem in our industry for years. As technology has advanced, the traditional DMS just can’t keep up.

So, what do car dealers do? Buy more solutions from more vendors and piecemeal them around the DMS. But these solutions often don’t talk to each other, which leads to broken workflows, frustrated consumers and costs dealerships tens of thousands of dollars a month.

It’s time for a whole-new way to work. That’s why CDK created the CDK Dealership Xperience. Simply put, the CDK Dealership Xperience is a new category of software that unifies workflows across the dealership so that you’re running your operations better while also delivering optimal customer experiences.

Learn about the Dealership Xperience, its benefits and how you can use it for your auto dealership.

What’s the Dealership Xperience?

Introduced in August 2023, the Dealership Xperience drives digital transformation for auto dealers. It’s a single, unified platform for all the departments in a dealership. Instead of jumping from system to system with different logins, the platform seamlessly connects dealer and customer experiences to increase efficiency and improve the customer journey. To date, more than 750 dealers across the country have signed up for the proven, built-in functionality of unified workflows under a single experience. Dealers who use the Dealership Xperience observe:

•  Improved employee efficiency across departments
• Higher employee and customer satisfaction
• A shorter deal process for dealers and consumers

Why You Need the Dealership Xperience

Digital transformation has long been present in other industries — from financial services to health care to manufacturing. Each industry has examined the experiences of their end-users, reviewed their own processes, and implemented the right technologies to better deliver what their customers need. It’s time for the retail automotive industry to follow suit.

Rapidly changing consumer expectations for faster and easier car-buying and service experiences demand dealers adapt to survive and thrive. You must fundamentally change and simplify how your dealerships operate. And you can’t do that with the standard combination of a DMS and bolt-on solutions.

See how this new platform that integrates workflows across all areas of the dealership delivers what you and your customers need:

1. Shorten Your Deal Process

Time and time again we hear that consumers want to spend less time finalizing deals in the dealership. Yet, time remains a big problem. In a recent survey, CDK asked 1,200 new car buyers about their purchase experiences. Forty-six percent of buyers said they spent over two hours at the dealership. And as time ticks away, so does customer satisfaction.

The more time a car purchase takes to complete, the lower a dealer’s NPS. When a deal took one to two hours, 55% of buyers would recommend the dealership with an NPS of +46. When time in the store stretched to four hours, only 43% would recommend the store and the NPS dropped steeply to +31.

A unified platform helps cut the time it takes to finalize deals. It eliminates re-keying information into multiple systems and logging in and out of different interfaces.

It also addresses what’s commonly a big roadblock in the process: the F&I office. CDK found that 61% of F&I Managers use more than four systems to complete their jobs. That’s more than any other part of variable operations.

It makes sense to have digital retailing, e-signing and a desking solution all integrated within one platform so selling and buying cars is easier and faster. That translates to happier customers and a higher NPS.

2. Work More Efficiently

In an industry historically plagued by legacy systems and bolt-on solutions, too many dealerships use multiple technology vendors and platforms to sell cars. This sinks efficiency and productivity and draws out the car-buying process — sending the customer experience into a downward spiral.

Technology can often become a roadblock instead of an advantage when it comes to the day-to-day operations of a dealership. CDK found that among Sales Managers, 28% say lack of full integrations between digital retail tools, the CRM and the DMS negatively affects performance. That number jumps to 37% for F&I Managers.

If you replace disparate systems with a unified platform, it'll allow employees to work more efficiently so they can keep deals moving while shortening time spent on the deal.

3. Enhance Accounting Workflows

Accounting for a car dealership isn’t easy. There are a lot of moving parts and it’s hard work — especially for smaller dealerships that have Accounting departments made up of only a few employees. Yet, it’s imperative that your dealership keep impeccable records. You can’t manage and grow your business without accurate and timely financial reporting.

The Dealership Xperience includes enhanced accounting workflows to simplify complex tasks. These workflows include vendor management, payment register, accounts payable invoicing, on-demand payments, and purchase orders. With one platform, your Accounting team can streamline processes, reduce manual errors, and enhance efficiency. This, in turn, allows them to focus on value-add activities, like financial analysis and strategic decision making, to strengthen your overall operations.

4. Cut Costs

If you add more technology in order to enhance existing solutions with bolt-on capabilities, it’ll send costs skyrocketing. One recent DealerTech Nerd report, focusing on the DMS market, found the average monthly expense of a DMS with 10 to 15 additional bolt-ons runs to nearly $30,000 a month.

In addition, when employees are forced to swivel from task to task and log in and out of systems, you can add the cost of wasted time to every transaction.

When you use the Dealership Xperience, you cut the cost of multiple vendors and wasted time as one platform from one service provider houses all the capabilities you need to run your business.

5. Reduce Employee Turnover

Evidence points to unproductive work environments as one cause of employee frustration. And frustrated employees typically don’t stick around for long. While being fed up with systems and processes that make it hard to do the job is just one factor in why employees quit, it certainly contributes to the massive turnover in the industry. A recent NADA Workforce Study found dealerships had to replace a third of their employees in 2022.

You can improve processes by streamlining systems on one platform that’ll lead to happier employees and reduce talent attrition. This is crucial as the cost of employee turnover is incredibly high, and it impacts operational costs, revenue, productivity, company culture and the customer experience.

Dealership Xperience Features

Core to the platform is the Foundations Suite. This suite extends your dealership’s ability to operate your entire business on one platform while increasing control over the customer’s digital retail journey from start to finish.

It includes CDK’s most popular technology found in the DMS as well as highly sought features for service and modern retail.

The Foundation Suite helps you:

• Win in the back office with powerful accounting capabilities
• Increase consumer engagement with seamless online to in-store workflows
• Simplify desking to keep deals moving
• Capture digital signatures to speed up buying
• Manage forms and documents digitally
• Offer online service scheduling

Tailored Solution Suites

When you want to arm your teams with even more transformational technology, you can add on three tailored solutions suites. These suites can expand your business potential, accelerate performance and further enhance the customer experience.

The Modern Retail Suite

Consumers today expect easier and more convenient transactions. They want to be able to shop from anywhere, jump back and forth from online to in store, and have all that activity follow them into the dealership so they never have to repeat steps.

Evidence points to the fact that dealers still need to work on capturing and keeping the buyer’s journey updated before and after they enter the dealership. In a recent CDK study, F&I at the Dealership, half of all buyers (52%) said they had to complete paperwork at the dealership that they’d already completed online.

The Modern Retail Suite connects the consumer-to-dealer buying journey into a single, unified transaction for a more satisfying experience across the board — and more revenue for you.

The Modern Retail Suite helps you:

• Buy and sell more simply with intuitive workflows
• Empower buyers to transact however and wherever they wish
• Keep data flowing with an integrated back-end system
• Grow relationships with fully integrated, easy-to-use CRM tools
• Speed up trades with a remote trade-in appraisal process

The Fixed Operations Suite

Fixed ops is your best bet for a steady revenue stream no matter what the market is doing. That’s why it’s so important to laser-in on creating great customer experiences. A smooth repair process leads to higher customer satisfaction, repeat business and more referrals to friends and family.

Family and friends factor in to where people shop and buy. Among Generation Z, for example, one International Council of Shopping Centers report found that 56% cite family and friends as the most significant influence over their buying decisions.

The Fixed Operations Suite helps you connect more closely with your customers and boost revenue with integrated workflows, enhanced communication features, and transparent pricing solutions.

The Fixed Operations Suite helps you:

• Sell more service with service recommendation videos
• Send instant real-time updates
• Maintain pricing consistency from check-in to check-out
• Anticipate potential vehicle service opportunities with artificial-intelligence-driven Predictive Service

AI and the Intelligence Suite

For years, CDK customers have leveraged AI-powered features to better engage with customers and enhance business operations. For example, predictive modeling gives visibility into a customer’s propensity to buy, and machine learning helps Service departments anticipate potential repair needs based on a customer’s vehicle and driving patterns.

Now, we’re introducing even more powerful tools in the Intelligence Suite. Infused with advanced analytics, AI and machine learning, these tools will help you access personalized and configurable enterprise reporting to turn data into profitable business decisions.

We know there’s a lot of hype around AI and new entrants are debuting solutions every day. Only CDK has decades of experience and intellectual property to apply across every part of your dealership so you can instantly benefit from our collective experience to drive your business forward.

The Intelligence Suite helps you:

• Prepare for the future with predictive forecasts and competitive benchmarks
• Deliver better customer experiences with a virtual phone and text assistant that works 24/7
• Set goals for hundreds of key performance indicators and automatically track progress
• Pull targeted reports to make profitable decisions across departments

Final Thoughts: Transform Your Business With the Dealership Xperience

Technology has transformed the automotive retail industry and now it’s time to take another big step forward. The Dealership Xperience eliminates all those bolt-ons that slow down processes so you can increase operational efficiency and customer satisfaction.

This new category of software bridges the deep functionality needed to bring the customer and dealership employee experiences together to change and simplify how your dealership operates. No more frustrated buyers. No more swiveling from solution to solution. Put simply, it’s transformational functionality to help your business reach its pinnacle of success.