How Auto Auctions Can Prepare for 2023

2022 has been an eventful year for everyone in the automotive industry, including both consumers and auto workers alike. Outside factors like high inflation rates, manufacturing issues, and increased interest rates have all contributed to the issues that auto workers faced this year; with all of these trends likely continuing into next year, many businesses will have to put in extra work in order to find success in 2023. Here are some steps that auto auctions should follow in order to properly prepare their businesses for 2023!

Provide a Better Customer Experience

If you want your business to succeed, you must keep your customers happy as this will create good word of mouth which in turn means more business; to do this, you’ll need to be able to provide customers with an excellent user experience. You can provide great customer service through an advanced CRM (customer relationship manager) and a customer portal.

If you haven’t ever used a CRM before, then you may want to consider investing in one ASAP. Not only do CRMs benefit customers by giving them a great way for them to access order information and other requested details regarding their purchase via a customer portal, they’re also incredibly useful for your business as well. CRMs allow your business to gain better knowledge of your customers through valuable data reports, allow you to become more efficient with automated messaging tools, and boost productivity by connecting to other tools via API integration.

So not only does improving your customer experience improve your own business’ productivity and user data, it will also result in higher customer satisfaction.

Improve Your Marketing

It’s true what they say, marketing goes a long way. Regardless of what sort of business you run, having a solid marketing strategy is an absolute must. While newspaper ads may have cut it twenty years ago, digital marketing is far more effective nowadays. 

Because of this, your auto auction should have its own website, as well as social media accounts. You should also utilize whichever social media platforms are most utilized by your target demographic; nowadays, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram may be your best bet for attracting the right audience. But in addition to creating said accounts, you must also post on them somewhat regularly in order to continue to grow your following over time. This means posting whenever your business hosts events, sales, or anything else noteworthy.

Becoming an authority within your industry and creating customer trust are essential when growing and marketing your brand, as this is what convinces the consumer to choose your auto auction over your competitors.

Expand to Online Auctions

In the last few months of the year, wholesale prices of used cars fell due to the falling consumer demand in combination with wider availability of new vehicles. This means that auto auctions are making less money than before. Whether the difference is major or only just marginally less, your auto auction may need to try something different if it wants to increase sales next year.

One of the greatest ways that your auto auction can start earning more is through online auctions. While many auctions solely rely on local consumers to push sales, online auctions have slowly become more popular, as they’re a great way to sell one’s inventory to a wider consumer base which can result in higher sale prices.

Offer Shipping

These days, more and more businesses are offering shipping services for their products with the automotive industry being no exception. Big businesses like Carvana are leading the way for online car shipping services, but even smaller auto auctions and dealerships have begun offering shipping to their customers as a way of providing better customer service and reaching a wider demographic of consumers.

And while auto auctions can utilize just about any load board for transporting their vehicles, you’ll need to invest in an advanced load board if you truly want to offer exceptional shipping. If you aren’t aware, a load board is a marketplace for finding drivers to transport your loads. Super Loadboard is one of the best load boards in the industry, as it offers more features than ever, including a pricing engine tool, GPS tracking, a user rating system, and Verified badges, which indicate car haulers that have up-to-date paper work.

Additionally, we also recommend investing in a TMS (transportation management software) as well. A TMS allows you to easily manage the transportation side of your business, allowing you to perform tasks like file reports, keep track of shipments, receive eBOLs from drivers, and much more.

Try Super Dispatch

If you believe that your auto auction would benefit from an advanced load board and TMS, then you may want to try Super Dispatch. We offer an end-to-end solution for moving cars, with our platform featuring both a TMS solution and load board in one neat little package. Our system provides more bang-for-your-buck while also offering a much more complete package than other tools like Central Dispatch. If you think that Super Dispatch might be a good fit for you, then consider scheduling a demo with us today!

Published on December 27, 2022