Analytics For Car Dealers: What Should You Be Tracking?

To improve your processes and grow your revenue, you first need a clear picture of how your car dealership is performing. Because data never lies, dealers are adopting analytical tools and business intelligence platforms to gain a competitive advantage. This post will unpack what car dealer analytics are, how they benefit dealerships and what you should be tracking. 

What are car dealer analytics?

Car dealerships are navigating fluctuating success in the industry, influenced by the brands sold and the scale of their used car operations. By harnessing data, dealers are enhancing their ability to predict outcomes and boost revenue.

Car dealer analytics reorganises business data into accurate and actionable information. With easy access to your dealership's inner workings, such as sales performance and revenue per vehicle, you're better positioned to develop and achieve meaningful long-term goals. 

Consider sales rep productivity. Who on your sales team sells the most cars? Who sells the least? Car dealer analytics offers a granular view of your sales team's performance, which can then be used to create training plans and boost revenue. 

Imagine a Volkswagen dealership in Sydney that's run by an owner named Sam. After looking at the numbers, Sam discovers that only 10% of her car-buying customers secure financing with her dealership. Armed with this information, she sets a goal to increase this number to 40% within two years. To get there, she sets sales-related KPIs for her finance teams. 

With car dealer analytics, Sam can measure the success of her plan. After a year, she might tweak the targets or offers depending on the results. By tracking her progress, Sam removes the guesswork from her decision-making process, giving her a strong base to improve the performance of her finance team while increasing dealership profitability.

Why you should use business intelligence software for your car dealer analytics

Many dealerships track and analyse their data using whiteboards and spreadsheets. However, this is inefficient and increases the risk of error, as your data is spread over different files. It’s like having each of your puzzle pieces in separate filing cabinets. To construct a true picture, you need everything in one place.  

You can gain far greater insights by using business intelligence tools that are designed for the automotive industry. A business intelligence tool like SalesLogs stores data for multiple departments in one place. This means all internal stakeholders have access to the same data, insights and visualisations. You can also control who has access to which data through multi-level permissions.

What should you be tracking?

As analytics can maximise your profits by improving processes, every aspect of your business can benefit from dealer analytics. With so much to track, here are four of the most impactful ways that analytics can boost your revenue: 

1. Dealership, Team and Individual KPIs: Knowing how your dealership is performing is the first step to improving it. Use KPIs to measure the success of your dealership and internal stakeholders. By tracking their performance, you can recognise and address shortfalls.  
2. Return on Investment (ROI): Provides a comprehensive view of the financial performance and operational efficiency of a dealership's inventory management. By focusing on reducing days in stock and maximising profit per vehicle, dealerships can enhance their overall ROI and profitability.
   
3. Aftermarket $/Car: Presents a significant profit opportunity for dealerships. By maintaining clear expectations and tracking your projected income from the deal pipeline, you can boost your overall vehicle gross post-deal completion.
4. Extended Warranty: This provides additional profit margins and ensures that customers return to the dealership for future service needs while reducing your dealership's internal warranty costs. Tracking this metric helps evaluate the effectiveness of your sales team in promoting these products.

Improving your dealership with car dealer analytics 

Car dealer analytics play a vital role in improving dealership efficiency and raising profits. Automotive business intelligence solutions, like SalesLogs, are ideal choices for running your dealership analytics. 

SalesLogs was crafted with valuable insights from dealerships. Our suite of analytical tools has empowered over 1,500 dealerships to revolutionise their business practices.

Key features include: 

• A centralised platform that collects the data from all your departments 
• SalesLogs DataGrid is built for fast responses and easy data analysis and visualisation
• KPI dashboards to track your team's performance
• Live data feeds to measure your operational efficiency
• Multi-level permissions to control who sees your data and at what point 

Contact us for a free demo to see what SalesLogs can do for your business.