Much was seen and learned from last week’s Automotive Management Live 18, held at the NEC in Birmingham. Attended by more than 80 exhibitors, the country’s biggest motor supplier and retailer expo, was a success.

This year, JudgeService hosted a masterclass explaining the clear relationship between customer satisfaction and dealership stock turn. The accumulated data from over 1,000 dealerships in the country, shows that a 20% improvement in promoter score, can equate to selling cars 5.9 days quicker on average.

This clearly goes to show that investing in customer satisfaction insight – understanding the process of acquiring your customers — is essential in growing your business.

CitNow, Marketing Delivery, iVendi, enquiryMax, Glass’s, ContactAtOnce! and Autoweb Design were the other masterclass hosts. Autoweb Design discussed the key website elements dealerships should focus on, including pulling reviews from various providers onto your web pages, to display your recommendations and satisfaction ratings. This ensures that your online prospects are not driven away by lack of high-quality content and clear CTAs.

This is a must because, according to the research JudgeService conducted, 56.5% of total sales are online referrals. This was measured from over 40,000 surveys collected this year.

Digital solutions were indeed a popular sell at the expo, proving past forecasts that everything is moving online are true. However, innovators like JudgeService continually come up with tools to help auto dealerships grow their businesses, making the event worthwhile for visitors and exhibitors alike.

And although the motif of the expo was digital, we parked our famous sweet cart, giving away more than 150 pick’n’mix bags.

Nothing beats a bag of treats after a long day of learning and meeting old and new friends, so for next year’s event, we’ll make sure to bring more sweets.

See you at AM Live 19