The Business
Culver City Toyota, one of the fastest growing car dealerships in Los Angeles, has always been a community-focused business. They strive to provide their growing customer base with the best sales and service experience through honesty and reliability. By putting customers front and center, their reputation for great customer service helped them develop a strong community presence and generate positive word-of-mouth.
The Challenge
Culver City Toyota saw social media as an untapped opportunity to further develop their community relationships and fuel word-of-mouth growth. By encouraging employees to connect with their potential buyers and customers on social media, they could increase their brand exposure and open up a new channel to expand their reach. However, in the past, any social media strategy they tried to implement seemed to be forgotten in the daily grind of the dealership. Only a few salespeople were truly engaged with social media. Notably, those few were consistently the top performers. Culver City Toyota needed a way to consistently motivate and excite their team to put time into developing their relationships via social media.
The Solution
Through a recommendation from another dealership, Culver City Toyota came across Enplug. Enplug’s software powers digital displays to become effective and effortless tools to grow businesses. One of Enplug’s many applications turn any TV or digital display into a live social media feed by showcasing a live feed of any hashtag or username from Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Yelp, and more.
Culver City Toyota installed seven Enplug screens at nearly every potential customer touchpoint, including the showroom, service area, and waiting room. Customers around the dealership are constantly being reminded of where the conversation is happening on social, and how they can get involved. They are enticed to post a tweet about their new ride, or a photo of their favorite car, because they can see it instantly appear on the live display.
Enplug also impacted the employees of Culver City Toyota by acting as a live social hub for everyone to engage their customers upon close-of-sale. The salesperson leveraged Enplug to convert customers into brand ambassadors.
The dealership also utilizes Enplug for uses beyond social media. They feature the Toyota & Scion news blogs on their displays to inform their customers of the latest information regarding the brands. They also remind customers to pick up a free mug for their online reviews on Yelp. On their Enplug displays, ad images and videos of potential upgrades to vehicles like leather seats and navigation help generate sales better than when they used static posters.
Most importantly, the dealership uses the Enplug Control app as a centralized hub for managing their entire network of displays. They can customize their display through various features and settings, as well as configure and choose the apps they want to show on each screen. The dashboard also provides them with various feedback and analytics – depending on the app. Within the live social media wall app, the dealership receives analytics for measuring their campaigns and viewing their top influencers on social.
The Results
Enplug increased the conversation surrounding the Culver City Toyota brand on social media by increasing their word-of-mouth marketing and ultimately their sales.
“We had a record breaking month in new & used car sales. Enplug not only helped our sales, but other dealerships even noticed all of our social media
activity and see our store as a happy and cool place to be.”
Ray Dulay, Culver City Toyota Sales Manager.
Culver City Toyota saw a 523% increase in Instagram posts, 17% increase in Twitter posts, 33% increase in Yelp reviews and 65% increase in Instagram impressions over the course of just 60 days.
“If there were a scorecard, we’re winning in social media. Everyone, even the skeptics, are really getting into it. It’s blowing up here.”
Ephraim Barcelo, Culver City Toyota GM.
With everyone getting involved in their social media now, Culver City Toyota has been able to enhance their culture to be more technology, community, and service centered. They successfully converted social media into a lead generation machine. Culver City Toyota is one of the hundreds of companies successfully utilizing Enplug as a vehicle to easily up-sell customers and enhance the customer experience.