Dealer Spotlight: Hyundai New Port Richey

Background

Hyundai of New Port Richey was founded just a few years ago, in 2003. The dealership’s success in this short period has been nothing short of phenomenal: it’s already the number-four volume Hyundai dealer in the nation. To Scott Fink, Dealer Principal and Hyundai Dealer Council Chairman, that kind of growth is gratifying, but he has a bigger goal: to become number one!

Business Challenge

To maintain its rapid growth and continue taking market share from the competition, Hyundai of New Port Richey began focusing on the Internet. “When your goal is to be the number-one volume Hyundai dealer in the nation, your website has to make a measurable contribution,” explained Joe Eden, the dealership’s Internet Director. “But our site wasn’t doing much. We realized we didn’t know how to make it a productive part of our business.”

Hyundai of New Port Richey wanted to increase website traffic through better placement in search engine rankings, and also to increase the rate at which traffic was converted to leads. “I wasn’t satisfied with our rankings. I knew better placement would mean more traffic. I also knew we needed to have a plan in place for converting the traffic into leads,” Eden said.

Impact on Business

Although overall sales at the dealership were strong, Eden felt that the Internet department could be the key to an even higher level of success. “We were selling a lot of cars, so the website wasn’t viewed as a pressing problem,” Eden said. “But it seemed like a smart idea to try to get more out of it while times were good.”

It was also a matter of getting ahead of the competition. “None of the area dealerships had made much headway with their Internet departments. For the moment, everyone was dragging their feet,” Eden said. Seeing this as an opportunity to take additional market share from competing import and domestic brands, Eden began looking for ways to make the Internet department a major contributor.

Solution

After careful research, Eden turned to Cobalt and ProCare for a solution to his business challenge. ProCare is a proactive service that works with the dealership to increase website traffic and lead conversion ratios, improve organic search engine rankings, and reduce website administration time. Eden and his team get highly specific recommendations from their ProCare advocate on how to make their website measurably more productive, in terms of both traffic and leads. They also receive monthly performance reports and proven advice on Internet best practices.

Getting started was easy, and the process went smoothly. “Having a single point of contact for all our needs is great. Our ProCare Advocate is incredibly knowledgeable and responsive. Whatever I need is taken care of immediately,” Eden said.

Results

The results since Hyundai of New Port Richey started with ProCare in August 2005 have been impressive. “The difference was night and day,” said Eden. “Right away, we began showing up higher in the search engine results and receiving more website traffic.”

Traffic increased by 80% in the first five months of 2006. But the real benefit was the surge in email leads, which grew by a whopping 55%. “Needless to say, I was very pleased with these results,” Eden said.

The increase in leads is more than a simple function of the increase in traffic. The website is also doing a more efficient job of converting traffic into leads. “Last month we converted 11% of our traffic into leads,” Eden said. “That’s more than four times the national average. Thanks to ProCare, we’re delivering an additional 8 vehicles per month and an additional $20,000 in gross profit.”

“ProCare has helped us make a huge improvement in the productivity of our Internet department. Our dealership has spent a lot of its short history moving towards becoming the nation’s number-one volume Hyundai dealer. With ProCare, we feel like we’ve found a way to get there a lot faster,” said Eden.

And with Dealer Principal Scott Fink’s goal of being number one in target, he feels comfortable knowing that ProCare is supporting their growth. “With the help of Cobalt's ProCare,” says Scott, “our team at Hyundai of New Port Richey has been able to take our sales performance to a new level. I am looking forward to continued support from ProCare so we can sell more Hyundai's”.

“Thanks to ProCare, we’re delivering an additional 8 vehicles per month and an additional $20,000 in gross profit.”

Joe Eden
Internet Director
Hyundai of New Port Richey
New Port Richey, Florida