What’s it like to be on the ground floor of the digital revolution in automotive retail? We recently sat down with Krystal Roberts, director of sales at Advantage Chevrolet near Chicago, to find out. Krystal took over internet operations for her dealership in 2004 shortly after graduating from college. As she told us in an interview, embracing digital was like traveling at warp speed without a map.
“It was definitely very different, and there was not a lot of information on dealers who had done it successfully,” she said. “It was a shot in the dark. You didn’t know what worked well.”
And her family business had high expectations that she would figure out a direction without any guidance. Since then, she’s helped the dealership embrace digital fully, including the use of analytics to define and target customers with the right content at the right time.
In the following three-part dealer spotlight, Krystal shares with us her digital journey and how she’s helped Advantage Chevrolet succeed by anticipating the needs of well-informed consumers.
In Part 1, she discusses her background – how and why she got into automotive and discovered her passion for helping people find the car of their dreams. “I don’t see automotive as a job. It’s a career for me,” she says.
In Part 2, she delves into the story of her dealership’s digital evolution and how Advantage Chevrolet feels about emerging technologies and business models such as ride sharing:
Finally, in Part 3, she discusses how Advantage Chevrolet combines digital with the offline experience to create a more personal and engaging customer experience. “People do business with people they like,” she says, as she explains why her dealership invests time into taking care of people whether a customer sends a lead online or walks in cold off the lot.
Krystal, congratulations on building a successful career at Advantage Chevrolet! Thank you for spending time with Cars.com to share your journey.
