Robbins Toyota creates digital sales department
In the car business, the more things change, the more they change.
As with almost every other field in the 21st century, change occurs fast and the rate of change accelerates: Engineering, computerization, metallurgy, even the way people shop for cars all race to keep pace, so no one would be less surprised to see Texarkana’s Toyota dealership embrace digital marketing than the late Eddie Robbins.
Faced with younger buyers who are well-educated, well-informed, adept at researching things online, are creditworthy, who know what they want and how much they want to pay, Robbins Toyota and new General Manager Charles Pankey are developing ways to meet those customers’ needs.
“The average new-car buyer now spends about 15 hours on research. Information is at the consumer’s fingertips,” said Pankey, a Toyota-certified general manager who joined Robbins in April after 18 years with two Toyota dealerships in Rockwall and Dallas.
“A lot of times buyers will narrow things down to the one or two cars they want to see, like a Camry versus an Altima. Then they will get pricing before they even go see it, and then they will go drive it.” Pankey said. “They are a smarter consumer than in the past.”
If that’s the case, then the smart thing to do is to provide the information-hungry consumer with facts they can trust, early in the process.
“We are creating an all-new digital sales department. We will have an average response time of under five minutes,” Pankey said. “When someone sends in a vehicle inquiry, the response will include a ‘best price’—in many cases below invoice— of the vehicle they are looking at, as well as pricing options of other vehicle options they may not have considered.”
Today’s buyer completes a sale in 1.5 visits to dealerships, who have just one chance to make the right first impression.
“If we don’t meet our customers’ needs, all we’re doing is creating a customer who comes to us to see what he or she wants and then drives to a big city to get the price they want,” he said.
It’s a big change in the way business is done, but some things will not change.
“Honesty and integrity are our core values at Robbins Toyota,” said Susan Robbins, who took over running things after her father died in 2014. “This is a solid dealership that has been here since 1966, and we’ve got great, wonderful years ahead.”
One of the dealership’s strong suits continues to be the service department, where highly trained, long-tenured technicians now service nearly all models of automobile. Service manager Mike Roberts is a certified Toyota master technician and has been at the dealership for 16 years. Parts guru Jim Darden has 40 years of experience.
The dealership requires mastery on many makes because most used cars it sells qualify for a two-year maintenance plan that includes oil changes and tire rotations.
Change has been a constant at Robbins since a young Texarkana entrepreneur took a chance on a Japanese company few had heard of, and whose cars even fewer wanted to buy. It turned out to be a perfect marriage between a businessman with small-town values and a Japanese manufacturer whose two core values are respect for the customer and “Kaizen,” a relentless dedication to building the best cars possible, and then improving on them.
Fifty-two years later it looks like a slamdunk, but when Eddie Robbins opened the dealership, it was anything but a sure bet.
The offspring of a Japanese textile loom maker, Toyota in 1966 was a young auto manufacturer forced to rebuild from the wreckage of World War II. The company had opened shop in America just nine years earlier in a former California Rambler dealership.
Toyota’s early years on these shores were not auspicious: In an era of cheap gas and an industry dominated by finned behemoths from Detroit’s Big Three, Americans were not interested in small, fuel-efficient cars, like the Toyopet.
“It guzzled extraordinary amounts of gas and oil and when it traveled on the freeway, it tended to shake violently, overheat and stall without much warning,” is how one reviewer described it.
In 1961, Toyota took the Toyopet off the shelves.
Things were about to change.
In 1967 came the Corona, a sedan designed especially for American drivers. Selling for $2,109, it featured luxuries like air conditioning, automatic transmission, carpeting, sun visors, arm rests, tinted windows and glove compartments. The seats were big enough for Americans, and it was a hit. Toyota USA’s sales jumped from 6,404 to 20,908, and twothirds of those were Coronas.
If the Corona was a home run, the Corolla, which debuted the following year as a ’69 model, was a grand slam. It went on to become the best-selling car on the planet. By 1972, thanks in large part to its success in the United States, Toyota sold its 1 millionth car.
Along came the Arab Oil Embargo of 197374. Suddenly, fuel economy mattered and Toyota became the No. 1 import brand in America. Suddenly, Eddie Robbins looked smart.
Still to come were the Camry, the best-selling car in the U.S. for 15 years. It was followed by the world’s first compact sport utility, the RAV4, which last year eclipsed the Camry.
Toyota is increasing the pace of change. In 2018 alone, the company will roll out 15 new vehicles. The all-new Camry, Avalon and Corolla hatchback were voted best-in-class at last month’s Texas Auto Writers’ Spring Roundup. The all-new Rav4 will soon be in the supply chain.
The new Tundra, Tacoma, Sequoia and Land Cruiser will be in showrooms this fall.
One thing certain about all Toyota products is that they will come standard with the latest in driver-assist technologies, such as frontal crash protection, lane-keep assist, dynamic cruise control, blind-spot monitoring and automatic bright lights.
Multiple studies show that these technologies dramatically reduce the numbers of crashes, injuries and collisions. An Insurance Institute for Highway Safety study, for example, showed they reduced sideswipe, rollover and head-on crashes by 18 percent, cut injuries by 24 percent and reduced fatalities by 86 percent.
A Swedish study found they reduced crashes by 53 percent.
Other manufacturers sell crash-reduction packages as an option, and often only on higher trim lines and as part of certain packages, which adds thousands of dollars to the price. Toyota offers the technology standard on every car and truck it builds.
A well-informed customer would ask nothing less.