Your website represents your brand. If you're not delivering an optimal online customer experience, your customers will look elsewhere.
Buying behaviors today show that a customer’s first touch is digital. Whether it’s through a website, search engines or social channels, by the time a customer chooses to engage you directly, they’ve done over two-thirds of their decision-making. And if you are selling cars, you better be ready with an unmatched digital experience or you are one click away from your competitor moving in on the deal.
A Luxury Retailer without a Luxury Website
Reeves Import Motorcars of Tampa, Florida sells exceptional automobiles—Land Rover, Audi, Porsche and other luxury brands. However its website, with limited functionality and a less than optimal mobile experience, fell far short of providing customers a luxury online experience.
Reeves was well aware of the importance of customer experience—there is no ignoring the constant stream of studies and writing on the subject. From the Progress State of Digital Business Survey to Forester’s March 2016 survey where they asked executives to identify the most important factors in determining success as a digital business, respondents didn't pick one single factor, but rather multiple success factors, each dependent upon the others. For example, delivering a superior experience for customers (64%) and creating new sources of customer value (61%).
So, when it came to revamping their online presence, Reeves sought an exceptional solution. For the customer experience, Reeves required a responsive site that would look beautiful on any device as well as a user interface that would enable dynamic inventory updates—a crucial and unique differentiator within the auto industry. They also required a solution that maximized SEO.
Sitefinity and Kendo UI Combine to Deliver Results
Looking for more than the standard templates and functionality provided by most automotive website providers, Reeves consulted digital agency Bayshore Solutions, who recommended a redo from scratch. After doing its research, Bayshore proposed Sitefinity CMS and Kendo UI—a surprising combination as dealers tend to gravitate to specialty automotive solutions providers.
Integrating Kendo UI and Sitefinity is paying off:
- Two Sitefinity MVC widgets developed with Kendo UI enable daily inventory updates to each page—one to handle vehicle search and filter, the other to display results
- Applying Kendo UI style sheets to Sitefinity templates gives pages a custom look and feel without having to create individual assets
- Easy integration between Kendo UI and the Sitefinity backend readily enable administrators to populate and change content on demand
- Responsive design of Sitefinity delivers beautiful and easy navigation on all screen sizes
Additionally, the Sitefinity ecommerce engine optimizes each page to improve position and frequency on Internet search results. In fact, the number of indexed pages on DriveReeves.com increased from a few hundred to more than 10,000, making the dealer’s inventory much easier to find online.
From a sales and marketing perspective, the site is paying off as well. Reeves reports that:
- Website traffic increased 283%
- Mobile visits increased 2,104%
- Annual car sales goals exceeded projections by 22%
Learn the Full Story of Reeves
Read the case study to learn more about how Reeves is reaping the benefits of its Sitefinity site, or watch the video below:
Barrett Coakley
Barrett Coakley is the Senior Manager, Products Marketing for the Progress Sitefinity Content Management System (CMS) and the Sitefinity DEC, a digital marketing analytics platform. Mr. Coakley has worked in various marketing positions for both startup and large technology organizations for over 20 years.