Can Dealerships Learn Something From YouTube?

When YouTube began looking around in Silicon Valley for venture capital back in 2004, they ran into a lot of rejection. At that time, people thought that renting movies through the mail would be inconvenient. But with video streaming technology in its infancy, it was the only way to go.

Thankfully, YouTube kept plugging away until some people (who are really rich now) understood what they were doing and bought in. A lot of very smart people rejected the YouTube concept and didn’t invest, which is something they obviously regret to this day.

The video explosion is ongoing with YouTube at its epicenter. YouTube has 1.9 billion users worldwide, according to Statista (2019). The only social network that has more monthly active users than YouTube is Facebook.

Check out these phenomenal numbers, which show that the power of video is staggering:

• 300 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute of every day
• Nearly five billion videos are watched on YouTube daily
• YouTube gets over 34 million visitors daily
• In an average month, eight out of 10 18-49-year-olds watch YouTube.
• Six out of ten viewers prefer online video platforms to live television
• The total number of hours of video watched on YouTube each month: 25 billion
• By 2025, 50% of all viewers under 32 will not subscribe to a pay-TV service
• 10,113 of YouTube’s most popular videos generated over one billion views

Today, there are many industries out there that are using video increasingly as a tool to sell products and services. It enables them to provide transparency for itself and its customers and build trust. In an age of instant information, customers will believe it when they see it, and there is nothing more instant and real than video.

In the automotive repair industry, and especially at the dealership level, service departments are embracing video and insist that all their techs and advisors use it every day. The scenario differs, but in many cases, the technician will find something additional that requires attention now or possibly down the road. Rather than contact the customer via a lengthy text, email or phone call to explain the issue, a video tells all.

The repair technician is building trust on several levels. First, the car owner can clearly see that yes—they need new brakes or an air filter, for example. Most people are skeptical and wary of getting corralled into paying for something they don’t need, but videos or photos remove all that drama  completely.

Customers are more likely to approve service recommendations or make purchases if they see a video or photo clearly illustrating the items in question. It saves time because we know that pictures speak louder than words and by using them, we can strip out things such as conjecture, ambiguity, and anecdotal evidence.

If you want to monitor the explosive evolution of video worldwide, take a look at the never-ending growth of YouTube and be assured that every industry on the planet is currently looking for new and exciting ways to use it.

Sources: biographon.com and Forbes