live2drive

I found an interesting article at CarSmart.com about Saturn becoming even friendlier with 24/7 live chat for customers and potential customers. The part that really interested me is that they are having salesmen bring the car directly to you in order to take a test drive, which is something that I had not heard about. According to the article, you can even customize the test drive as follows:

Saturn sales representatives can also customize the evaluation by setting up a drive that matches the customer’s daily drive cycle and allowing customers to conduct routine errands in the cars.

I think this would really give a person a feel for how the car would work for them on a day-to-day basis. The url to the full story is below. I ran it through tinyurl as it was a really long url:

Saturn Gets Friendlier | CarSmart

perfectvue

Thats pretty keen. I am lucky enough to work around the corner from my Saturn dealer, but it would save me a trip on the weekend just to check out a car they got in. I'll have to ask Bob about this next time I'm in.

Aboyade

Quite interesting. They even provide custom-made scheduling to match the client's driving schedule, allowing them to handle routine chores while testing. That certainly adds to the appeal. This certainly represents ingenuity in marketing. I applaud their initiative. While chats are not so new, to be able to engage discussion to assuage pre-test doubts is certainly an effective strategy as well.

live2drive

I called three dealerships locally to see if they do this. Two were ready to set up a schedule on the spot while the third acted like I had three heads. Apparently either word hasn't made it down to all the dealers or it's been left up to the individual owners.