The Dealer Impact Blog

Playing Nice With Others

Improve the customer experience through more flexible technology. 

It sounds crazy to say, considering most of us can’t remember how we ever lived without it, but the Internet is just growing out of its infancy. And one of the downsides to still being a new technology is that there’s yet to be any standardization. Much like BetaMax and VHS, or the recent battle between Blu Ray and HD DVD, there are a number of competing technologies out there being used to build web sites and integrated web systems. 

JAVA, .net, ASP, PHP, HTML… the list of coding languages and formats goes on and on. They all work just fine and they all have their place. The problem is that they don’t all play nice together. And that limits your flexibility when it comes to adopting new technologies and using new web marketing tools.  

In short, these technological limitations can restrict your ability to sell cars and reach maximum profitability. That’s unacceptable, but what can you do about it? 

Well the first realization that you should arrive at is that there is absolutely no reason that all your web technology should come from one provider. Different providers bring different things to the table, and by combining their technologies, you can expand your capabilities and ensure that you have the best of everything.  

“Sounds great, but didn’t you just tell me that different technologies don’t mix?” 

Yes, but a few enterprising companies have set out to address that specific issue. These companies provide “plug and play” web tools that are specifically engineered to work with any system you might have. These tools allow you to add new functionality without upsetting your current system administrator.  

How might this work? Well perhaps your current web system doesn’t allow for streaming video. Or maybe your site doesn’t perform well on the major search engines like Google and Yahoo. Well, by employing a plug-and-play video technology or search engine optimizer, you can add this functionality to your site and provide a better experience for your customers.  

And after all, isn’t improving the customer experience what it’s all about?