Introducing similar technology already in use in the auto market, Rollick recently rolled out its new RollickDR software for the RV, marine and powersports markets. The software is aimed at improving engagement among dealers, manufacturers and end consumers.
Rollick is a 3 ½-year-old company founded by CEO Bernie Brenner and others who came from the automotive side of vehicle sales, bringing technology they knew might work in the recreational market.
“Rollick’s mission is to try and create a higher-quality transaction,” said Brenner. “I say ‘transaction’ because everyone needs to be involved in it. It’s not just an experience that’s great for the consumer, it needs to be great for the dealer and it needs to be great for the other parties who are involved with the transaction, like financing and warranty and insurance and things like that. So, this RollickDR tool fits right into that.”
“Digital retailing” is what consumers have become more and more accustomed to. Brenner refers to it as the “Amazon experience.” Rollick’s mission is to help dealerships tap into that segment of the population and make the purchasing experience as streamlined and simple as possible.
“What happens is the consumers now have been trained on a certain experience with Amazon – and you even see it happening with Carvana and other things, with this idea that it should be simpler for me to engage and contribute information and receive information back, in a modality that I want,” Brenner said. “So, if I want to sit on my phone and do it – meaning the mobile web – or if I want to be on my laptop, if I want to text, if I want to call – all those things should be available to the consumer.”
RollickDR is designed to walk the consumer through the process of purchasing an RV before they visit the dealership. The consumer can learn what type of RV they can afford using the dealership’s own indirect lenders, or they can peruse what warranties are available through the dealership.
“These products that we’re talking about, and other recreation products, they can’t really be purchased online. It’s too complicated; there’s franchise laws involved, there’s registration – tax, title, those types of things – that are involved, and in the case of RVs there’s financing in most of them because these are very large purchases,” said Brenner. “So, our goal is, how do you create this experience on the dealer’s website – that at least gathers more information, provides more information and brings the consumer closer to the transaction?”
In RollickDR’s testing phase, the results were extremely positive, Brenner said, which is why his company is excited to roll it out nationwide.
“The DR tool has been in beta for about four months, and it’s proved to be really good,” he said. “The conversion rates are significantly higher.
“How we launched was with certain units, not all units, on a dealer’s website to start, to see whether we could increase conversion whenever this RollickDR was displayed on a dealer’s website. Would that increase conversion or not, and would that increase close rate – meaning, through a sale? And the answer is yes, in every scenario.”
In fact, close rates increased some 150 percent in the units that were covered under RollickDR, Brenner said.
“If you give the consumer the ability to take more action, and voluntarily provide more information, many of them do,” he said. “And all that does is help the dealer help the consumer.”
