How Dealers Turn Privacy into 10X ROI Service

Car buyers have a new, fast rising concern: “data privacy” in vehicles. They increasingly read news about cars collecting personal data and how it has been misused for insurance hikes, stalking, and identity theft. As infotainment systems increasingly resemble big iPads or smartphones, and considering most consumers have experienced identity theft or harassment online, not surprisingly 4 in 10 vehicle buyers express uneasiness on how their data will be handled and almost 9 in 10 don’t trust their car manufacturer. Progressive dealers can fill this vacuum and cater to this growing segment by delivering peace of mind around vehicle privacy as part of their customer experience. Dealers who do are finding that well-executed privacy services deliver loyalty, engagement, and ROI.

New Privacy Concerns Are Driving Car Buyers’ Choices

A year ago, before vehicle privacy became a mainstream topic with consumers and a hot-button issue for regulators, consulting company SBD Automotive found that nearly 4 in 10 vehicle shoppers consider data privacy “highly important” in their buying decision – even more critical than vehicle brand, body style, or infotainment features. A different study by Cassie, a privacy compliance platform, revealed that 10% of car shoppers purchased a different vehicle than their first choice due to privacy concerns.

Nearly 4 in 10 vehicle shoppers consider data privacy “highly important” in their buying decision –
even more critical than vehicle brand, body style, or infotainment features.

Dealers Turn Privacy Concerns into Customer Care & Their Competitive Advantage

Forward-thinking dealerships saw an opportunity where others only saw a compliance burden. While their competitors struggled to address customer privacy concerns, these dealers recognized a simple truth: ignoring what customers want is bad for business. They turned to Privacy4Cars to help parlay privacy protection into a competitive advantage.

Privacy4Cars helps dealerships turn vehicle privacy into a delightful, differentiating experience that builds customer trust and loyalty. By promoting privacy protections during the buying process, dealers can impress that large segment of customers who are concerned but don’t often express it, making them reputable, growing loyalty, and adding a new source of profits.

Delight, Differentiate, and Deliver with Privacy

Vehicle buyers increasingly value privacy, but many don’t know to ask for it. To benefit from this trend, dealers should highlight privacy upfront as a key service and deliver it consistently until it becomes a common part of doing business.

Drive Value & Loyalty
with delightful, differentiated customer experiences

Most dealers don’t have a reliable way to remove personal data of previous drivers and passengers. Deleting this data and promoting it as part of your customer care not only protects your customers but also gives you a chance to stand out from the competition.

Privacy4Cars helps dealerships handle both the technical and marketing aspects of vehicle privacy, typically generating 4-10X return on investment.

Why Deleting Personal Data Is Hard, But Doesn’t Have to Be

Deleting personal data from vehicles in theory should be easy, but in practice is actually hard. Three out of 5 times, dealers break their intended privacy promises to customers.

Privacy4Cars’ audits of dealerships consistently show that even dealerships with clear checklists, staff training, and photo documentation typically leave personal information in 50-75% of vehicles they have marketed as cleared. This happens at all levels, including manufacturer-operated centers.

Why? Because there is no data deletion standardization across vehicles. There are thousands of different procedures for each configuration of make, model, and infotainment system. Even cars with the same make and model but different infotainment units or garage door openers may have different data deletion procedures! Simply relying on a technician’s knowledge to delete data from cars leaves the door wide open for error – leading to the cited 50-75% failure rate.

Vehicle Privacy Made Quick and Easy

Privacy4Cars’ has taken this data deletion complexity and done the hard part for you. We’ve turned the tens of thousands of variations in the process to perform a data clearing – depending on the vehicle make, model, year, trim, and infotainment firmware version – and give your staff easy-to-follow instructions to delete the data within 90 seconds in most cases.

With Privacy4Cars, dealerships can quickly and reliably delete personal data from vehicles. The uniqueness of our approach (to decode a VIN and prompt users with vehicle-specific step-by-step visual and textual instructions) has earned several patents, and is the difference between unreliable and non-rigorous outcomes vs. efficient and certified deletion. Our app-powered AutoCleared™process is so easy that anybody can use it: from techs during the vehicle prep to porters after loaners are returned, and even salespeople – right in front of the customer who is bringing a trade in or lease return.

Following Privacy4Cars’ VIN-specific, step-by-step instructions drives consistent, reliable, and efficient deletions, with the data deletion certificates to prove the work was done — and done properly.

Making Your Commitment to Privacy Visible Online with Web Badges

Since 95% of car buyers start their search online and visit about 5 websites, Privacy4Cars helps dealers stand out with 100% automated privacy badges on their inventory pages. These digital markers show privacy protection right on your vehicle listings, letting shoppers see how you’re different from other dealers from their first click.

Both badges appear automatically through a short script that webmasters can implement in a matter of minutes, and are effective in increasing customer engagement, both online and in store, as they provide a great “hook” for storytelling and positioning your store above your competitors.

Privacy As A Revenue Driver – 4-10x ROI

Offering privacy services is a revenue driver since consumers will pay for these add-ons. According to the Cassie study, 37% of drivers say that they’re willing to pay more for data privacy features, and of those, 94% say that a pre-existing foundation of trust would make them more willing to pay for these features, making the marketing of a dealership’s commitment to customer privacy with web badging that much more important.

By offering consumers Privacy4Cars’ in-vehicle personal data deletion services & VIN-specific vehicle data disclosure summaries, dealerships can open multiple new revenue streams, including:

• Bundling personal data deletion with existing reconditioning services
• Incorporating privacy protection into trade-in valuations
• Offering premium privacy services at point-of-sale
• Adding data deletion to repair orders
• Charging insurance companies for data removal in total loss cases
• Charging auto finance companies for lease returns
• Using privacy as a marketing differentiator with automated web-badges on VDPs

More Revenue, Less Risk

Beyond revenue generation, a comprehensive privacy approach helps automotive businesses:

• Improve customer loyalty and engagement
• Create competitive differentiation in a crowded market
• Reduce legal risks associated with data retention
• Prevent unfair or deceptive disclosure claims

Drive Value with Privacy

For dealerships and other automotive businesses, the message is clear: vehicle data privacy is a strategic opportunity to differentiate your dealership, build trust with customers, and create additional value.

Let’s meet at the NADA Show in New Orleans!