THE IKON BLOG
They Found the Car Online. Why Can't Your Team Find It on the Lot?
What happens when customers find the car online - but dealerships can’t find it on the lot? Discover how real-time vehicle and key visibility is transforming appointment readiness, improving customer experience, and driving dealership performance.
Customers arrive at dealerships more informed than ever, armed with pricing data, vehicle history reports, and precise expectations about their time. Even still, in many stores, the sales process unravels almost instantly: the car can’t be found, the keys are missing, and a salesperson is left scrambling.
We sat down with Jeremy Okler, VP of Business Development at Ikon Technologies and an automotive retail veteran with years of experience on the dealership floor, to talk everything appointment readiness.
We discuss how traditional, manual processes create friction and limit the dealership’s ability to deliver a smooth, confident customer experience, and how the Ikon Dealer Toolbox's real-time vehicle and key visibility creates a superior, more transparent buying journey. This includes easier access to vehicle information, more informed comparisons, and natural touchpoints for added value like theft protection.
The key takeaway: when dealerships have clear, real-time visibility into their inventory, they can deliver a more seamless customer experience that builds trust, strengthening long-term customer relationships and lifetime value.
Want to hear Jeremy's breakdown of declining customer satisfaction scores? Check out Part 1.
Christopher Schouten: We know that in the United States, we’ve got some huge lots out there, remote lots, multiple lots. And a lot of dealer groups have multiple rooftops in a single geography. So finding vehicles is still a major challenge. We’re depending and leaning a lot on porters these days to know where everything is. What happens if that guy calls in sick? Let's talk about what this broken vehicle search process really looks like in real time.
Jeremy Okler: This is a common challenge at many dealership groups, especially those selling across multiple roofs. If I’m a salesperson at a Kia store, I can sell a used car on the Ford lot. How do I maximize my time and deliver the best customer experience? You have to know the location and the key. Without the key, we’re dead. We want to make sure that we have the car and the key gassed up, cleaned up, and ready to go.
Ikon's technology pinpoints vehicle locations within three to six feet. We have all the geo-fences set up. If somebody’s coming in on a specific vehicle and we see it over at the collision center - with the keys at another store - we know what’s going on and will have alternatives ready. We never want to tell people not to come to the dealership, so we have to deliver a great guest experience. So now we can tell the buyer, ‘Hey, that vehicle had an issue - here are two or three that are exactly like what we talked about. Let’s go take a look.’ We’re not wasting that customer’s time. We’re giving them options. We’re being transparent - and that’s a huge thing right now, because there’s really nothing to hide anymore in the car business.
When I walk out to a car with the Ikon Dealer Toolbox app, I’ve got the Carfax right at my fingertips. No more walking back in, walking back out, printing it off. When the OEM survey asks ‘was the dealer mindful of your time?’—that’s when we can say yes without hesitation.
Christopher Schouten: That’s really key, isn’t it? Wait times are a huge driver of customer satisfaction. So let’s talk about the moment that customer shows up. Talk to me about the magic of the Ikon Dealer Toolbox app—when a customer walks into the store and you’re able to pull that out of your pocket and say, ‘let’s go find your car.’
Jeremy Okler: The best practice is to use the Ikon Toolbox App early and often. I want them to see: here’s the car, here’s the key. I’m not wasting your time. Let me go get that for you.
And when we get out to the car—if the rims aren’t just right, or they spot a car right across the lot that catches their interest, then I can provide instant information without any disconnection. I can show them the vehicle, pull up the service reports, locate the key—all right there. It demonstrates a mindfulness of their time that customers notice. It becomes a talking point when they’re telling friends: ‘I didn’t even have to go back inside. They showed me exactly where the vehicle was, they ran in and got the key, we test drove three different vehicles.’ That’s the referral story you want.
And the app is also a great introduction to how we protect all of our vehicles. ‘We protect every vehicle on this lot with Ikon, and we transfer that service to you.’ When a customer says, ‘Wow, that’s really cool—how’d you do that?’ you’ve got a natural opening to the addendum. ‘Remember when I showed you this on the lot? Look—it’s right here on the addendum, and it comes with a $10,000 limited theft warranty.’ It really is a great opportunity to break the ice on additional products.
Christopher Schouten: Buying a car can be a very emotional moment. It’s a piece of equipment you’re going to be living in—second only to your house or office—for the next several years. So knowing you have that $10,000 limited theft warranty is a huge piece of mind.
Jeremy Okler: When I sold cars, I always asked customers if they had named their vehicle: that discovery question tells you so much about what this purchase means to them. If someone says, 'This is Bubbles, my little special car,' it's not just a tin can that gets them down the road. It's a part of their lives. And we don't want anyone else driving it.
We frame our theft protection as down payment assistance. If your vehicle is stolen and not recovered, you’ve got your insurance company covering market value, hopefully you’ve got GAP, and then you have Ikon for that down payment assistance. That’s a fantastic opportunity to talk about protecting the vehicle they love.
Christopher Schouten: I know some competitors cut a smaller check directly to the consumer. Talk about how Ikon handles this differently.
Jeremy Okler: Our checks are bigger - and they’re made out to both the dealer and the consumer, so that money has to be used inside your auto group. It brings them back to that dealership. It’s a built-in retention tool. It keeps them in your ecosystem.
Christopher Schouten: So Ikon creates a better sales experience, a stickier connection to fixed ops, higher satisfaction scores, more referrals - and if a car is stolen and not recovered, we’re protecting them from negative equity and bringing them back to you for their next new car!
Jeremy Okler: Right. It's always nice to sell them a second car. And here’s some interesting math: most people trading in a vehicle are already carrying $6,000–7,000 in negative equity. With higher interest rates and higher vehicle costs, their payment is going up. But if that car gets stolen, isn’t recovered in 30 days, and they’re protected with GAP and Ikon’s down payment assistance, then they could actually walk out with a lower payment than they came in with. We have real-life dealer stories about this. They’re fantastic for sales associates to talk about. You get to sell them a second car, and then all those referrals on top of it.
Christopher Schouten: And some of our favorite theft recovery stories happen within days of the customer taking the car home. Or—one of my favorites—a customer buys a car, does a test drive, leaves the keys on the sales desk, goes to finance, and a thief walks by and pockets the keys and drives the car right off the lot. Because the dealership had Ikon, they were able to get the car back right away. That Florida customer drove their car home the same day.
Jeremy Okler: The stories we get coast to coast are incredible. And to your point—when you buy a vehicle, you’re not the only one who wants it. People aren’t going to steal an eight-year-old vehicle. They’re going to steal the eight-month-old one because it’s new, it’s fresh. So we want to protect that customer and that vehicle.
I think it's important that folks know this isn't just about protecting a customer's investment; Ikon helps protect their people too. If I’m buying a vehicle for my teenage son, he knows how to get around OEM apps and factory security systems. But with Ikon, he can’t bypass the secondary system. I know exactly where he is because of geofencing, and exactly how fast he is driving with speed alerts. My dad lives 900 miles away—if he’s not going to the golf course, church, and the grocery store, and he gets outside that little radius, I get a notification. ‘Hey, did you just take an unexpected trip?’ The peace of mind this product delivers day to day is quite something.
Christopher Schouten: I'm hearing that dealers don’t have to work harder to make better customer experiences—they need to work smarter. And Ikon is here to help them do that.
Jeremy Okler: That’s exactly right, Christopher. We know dealers, we know customers—because we are dealers. We built Ikon to solve all of the pain points that keep customers from having great experiences, and to give them a reason to come back to your store for every purchase.