Why Your Data Is Wickedly Underutilized

Article Highlights:
- Many dealerships are not yet taking full advantage of their valuable data.
- More usable data is the key to enhancing your customer experience.
With the holiday season in the rearview mirror, the buildup for awards season starts dominating the headlines. Soon, we’ll learn which movies, shows, and songs are commemorated for being the best of 2024. While the award shows themselves are often critiqued, discussing who deserves a nomination and predicting the winners is still entertaining enough to break up the lull of the wintery months.
If we were to spin the awards season into a dealership setting, who deserves a trophy?
I’d like to officially nominate…your data. In today’s digital world, your data is your most valuable factor for success, especially your first-party data. But the thing is, there’s potential for it to be even better and take you even farther.
Everybody’s a Critic
The amount of data isn’t the problem. Problems surface when you aren’t able to maximize the value of your data. It’s not your fault, we just haven’t seen the industry prioritize usable data or connect it across all of a dealership’s systems.
What do people think when an actor gives one of the most memorable performances of the year, but the rest of the movie is panned by critics? Or when a movie has some of the best cinematography and special effects, but the storyline was an afterthought? People think squandered potential.
Don’t squander your data’s potential. Maximizing its value will keep your dealership in position to be successful today, tomorrow, and much farther down the road. You have the data already, more than you need, so how do you make it usable?
The Gravity of Disjointed Data
The data needs to fuel your sales enablement motor. It needs to be presented the proper way to the correct people at the best time to drive sales. Customer Data Platforms (CDPs) in our industry were developed with outbound marketing in mind; collect the data and generate campaigns.
Stopping there is like stopping at the whipped topping on your mocha latte (I usually skip the whip but maybe I’m weird). To get the most out of your data, it needs to also be applied efficiently to your sales flow and connected throughout your dealership ecosystem.
Easier said than done. Your data is spread across several different places. Your staff doesn’t have the time to skim through every note about a client as their texts, emails, calls, and other appointments are piling up. In many cases, this leads to countless customer interactions blurring together and even your customers can tell it feels robotic. Your salespeople are set up for failure, and your customers are let down by a disjointed experience.
Now Playing – Unified and Actionable Data
Luckily, if 2024’s automotive software conferences are any indication, we’re going to see the market adapt very soon. There’s been an increased focus on managing data and incorporating AI into dealership processes, and we expect NADA 2025 to take it to another level. One of the stars of the show will be Curator, as Gubagoo demos it for the first time, introducing a completely new product category to the automotive industry.
Curator is a Unified Intelligence Engine, similar to a CDP but built to make your data usable across the entire dealership ecosystem, especially when it comes to sales enablement and personalizing every customer interaction. This is the type of innovation we’re going to see across the industry over the next few years, and it’ll change the future of selling cars for the better.
You have the data. Help your star of the show live up to its full potential by unifying your data and connecting it to your users, enhancing your staff’s ability to do their job and in turn, enhancing the customer experience.
Related Articles:

NADA… the Catalyst for 2025: What’s Ahead for Reynolds
With the NADA show now behind us, take a peek at where Reynolds is headed this year.

Year in Review: Ten Popular Stories from 2024
Take a look at the top Fuel articles and Connected episodes from 2024.

A Lesson in Process and Patience
It was my first Christmas Eve as a parent. Among the piles of brightly colored gifts, I was most excited to give my daughter the classic…

NADA 2025: 3 Reasons Why Reynolds is the Most Excited We’ve Ever Been
Reynolds and Reynolds President, Chris Walsh, shares three reasons why he’s more excited for NADA 2025 than ever before.