Lessons from the Road: How Top RV Dealerships Drive Success Through Digital Transformation

"The most successful dealers are always looking for a competitive edge—anything that can help them sell more units or service RVs faster and more efficiently.

That edge can come from new technology, but it’s not always about tech. Sometimes it’s about hiring the right people, improving internal processes, or even choosing the right brands to carry. They’re constantly reevaluating how they operate, and that includes being open to new tools and innovations.

It doesn’t mean they buy everything we release at IDS—but the key is that they look. They keep an open mind. And that mindset is what sets them apart."

"If your software, your processes, your systems are stuck in the past, then so is your business.

I like to compare it to a microwave. At some point, you didn’t have one, right? But now it's just part of daily life. Same with a smartphone. At first, you probably thought, “What is this thing?” And now it's in your hand all day. And you don’t have to dive in headfirst. You can ease your way into it, get comfortable with it. But you do have to move forward if you want to grow.

The most successful dealers I’ve seen are always looking for what’s next. They want to be on the cutting edge. They want to lead their market. And technology helps them do that.

Yes, there are people who say things like, “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks,” but that mindset doesn’t help your business. It definitely doesn’t help your bottom line. Meanwhile, your competitors? They’re embracing the change. And they’re pulling ahead because of it."

"Some of the best performing dealerships aren’t even using automation. But the ones who are, they’re using it effectively.

They’re analyzing their data. Things like the RECT reports and Leadership Insights—they’re implementing those, finding where they need to make changes, and then making those shifts quickly.

They’re getting more data savvy over time. They’re laser focused on the tools, and that’s making a big difference.

They’re doing better than the folks who are wearing ten hats, trying to do twelve roles, and can’t quite get out of the weeds of day-to-day operations to really look at the data and manage by exception and things like that."

"One thing I’ve seen is that too much automation can have negative impacts. First, it can actually create distance between the dealership and the customer. Take the common example of those repetitive warranty calls where you're bombarded with messages, but never actually talk to a real person. It’s all automated, and there’s no human connection.

So, in the dealership context, let’s say a customer is waiting on their unit in service. If they get bombarded with multiple automated updates a day—five messages in a day and a half—it becomes overwhelming. They’re at work, their phone’s buzzing nonstop, and the reaction becomes, ‘Turn this off. This is annoying.’

It’s really about finding the right balance.

We're seeing more dealers using CRM tools proactively—reminding people about service, driving more business into the service department. Especially when sales are slower, it becomes about keeping service busy during those down periods. That’s when you’re looking at preventative maintenance, seasonal check-ins, that kind of thing. Reaching out to say, 'Hey, it’s been six months, here’s what we typically see.' That’s a big focus right now."

"It really boils down to: good data in, good data out.

There’s one dealer moving to our DMS in the next couple of months, and one of the major reasons they’re leaving their current provider is because they had one report that didn’t match. For years. And no one could tell them why—not at any level. That kind of stuff drives dealers crazy.

At the end of the day, you can have the easiest way to sell a unit or write up a work order, but if you can’t get the right data out of your system to make business decisions, none of that matters. You need to know where you're profitable, where you're not, where the problems are—historical averages, margins, costs—all of it. If you don’t have that, you're not really running a business. You're just hoping you're making money.

And you'd be amazed how many dealers do exactly that. They show up at 5 a.m., check a whiteboard to see how many units they sold, and guess from there. And sure, some of them are profitable—but it's not sustainable. They’re not seeing the hidden costs.

Say you bill a technician’s hour for $100, and they’re paid $25. Most people stop there. But there’s also the advisor taking $10, a parts person taking $3, a warranty admin, overhead, inefficiencies...You think you’re making $75, but really you're making more like $25. That’s what we mean by ‘true cost of sales.’

And it’s not just labor—it’s selling units, too. Did I pay my salesperson commission on the total unit cost? Or on the profit? How does that impact my margins? Do I consider hard pack vs. soft pack? These are real conversations happening every day.

That’s what our system does really well. It’s configurable. You can run your business your way and still get the clarity you need. Without that, you're just checking your bank balance at the end of the month and hoping there’s more money in there than last month."