Founded in 1981, America’s Car-Mart is one of the largest publicly held automotive retailers in the United States, operating automotive dealerships across twelve states. Focused exclusively on the “Integrated Auto Sales and Finance” segment of the used car market, the company excels in providing quality pre-owned vehicles to customers. With a strong commitment to flexible financing options and superior customer service, America’s Car-Mart aims to build lasting relationships while serving smaller cities throughout the South-Central United States.

Every year, ACM has a General Manager Conference annually to gather their lot leaders and update them on the latest policies, how HQ is working to support them, and to celebrate! 

We had the opportunity to attend the annual meeting again this year and explore the brand’s utilization of Zipline. While we were there, we couldn’t help but be captivated by the positivity and enthusiasm of every general manager that we met!

How do they do it? Here are our takeaways:

Continually find new ways to engage and support their field leadership

An engaged workforce is the best resource for understanding customer sentiment, so create a two-way feedback loop with your team members. That’s why the lot leaders gather year after year to connect, share resources and learning, and realign. 

In the midst of economic uncertainty, turbulence in the labor market, and tight margins in the industry, field leaders have come and gone, they face new day-to-day pressures, and ACM is constantly trying to find ways to engage and support their field leadership.

Always Get Back to Basics

The theme at the meeting this year was “Back to Basics!” This is a fantastic reminder that, even as the industry innovates in new and exciting ways, it’s still important to focus on the foundational building blocks that their future is built on.

At Zipline, we’re huge fans of the way that ACM gives their teams ongoing, consistent learning experiences! 

Drive Readership, Execution, and Engagement

In order to turn today’s goals into tomorrow’s wins, America’s Car-Mart prioritizes reporting and analytics. By capturing valuable insights, leadership can understand what’s working and make data-driven adjustments to improve. They do this by tracking team readership metrics, execution rates, task tracking, and readership. 

Zipline’s Operational Health Dashboard gives HQ and field leaders a high-level understanding of readership, store execution, and engagement. In one place, they can see what has been communicated, who has received the message, and which tasks have been completed.

Support teams with a streamlined, single source of truth

ACM believes that setting up their people for success involves providing them with robust communication tools. That way, they can understand company strategy as well as their role in accomplishing it, ask questions and give feedback, and share team accomplishments. With Zipline, America’s Car-Mart can do all of those things and more.

There are a few reasons that the team leaders at ACM love Zipline:

• Less duplicative communications and more targeted emails to their Associate population.
• A centralized place to track, create and assign tasks.
• A better resource repository with amazing search capabilities.

But don’t just take our word for it! Here are a few of the things that the GMs had to say about Zipline this week:

“I love that everything is easy to find and all in one place“

“Zipline is the first thing that I open every day”

“Zipline has been a game-changer for our team”

“I love that the search feature actually works“

“The resource library is so convenient“

“I love Zipline!”

At Zipline, we’re proud to partner with brands like America’s Car-Mart that put employee engagement first.

Zipline is how best-in-class retailers bring brand strategies to life in stores. A unified platform for operational excellence, Zipline brings together frontline communications, task management, resources, insights, and more– so that everyone feels connected to the brand and inspired by their work.  Ready to take your store teams to the next level?  Schedule some time to find out why 75 best-in-class brands just like America’s Car-Mart use Zipline to keep today on track!