4 questions with Sirius XM's Joe Verbrugge

CARY, N.C. -

One of the companies making some waves in the used-car and certified pre-owned space these days is SiriusXM, so as part of our annual Power 300 issue of Auto Remarketing, we reached out to Joe Verbrugge, senior vice president and general manager of SiriusXM Auto Remarketing Division, to talk about the company's footprint in the pre-owned space.

Our Q&A with Verbrugge is below.

Auto Remarketing: What is your biggest challenge as an audio entertainment provider within the automotive space, particularly as it applies to the used-vehicle realm?

Joe Verbrugge: SiriusXM has been highly successful at gaining Pre-Owned Program adoption, with more than 17,000 dealerships giving 3-month subscriptions to their pre-owned customers.

We are trying to reach more dealers, so that we can help provide a positive experience for customers buying pre-owned vehicles. If a dealer isn’t in our Pre-Owned Program, the satellite radios in the vehicles they sell may not be activated, which detracts from the customer ownership experience.

AR: What has been your biggest “conquest strategy” to target used-vehicle shoppers?

JV: The strategy boils down to providing customers what they want through a program that is easy and at no-cost for dealers to deliver. We want to provide used-car buyers the same opportunity to experience SiriusXM’s wide variety of commercial-free music, plus premier sports talk and live events, comedy, news, exclusive talk and entertainment, as those purchasing a new vehicle.

Our “conquest strategy” is to deliver the best audio experience in the car and remain the go-to entertainment for drivers and passengers in the vehicle. We also provide dealers with the ability to give their pre-owned vehicle customers three-month All Access trial subscriptions — our best package —where listeners can get all of our content in their car, on the SiriusXM app and online at siriusxm.com.

Dealers benefit by enabling the radios in their pre-owned inventory with the added-value of SiriusXM, which is a point of differentiation for the dealership.

AR: What methods do you employ to gain and/or retain customers who aren’t shopping for a replacement and have owned their vehicle for a while?

JV: Our programming is constantly changing and updated, with new channels, hosts, and exclusive music, talk and comedy programming. We love new opportunities to show customers what we have to offer. One way we do this is though our Service Lane Program, which complements dealers’ service loyalty programs and gives customers with eligible radios a new 2-month trial subscription as a thank you.

Like our Pre-owned Program, dealers need to enroll in this program, and participation doesn’t create any additional work in the service bays.

AR: Looking forward, what sorts of projects or strategies does SiriusXM have in the works to maintain their influence in the used-vehicle market?

JV: Our penetration in pre-owned vehicles is growing every year, and we want to make it even easier for dealerships to interface with SiriusXM. We recently launched our new SiriusXM Dealer App so dealers can simply scan the vehicle’s VIN with a smartphone or tablet and the radio is activated without having to manually enter a SiriusXM Radio ID number online or call Dealer Support in order to activate the Dealer Demo Service.

We are also focused on working with DMS providers to integrate SiriusXM as a feature in their product software, providing the dealer with the ability to seamlessly identify vehicles equipped with SiriusXM and activate the radio, allowing the customer to leave the lot listening.

Dealers will notice more of us in the field engaged and continuously visiting dealerships to ensure they have the latest information, tools and marketing to help them deliver on the best customer experience possible when showcasing a vehicle equipped with SiriusXM.

4 questions with Sirius XM’s Joe Verbrugge