1 March 2023
Gubagoo ChatSmart and Virtual Retailing win 2023 AWA Awards

Gubagoo Wins Conversational Commerce Award and Brings Home “Best in Category,” for Digital Retailing

February 14, 2023 – Gubagoo, the leading provider of digital retailing and conversational commerce for automotive dealerships, announced today it has been chosen as a winner of two 2023 AWA Awards in the Digital Retailing, and Conversational Commerce categories. This marks the second year in a row Gubagoo has won these awards.

Brian Pasch, author and industry leader in automotive marketing strategies, online dealer education, marketing analytics, and digital retailing, announced the awards. “I’m honored to recognize the efforts of many deserving companies who stand out in their areas of expertise and have proven to be thought leaders and innovators this past year,” said Pasch.

Pasch named Gubagoo Virtual Retailing “Best Connected Retailing Experience” with its 2023 AWA Award for Digital Retailing. “I would say today, when we think of connected retailing platforms, Gubagoo has really set the bar high for the integration of messaging via chat, text, or video,” said Pasch. “With a single calculation engine, as well as a singular presentation and communication layer, the lines between a digital retailing tool, a CRM, and a desking platform merge into one retail operating platform.

Since being acquired by Reynolds and Reynolds, I’ve been impressed with the level and speed of integration that Gubagoo’s Virtual Retailing platform has within the Reynolds DMS and CRM. But for dealers who are not using either of those two products, the Virtual Retailing product stands on its own merit, because of recent integrations and developments with other platforms.”

Gubagoo ChatSmart was also named a winner in the Conversational Commerce category. ChatSmart has deep integrations to all the touchpoints and messaging platforms that dealers would use. This allows dealers using ChatSmart to have a unified messaging platform across all consumer touchpoints. “Any dealer who’s looking for more personalized communication with customers online, should look into ChatSmart,” said Pasch.

More than 8,500 dealerships worldwide, including 90% of the top 150 automotive dealer groups in the U.S., use Gubagoo’s chat, texting, behavioral marketing, and digital retailing tools to build trust with customers, generate higher quality opportunities, and sell more cars.

“It’s an honor to be recognized again as winners in the Digital Retailing and Conversational Commerce categories,” said Brad Title, president of Gubagoo. “We firmly believe this shows Gubagoo’s ongoing commitment to being the best platform for dealer’s communication and retailing needs at a time when customers are demanding easier ways to retail anywhere.”

The AWAs were created in 2008 to recognize the best vendors in automotive digital marketing, primarily focused on websites. Since then, the AWAs have become a benchmark in the automotive industry for recognizing innovative products, now in 20 categories: digital retailing, marketing automation, sales process, dealer websites, digital marketing, SEO and local search, inventory management and merchandising, HR & training, fixed operations, F&I, website merchandising, conversational commerce, video technology, business intelligence tools, reputation management, and our newest categories, automatic payment platforms, digital voice assistants, enterprise retailing, and CDP/MAP technologies.

According to Pasch, this year’s lineup of AWA winners included a number of exciting new products designed to create operational efficiencies for auto dealers, strengthen their brand, and grow their bottom line. In addition to creating new tools, the vendor community fully embraced the challenges and opportunities created by low inventory and a tight labor market.


About Gubagoo
Gubagoo is the leading provider of conversational commerce and retail solutions for both automotive dealerships and OEMs. More than 8,500 dealerships worldwide partner with Gubagoo, including 90% of the top dealer groups in America. The company is headquartered in Houston, Texas, and has major U.S. operations in Dayton, Ohio, College Station, Texas, Tampa, Florida as well as operations in Canada, Mexico, Europe, and Australia. (Gubagoo.com)

Gubagoo Media Relations
media@gubagoo.com
937.607.8045

About Brian Pasch:
Brian Pasch, Founder of PCG Companies and Brian Pasch Enterprises (BPE), has been actively involved with automotive franchise dealers since 2005. Brian has authored nine bestselling books for the automotive industry: “Remote Retailing Blueprint,” “Just Faster,” “Automotive Marketing Playbook,” “Who Sold It?,” “Swimming with Digital Sharks,” “Mastering Automotive Digital Marketing,” “Selling Cars in a Digital Age,” Unfair Advantage,” and “Hyper-Local Marketing for Automotive Retail.” Brian is an active conference speaker, 20 Group presenter, and coach to both dealers and members of the vendor community. He has presented workshops at NADA, Digital Dealer, DCDW, Driving Sales Executive Summit, Kain Automotive Workshops, Innovative Dealer Summit, Automotive Engagement Conferences, Automotive Boot Camp, AutoCon, VinWorx, TrueCar Dealer Summits, and the Digital Marketing Strategies Conference. Brian is Google Analytics certified, and PCG is a Google Premium Partner company.