It's summertime -- vacation time! We're taking our kids to Legoland in Denmark -- a trip that will require no fewer than four modes of transportation: plane, train, boat, and (of course!) car.

Getting the kids to Legoland reminds me of consumers and carbuying (OK, everything reminds me of consumers and carbuying -- it's my job). Both are messy, noisy, and unpredictable, but still fun. Carbuying involves traversing a lot of different channels: advertising, Web sites, phones, and showrooms. And just like traveling with kids, the hard part is: 1) keeping customers happy within each mode, and 2) not losing track of them as they switch from one to another.

So, to give you some beach reading, I've pulled together some of our best research about cross-channel consumers. And hey, it just might help you plan your next family vacation.

• Before you go: Plan the trip! Like great cross-country vacations, great cross-channel carbuying experiences don't just happen by themselves. To get your customers to their destination as directly as possible, you need to plan a route that simplifies their cross-channel experience. You also need to map out a lead management strategy for capturing leads and shepherding them through the carbuying experience. Start with a map of the landscape -- in this case, auto's lead management landscape, through which 27% of consumers intend to travel this year (see figure below).

• First leg: marketing and advertising. Just like kids fight being cooped up in the car for hours, consumers actively rebel against ads -- and if either group gets too bored, they'll just skip out on you. To make marketing and advertising less humdrum, be more selective with ad spending and fit message, product, and process to reach them.

• Second leg: your own and third-party sites. Kids look forward to airplane rides, but lines, cancellations, and bad food mar the experience. Customers look forward to shopping for cars online, too, but bad design mars car shoppers' experience. Fortunately, we've found some cross-vertical Web design best practices and detailed advice for solving specific problems, such as what to do when site menus must be deep. We can also help you find the right agency, analytics package, or configurator for this tricky-but-important part of your customers' journey.

• Third leg: on the phone. Like the train, the phone is a quaint 19th-century technology, but customers use it a lot (why do you think its called Autobytel)? So you should make the on-phone experience as good as the online one -- and measure it just as rigorously.

• Destination: the dealership! The dealership can be a jungle, a roller-coaster ride, a zoo -- or a walk in the park. We've been looking into ways to improve customers' auto retail experience specifically, and through the use of other verticals we've looked into ways to improve training salespeople (see how Nike does it) and designing kiosks that can calm those jittery showroom-floor visitors.

• Back home: sharing the stories. I admit it -- I've actually used PowerPoint to show slides from my family vacation. Why not share your customers' cross-channel journey -- and find out how others manage the task at Forrester's 2004 Consumer Forum (you can ask JetBlue's CEO about the real airline experience). Our Forum is in New York City, September 19-21, 2004.

Research Referenced In This Issue Ad-Skipping Still Haunts Advertisers (34285) Auto's Lead Management Landscape (34374) Catching Up To Young New-Car Buyers (34543) European Auto Sites' Usability Gap (34198) Finding Kiosk Flaws (34645) How Kiosk Software Can Calm Anxious Users (34762) Left Brain Marketing (33961)    Making Auto Retail Lean (32782)    Managing International Sites (33781) Nike Does It Right: Just-In-Time Training (34669) Non-Japanese Automakers Fail Web Site Usability (34474) Retailers Adopt eLearning To Groom Smarter Store Associates (34147) Selecting A B2C Site Analytics Product (34735) Simplifying Cross-Channel Design (16368)    The Consumer Advertising Backlash (33834) Tips For Improving Web Translations (34800) Trilogy's X Internet Play: Smart Move (33796) Web Design Agency Shootout (34612) Web Design Best Practices Cross Verticals (34349) What To Do When Site Menus Must Be Deep (34220) Why Marketing Should Own The Contact Center (34134)

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