It used to be said that, “there’s nothing more outdated than last year’s software.” While that may not be as true now as it was in the earlier days of the rush to computerize everything, there are some brilliant new applications now available for your dealership.
For example, just when you thought CRM software couldn’t get any better, here are a few new offerings that deserve your attention.
DealerSocket
DealerSocket, already established in the
Marketing director Shellie Pierce explains: “Our software is designed so the dealer can get one view of all departments – sales, service, CSI, and marketing. It generates reports from a screen called ‘manager’s dashboard’ and it can drill down into any area, like a sales person’s performance or CSI scores or leads.”
Sam Rizek, is their executive sales manager for
Salesboom
On the east coast, the folks at Salesboom market their CRM program, Automotive Edition, as a service not a product. The program is a tight integration of marketing and sales tools which work with a dealer’s website, email program and phone system. Called ‘Software as a Service’ (SaaS), it’s based on cloud computing which CEO and co-founder Troy Muise says is taking over the software world. “Cloud computing is the next generation of software tools. You build your own applications on my cloud on my network.”
Traditional web-based software resides on a single server. Cloud computing is like grid computing and relies on sharing computing resources. The goal is to apply traditional super-computing power (normally used by military and research facilities) to perform tens of trillions of computations per second.
Although it’s extremely powerful, Automotive Edition is very user-friendly. “Everyone knows how to fill out forms online,” says Muise. “Configuring this software for your dealership is as simple as that. It all works with prompts and easy-to-edit webform-type pages with links and text boxes.” Muise insists the product works well even when there’s no IT manager. There’s a pre-packaged version or you can tweak it yourself.
In effect, Salesboom.com rents you the software and provides a fully staffed training department to help. Upgrades are free and provided instantly to subscribers. For more information, visit www.salesboom.com.
Advent Resources
Advent Resources (www.adventresources.com) has been upgrading its CRM software in recent months. Rob Ford, managing partner for
Internet lead handling grabs leads from the factory or dealership website and sends them to the Business Development Centre. It time- and date-stamps the contact, records who handled it and how it proceeded. Advanced telephony management takes incoming calls, connects through the phone company with the dealership database, and sends the call to the relevant sale person’s workplan .
The service-to-sales Interface alerts sales staff when a client is in the service department. That’s the application Vallerie Skelly, sales manager at
“It’s the little things that can make a real difference,” says Rob Ford. “We're not flying to the moon here; we just want to help sell more cars! The software tools don’t need to be so sophisticated that we lose sight of the fact that the simple tools can yield profitable results.”
Real-e-Live People
Another clever new app for your website comes from ASL Internet, based in
ASL Founder and CEO Peter Cameron-Inglis talks with enthusiasm about the translation capability added in July. A visitor who accepts a chat can text in virtually any language and it will be translated, on the fly, for the staff person who is responding. This could be helpful in a bilingual market or for non-English speakers. “Think how much more comfortable visitors would be if they could text in their mother tongue,” says Cameron-Inglis. ReLP is available on a subscription basis for as little as $200 a month and can be plugged into any website.
Marnie Mears, CRM Manager at Smith Chevrolet in
Mears says they make appointments as well as handling inquiries about vehicles. “We’re on this whenever the dealership is open. We often have more than 20 people on our site, and we’ll be ‘chatting’ with two or three of them at any one time.”
Quorum
In the DMS world, there’s still the ‘Big Two’… and there’s Quorum, who a year ago linked up with JM Solutions to integrate an intriguing used-vehicle inventory management system called AAX with their Xsellerator DMS program. AAX provides users with recommended vehicles, called "core" vehicles, to stock in their used-vehicle departments. The system uses timely, data-backed knowledge of the stores' past success with vehicles as well as market data on which to base pricing decisions. It enables dealers to optimize their entire used-vehicle inventory by providing appraisal, stocking, pricing and trading recommendations and more.
Colin Parada, general sales manager at Edwards Garage in Rocky Mountain House, AB, gave it a two-month trial but didn’t proceed. “We’re a fairly small operation and it didn’t simplify things for us. I think it’s a matter of scale though. I’m sure it would work wonders in a bigger store.”
JM Solutions also has a relationship with CarProof, a leading Canadian provider of vehicle history reports and AAX now comes with the capability to run CarProof.
Maximizing opportunities in Fixed Operations is top of mind these days. Metrics is the buzzword, and there are a couple of leading edge products which emphasize accountability.
Edge
From
Susan Lovett, MPi’s senior director, marketing communications, explains that the WCI system is a more rigorous, consistent approach to vehicle inspections. But, she cautions: “Everyone, including the dealer, needs to buy into this. But we’re there to help with mentoring and guidance.” There’s a front-end cost, anywhere from $6,000 to $10,000 and the monthly subscription fee can range from $3,000 to $6,000.
Rick Blacker, director of services operations (GTA) Phaeton Auto Group in
“It looks like it’s going to be a great tool,” says Blacker. “We want to measure opportunities for sales and we need to know we’re inspecting cars the same way across all our service departments.”
Blacker likes the softer approach with the customer. “We have something useful to give them and it’s not a hard sell. We think it will help to create trust. And we expect it will more than pay for itself with increased business – business we are currently losing to the competition.”
PowerDealer Service Module
Another accountability tool for the service department comes from Burlington-based Goal Line Solutions. Their big news is the recent hook-up with J.D. Power and Associates. The new PowerDealer Service Module lets dealers or service managers track effectiveness and productivity of service advisors and technicians in the areas of maintenance and repair procedure.
Veteran car-biz guy, Richard Marcotte, GoalLine Solutions’ V.P. automotive services, explains: “The program uses a daily scorecard which is very easy to use. The information is picked up from the RO; there are no forms to fill out. And the reports are instantaneous so management doesn’t have to wait until the end of the month to get a clear picture of what’s happening.”
Rather than meeting with resistance from technicians, as might be anticipated, they can’t wait to see their scores, Marcotte says. “It generates some healthy in-house competition. And it creates an opportunity for them to learn from each other.”
GoalLine Solutions is ready to launch a new device called HieroScribe. It’s a digital camera/pen, which the technician or service advisor uses on a walkaround to complete a paper form embedded with micro dots. When it’s returned to its base, it uploads the contents to a database. The customer has the paper form to take away and the data is stored and iavailable for future sales opportunities.
As I did the research for this story I was struck with the magnitude and complexity of shopping for new software. Maybe there’s a business opportunity here for someone to set up as an automotive software consultant.
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