VIRTUAL NEW ORLEANS, January 28, 2021 – The Next Rapid Recon at NADA ’21 will deliver simplified online mobile and desktop access to the latest products, features, and best practices in new and used vehicle reconditioning and speed to sale solutions for dealers attending this uniquely different National Automobile Dealers Association convention.

At all-virtual NADA ’21, February 9 to 11, NADA-registered attendees can access Rapid Recon’s 360-degree virtual 3D annex exhibit during show hours, after hours and beyond, through rapidrecon.com.

This advanced experience offers auto dealers and their management teams nearly unlimited access to rich, interactive content to showcase the industry’s No. 1 reconditioning workflow software and performance management services. Dealers using Rapid Recon workflow software to bring transparency, accountability, and more control to reconditioning get cars sale-ready faster to compete more successfully in today’s new and used car marketplace.

To make dealers’ time at Virtual NADA ’21 even richer, Rapid Recon offers two easy-to-access virtual experiences:

• A premier 3D exhibit accessible through the NADA ’21 virtual experience, plus,
• A seamlessly integrated yet distinctly different interactive and exclusively 3D Rapid Recon annex exhibit (portal not active until February 9) open before and after regular NADA show hours and beyond.

The Rapid Recon 3D virtual experience offers visitors a wide range of interactions. These include a robust Learning Center, “live” consultations with Rapid Recon fine-tune performance teams, a What’s New center, and real-time and schedule-later product demos to explain critical reconditioning performance indicators such as time to line and speed to sale. Live Chat stations posted throughout and a Social Lounge for messaging Rapid Recon founder and CEO Dennis McGinn enhance engagement.

Dealership general managers and their fixed and variable operation managers all benefit when Rapid Recon is used to drive inventory turn, increase labor hours and parts revenue. Only Rapid Recon equips the sales team with in-their-hand, on-the-go mobile inventory intelligence to help them build value in the deal from their first contact with the prospect. Over 20,000 monthly users across over 2,400 auto dealerships use Rapid Recon workflow software to be more efficient, responsive and competitive.

PHOENIX, AZ, January 4, 2019 – Borrowing from the start-up success handbook that propelled virtual inventory advisory company LotPop to industry prominence, My BDC Success launched this week, providing remote BDC monitoring, tracking, and training services to help auto dealerships maximize the profitability of their business development center investments.

My BDC Success is not a long-term investment for most dealers, rather a three-to-18-month engagement to lift BDC performance to consistently more profitable results for the dealership.

It is an industry fact that most dealerships struggle to realize full potential from their BDC operations:

• Few people have the knowledge or experience to run a BDC efficiently and profitably
• If the right people are found, it can take years of learning to master BDC proficiency
• And, always, the question remains - how do you balance the number of employees with the volume of activity, so you stop spending countless hours and thousands of dollars hoping the investment will pay off

Now until NADA, My BDC Success is offering a $595/month with $595 one-time set up fee – $895 each normally – for the next eight dealerships that sign up. To sign up, contact Nicholas Wenslow at

nwenslow@mybdcsuccess.com or 888-814-6912, or visit https://www.mybdcsuccess.com/home.

My BDC Success Managing Partner Nicholas Wenslow said too many BDC centers struggle to support well their dealerships. Observing this frustration led him to develop My BDC Success. 

“As BDC manager for Automotive Associates of Atlanta with oversight for 50-plus BDC reps, without a doubt, BDC operations must have active management with hands-on engagement – whether in person or as remote accountability - to ensure ongoing coaching, training and knowledge to maximize their BDC performance. This is what dealerships get from using My BDC Success,” Wenslow said.

My BDC Success manages BDC operations virtually, including:

• * Monitoring, Tracking and Analyzing the 15-plus BDC Success Points

• * Delivering BDC Success Reports, Performance Reviews, and coaching Calls
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• * Your My BDC Success coach is available via phone, text or e-mail for training and support
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• * Use of your CRM and BDC software to maximize the value of your BDC

“Our services, products, and merchandise are specially designed to help dealers meet their BDC goals because each My BDC Success coach has been through the ranks. We aren't desking deals, takings T.O.'s or on popcorn breaks. We are listening to calls, monitoring performance, and maximizing your BDC,” Wenslow said.

For a limited time, My BDC Success services start at $595.95 a month, with a $595 set up fee, for the first eight dealers to sign up before NADA 2019. For more information, visit MyBDCSuccess.com or contact Nicholas Wenslow at 888-814-6912 or nwenslow@mybdcsuccess.com. 

SCOTTSDALE, ARIZONA – March 5, 2018 – Fidelis PPM, the leading provider of brand-building, revenue-generating prepaid maintenance (PPM) programs, announced today the addition of complimentary auto deductible reimbursement coverage as a new program benefit.

Now, new-car, independent, and Buy-Here-Pay-Here dealers selling Fidelis PPM maintenance plans enjoy unique market and competitive advantages:

• By offering customers prepaid, discount-priced routine maintenance services that save them money and protect their vehicle investment while driving service volume, repair order upsell, and retention for the dealership, and:
• By enriching plan benefits with this new inclusion of auto deductible reimbursement  coverage;  and,
• By also providing plan purchasers personal-identification restoration service, to help consumers restore their good name in the event of identity theft.

Fidelis PPM will introduce this new, enhanced prepaid maintenance program at NADA ’18 later this month, Booth 2967C.  These benefits, called Auto Advantage and offered by leading Program provider The AssurancePlus Group, provide dealers with genuinely market-differentiating and unique retention- and loyalty-building competitive advantages.

Fidelis PPM reports that consumers using its plan stay loyal to their dealer long after their vehicle purchase. Eight-five percent of customers returned to the dealership multiple times during the first year of plan activity. Sixty-five percent continued to do so for up to five years. On average, plan users will add $70 in repair-order upsell revenue per visit to the service department.

“Fidelis prepaid maintenance already packs a wallop of value that builds a dealer’s service business and provides real economic value to their customers. Now, through our partner AssurancePlus, Fidelis PPM broadens this appeal and worth in a unique offering to our industry,” says Ryan Williams, president of Fidelis PPM.

Williams notes that prepaid plan holders who regularly use its benefits save on average nearly $400 a year over the retail cost of the services a dealer packages in the PPM they offer, such as oil services, tire rotations, and other routine maintenance services.

“Now Fidelis PPMs with Auto Advantage provides even more value to dealers’ customers - auto collision or comprehensive deductibles are reimbursed up to $500 per loss at no charge to the dealer or the customer,” Williams notes.

These economic advantages are significant to many motorists. An AAA survey found that 64 million American drivers could not pay for an unexpected vehicle repair of $500 without going into debt. Because of this, AAA says, over 30% of U.S. drivers skip, or delay recommended vehicle services or repairs. Prepaid maintenance featuring free auto deductible reimbursement helps these consumers meet these repair needs.

Fidelis PPM is the authority helping dealers retain customers through process-driven prepaid preventive maintenance retention programs. These programs drive consumers into participating dealers’ service and collision-repair departments. Robust reporting tools provide dealers with detail-rich accountability metrics and remind plan holders of their savings over the retail cost of the same repairs.

About Fidelis PPM

Fidelis PPM, a CU Direct company, turns prepaid maintenance into a brand-building, revenue-generating retention machine. Developed by dealers, Fidelis PPM knows the importance of substantiating ROI from its products. Powered by Driv Customer Retention Software, Fidelis PPM provides an easy-to-use interface for at-a-glance tracking of dealers’ ROI on their PPM program. For more information, visit www.getfidelis.com or email Williams at ryan@getfidelis.com

TagRail, creators of digital sales intelligence and customer engagement workflow tools for progressive auto dealerships, announced today continued dealer recognition in improving showroom up conversion and vehicle closing ratios.

“Since using the TagRail platform in our dealership, we’ve noticed a more relaxed environment, with our sales consultants now handling decision-making once left to the sales manager, and therefore our closing ratios are on the rise," says Jenan Culic, General Manager for Downtown Toyota, Toronto, a part of the Downtown Auto Group. TagRail went live there this spring. 

“I attribute this improved closing ratio to how TagRail acts like a Fitbit platform for the car dealership, providing performance feedback, accountability, and measurement that tells us how we are doing and how to continue to improve customer engagement, sales efficiencies, and retention,” Culic adds.

The TagRail customer experience management (CEM) platform structures, organizes, and streamlines how:

• Sales departments engage and welcome customers in a shoulder-to-shoulder partnership, so the experience is transparent, seamless, complete, and comfortable for all parties.
• Sales managers monitor, manage and help sales consultants set and attain weekly and monthly performance goals. Built-in accountability provides sales consultants and their managers near real-time feedback that motivates, encourages, and creates powerful competitive incentives to excel.

“Today’s customers want to feel good about the sales consultant and dealership they are considering spending their money with,” says TagRail CEO Kiran Karunakaran, “or they will go elsewhere if this is not their experience that they are accustomed to in other retail environments. TagRail helps the dealership foster trust and engagement and thereby converting more walk-in traffic into paying customers.”

Offering mobile tools for engaging, tracking, and monitoring workflows throughout the dealership, TagRail brings modern business process management and oversight to automotive retail. www.tagrail.com

NIAGARA FALLS, NEW YORK, NY – May 17, 2016: Clever new reusable dry erase-type hang tags exclusively from Wheel’s Automotive Dealer Supplies, Inc. help dealers merchandise inventory and save them money by replacing wasteful paper tags.   

Dealers will reuse these durable hard plastic tags with built-in mirror hanger repeatedly. Innovative and ecofriendly, these unique dry erase hang tags exclusively from Wheel’s eliminate the costly need to waste paper tags having old data or misprints.

With Wheel’s exclusive dry-erase hang tags you simply wipe clean any prior message and write new details using dry erase or wet erasable markers.  

A dealer selling 1,000 new and used vehicles a year will enjoy an ROI of $600 in the second year of tag use, replacing disposable paper tags. 

“Erasable, reusable hang tags is just the kind of money-saving inventory merchandising idea dealers have come to expect from Wheel’s Automotive Dealer Supplies,” said Richard Ashworth, president. Wheel’s is North America’s most renowned experts in innovative marketing products for automotive retailers.

• This unique, one-of-a-kind dry erase, reusable hang tag features a highly visible area dealership branding, For Sale notices, or other dealer-customized copy.
• The area for writing vehicle details is bright, substantial, and clearly visible even through tint.
• Tags are available in multiple colors. Dimensions can be customized to any size and scale.  Copy is easily customized to highlight the topic on which the dealer wants the shopper to focus.
• There is no minimum tag order.

“We are always listening to dealers and looking for practical new ways to help dealers sell cars and save money,” Ashworth said. “These new dry erase useable hang tags will not curl at edges or fade easily, so they always look new and fresh to shoppers.”

To order Wheel’s proprietary dry erase reusable hang tags that save money to merchandise inventory, call Renee at 1-800-465-8831, Ext. 105. For more innovative and cost-saving lot merchandising and dealership supplies, visit wheelsauto.com.

A new white paper from MaximTrak Technologies leads auto dealers into the present and future potential of digital F&I platforms for improving F&I profitability and customer satisfaction. 

“The digital revolution has influenced F&I best practices for more than a decade, led by digital cutting-edge e-menu technology. Today the industry is being driven by multichannel, high-touch, visual tools that integrate with the industry, use predictive technology, are easy to use, and engage consumers proactively in the F&I experience,” notes Jim Maxim, Jr, president, MaximTrak Technologies. 

This new report notes recent results of dealers using digital technologies to boost PVR and aftermarket product penetration. Across a study of 270 dealers and 1.5 million transactions, PVR increased $538 per deal and service contract penetration lifts of 52% per deal.  

“Every dealership I talk to wants new opportunities to maximize F&I profitability. Those dealerships that embrace the right technology experience better results…more than they thought possible. Profitability is not elusive…it is a choice,” Maxim says. 

Click here to download this report (http://offers.maximtrak.com/future_of_f-i). 

This white paper also details MAXIMTRAK FLITE, a digital platform that combines a state-of-the-art touch screen, tablet technology, and a unique “smart survey” with MaximTrak’s fully integrated, compliant and comprehensive system. It is designed to put the F&I customer in control in a whole new way. With FLITE, a buyer’s entire buying process is enhanced and streamlined with interactive videos, surveys, product recommendations, package building, and more. With the flick of a finger, customers are guided through a consistent, frictionless, and enjoyable sales experience transforming the vehicle delivery process and driving dealer profitability. 

To learn more and for a personal demonstration, contact 1.800.282.6308 or email sales@maximtrak.com. Click here to download this report.

Gamification has come to the F&I office, where new technology is driving more interactive — and more productive — processes. Gamification employs video game technology to redesign complex, densely layered and annoying processes and transforms the way they are accessed, understood and transacted. 

F&I platforms that use gamification technology and this new approach to selling F&I products transform workflow into a visually clean, enjoyable, simple and very user-friendly process. This metamorphosis occurs through the sophisticated but easy–to-use presentation of graphics, sounds, movement and imagery that breaks down the processes into bite-size portions that are easily digestible for the consumer.

Read more here.

Dealers often ask how they should respond to people requesting information about why the dealership ran their credit. The nature of these requests is motivated by one of two things:

• Consumers demand to know why the dealership ran their credit, or
• Consumers are victims of identity theft.

The dealership may receive requests for information from a phone call, correspondence from the consumer, correspondence from an individual claiming to represent the consumer or law enforcement.

The response should be conditioned on whether the request is for identity theft information, or concerns previous credit inquiries by the dealership.

This article addresses the requirements the user of a consumer report must provide in response to consumer inquiries.