Dealers themselves have always been ahead of us in their desire for more seamless and coordinated vendor relations. When we asked more questions, their answers led to creating new tools for helping fill this workflow coordination gap. 

More About Improving Recon Vendor Coordination

PALO ALTO, CA, November 12, 2020 — At next week’s series of virtual on-demand workshops at Used Car Week’s Pre-Owned Con, Curtis Sampson, New Business Manager for Rapid Recon, will show dealers how to apply sports "Game Film" analysis techniques to used car reconditioning.

His on-demand workshop, Film Time: the Best ROI You Can Make, will explore how to use game film concepts for improving used car reconditioning’s crucial success metrics -- time to line, average days in recon, and speed to sale so dealers can sell more cars faster.

Sampson’s workshop is available as early as Monday, November 16, for registered event attendees.

This workshop helps improve reconditioning efficiencies for any reconditioning operation, regardless of dealership size, brand or used car volume. Independent used car operators will also find this workshop profitable.

Sampson has been a dealer principal, general manager, general sales manager, finance manager, and used vehicle director. He joined Rapid Recon in 2019.

To review this pre-owned workshop’s learning objectives, visit Used Car Week Pre-Owned Con.

The Next Rapid Recon serves over 20,000 monthly users across more than 2,000 dealerships. Rapid Recon experts such as Sampson shared essential performance metrics and best practices with dealers to help them achieve continuous reconditioning time to line and speed to sale improvement.

Contact

Jim Leman

847-840-0784

jim@rapidrecon.com

PALO ALTO, CA, November 3, 2020 — The Next Rapid Recon, the time-to-line efficiency standard in dealership reconditioning software, has announced a robust new feature upgrade: Vendor Advantage.

Vendor Advantage is a no-charge enhancement to Rapid Recon time-to-line (T2L®) reconditioning workflow software for current and new Rapid Recon users, as part of the Next Rapid Recon user interface upgrade. Both are available now.

Vendor Advantage connects dealers with all their vendors with a vendor-only portal into their Rapid Recon workflow system. Vendors see and manage only the vehicles and assignments assigned to them by the dealer.

Vendor Advantage:

• Completes the accountability circle — All events affecting T2L have 360-degree accountability. Dealers control sublet performance, ensuring proactive management that supports the dealership’s speed-to-sale objectives.

• Clarifies and expedites communications — Immediate workflow update and communication tools are put into the vendors' hands. Vendors access their dealers’ Rapid Recon workflow to synch work-in-progress status, communicate vehicle prioritization, send estimates and enable two-way messaging about a specific vehicle, via mobile or desktop.

• Improves progress tracking — Integrated T2L enables both parties to track and manage workflows to enhance cost control and vendor productivity.

• Verifies vendor value — Integrated T2L provides the used car manager with the data needed to confirm vendor contribution to the dealership’s time to line objectives.

“Dealers agree with our internal recon experts — improving vendor management is high on the list of their efficiency goals,” said Dennis McGinn, Rapid Recon founder and chief executive officer.

“As a unique car dealership software solution, Vendor Advantage meets the needs of dealers and vendors to manage recon performance more tightly, so that vendors mutually support their dealers’ time-to-line efficiency goals,” McGinn said.

With Vendor Advantage, Rapid Recon users can:

• Add vendors with restricted access to Rapid Recon on desktop and mobile — Vendors are able to manage, track and report work in progress — through completion — like the process used by internal reconditioning.
• Explicitly assign and notify vendors when work is available, even outside of steps — With one click, a dealer can communicate to the recon team and vendors a vehicle’s priority in the vendor’s workflow and eliminate the back-and-forth frustration of missed phone calls, texts, or emails — and other miscommunications.
• Receive notifications on pending approvals — Vendors know immediately when repair needs are approved, preventing false starts, delays and frustration.
• Receive updates when work is completed — The transfer of vehicles back into the internal recon flow is enabled without the delays that otherwise erode time-to-line efficiency
• Request and manage work estimates — Paperwork and estimate-tracking complications are eliminated, and vendor payments are expedited.
• Hold the vendor accountable to the agreed price — Dealer approvals will lock in the

approved repair price, eliminating unexpected invoices or additional charges. If other costs are requested, Vendor Advantage automatically moves the vehicle status to “Needs Approval” and immediately notifies the decision maker.

• Message back and forth with vendors directly outside of notes — Assignments and directions are executed instantly – and communications are improved.

For dealers’ vendors, Vendor Advantage provides:

• Access to only the vehicles and work items assigned to that vendor — This focus spotlights their workflow, including vehicle categories, completion priorities, quality control recheck and needs estimate communications and notes.
• Vendor and dealer accountability for obtaining estimate approvals — Vendor Advantage automatically updates both systems when estimate are received, eliminating guesswork and down time
• Precise data, but not too much — This data includes the vehicle image, stock number, VIN, vehicle description and Work Step, eliminating clutter, distraction and details not of immediate need or attention, keeping vendors working on priority units.
• Immediate and direct time and data stamp — With this accountability and verification, guesswork and miscommunications are eliminated.

With more than 20,000 monthly users, Rapid Recon has the data and dealership experts necessary to deliver benchmarking and best practices for continuous improvement of vehicle reconditioning by design. Rapid Recon performance team managers know your business because they’ve lived it.  

To learn more, contact your Rapid Recon support team or visit www.rapidrecon.com.

Contact

Jim Leman

847-840-0784

jim@rapidrecon.com

PALO ALTO, CA, October 23, 2020 – The Next Rapid Recon, the efficiency standard in reconditioning time-to-line workflow software,  announced today several efficiency and usability advances enhancing the user experience. 

This User Interface (UI) advancement makes the Next Rapid Recon the most robust and advanced dealership software system for improving reconditioning time to line (T2L®), speed to sale and used car profitability.

The Next Rapid Recon’s advanced UI expertly organizes team communications and simplifies approvals, speeding up how fast dealer users will move cars through reconditioning.

“Faster reconditioning speed to sale originates in nimble and intuitive software interface tools,” said Rapid Recon Product Manager Josh Coutts, a former dealership preowned service and reconditioning manager. “This new, advanced Rapid Recon UI helps users accelerate task assignment, management, and reporting, so they save steps and time to cars frontline ready.”

New efficiency steps built into this new Rapid Recon UI help dealers:

• Access information and bring it forward with less scrolling and fewer clicks, so data is immediately available for decision-making. 
• Filter search results, so only the looked-for vehicles and information populate the UI. 
• Command critical decision-making fast, as color-coded tabs and data fields help direct the eyes to items needing immediate attention. Furthermore, exact-vehicle photographs embedded in items assure that data are connected with the right vehicles. These critical decisioning items ensure task completion, build user confidence, and ensure the right vehicles needing attention and approvals get them quickly.
• Bring searched for vehicles up front and center on screen using a new Priority cue that when clicked yields VIN and image content for fast and precise visual confirmation.
• Filter out unwanted details, so the UI screen populates only the essential detail and information they want.
• Simplify and speed up Approvals, providing decisioning on an even more precise level.
• Dispatch Status updates fast, using a new bulk update feature, so relevant information moves quickly to the service department.

The Next Rapid Recon UI – less scrolling, fewer clicks, and more – developed to improve speed dealers’ speed to sale, increase inventory turn, and improve per-vehicle retail revenue.

With more than 20,000 monthly users, Rapid Recon has the data and dealership experts to deliver benchmarking and best practices for vehicle reconditioning continuous improvement by design. Rapid Recon performance team managers know your business because they’ve lived it. 

To learn more, contact your Rapid Recon support team or visit www.rapidrecon.com.

Contact
Jim Leman
847-840-0784
jim@rapidrecon.com

Long after social distancing and the wearing of personal protection equipment becomes a memory (soon, we pray), consumer alertness to microbial dangers will remain active, redefining how auto retailers and their customers view and interact with inventory.

It’s one thing to disinfect horizontal surfaces, another to clean vehicles every time one returns from a test drive or a porter moves one off a transport. A dealer’s inventory now becomes a moveable risk.

It’s a safe bet no auto dealer ever thought he or she would also be in the vehicle disinfection and personal safety business, as the COVID-19 pandemic has forced upon the industry.  But most companies are now – and especially for car dealers, in it for the long haul.

Ensuring customers that the vehicles they sit in, test- drive and take delivery of aren’t COVID-19 carriers – or potential sources of other viruses and dangerous bacteria – isn’t as simple as stocking up on Lysol.

Instead, big-league solutions are necessary for protecting team members and customers from COVID-level risks. Front-and-center of any disinfectant product evaluation is the product must meet the EPA’s criteria for use against SARS-CoV-2.

The EPA provides a list of COVID-19 disinfectants, but notice that these products “are for use on surfaces, not humans.”

Industry organizations have responded to pandemic risks to dealers. Two such providers are The NADA Coronavirus Hub, and Motor Magazine’s COVID-19 Outbreak and Automotive Response.

Moving Targets

Not so easily sanitized and made safe for consumers is inventory. That task wouldn’t be such a problem if the vehicles on your lot weren’t moving, which will be increasingly so as state-by-state lockdown rules are lifted.

“That’s a great question, and one that concerns me as a dealer,” said John Napoleon, dealer principal for Carson City Hyundai in Carson City, NV. “I’m not so naive as to believe we’re going to be able to clean every vehicle every time someone touches it.”

Carson City Hyundai sells 30 new and 50 used cars a month.

“We’re training staff on this topic,” said Lou Bregou, director of Operations for the 18-store group Driver’s Village, near Syracuse, NY.

Both dealers have implemented different solutions to this challenge.

“Dealerships using sanitizing wipes, plastic steering wheel, and door-handle covers and similar entry-level solutions to protect staff and customers are not doing enough,” said Joe Colucci, with PermaSafe Protective Coatings, LLC, a manufacturer of vehicle disinfection and long-term antimicrobial protection products.

“I wrote a LinkedIn post on the efficacy of various antimicrobials just before NADA this year and received 1,500 views. Within a few weeks of the convention, my views jumped to 400,000,” he said, noting soaring interest in reducing COVID-19 risks to their employers and customers.

Definitions Help

Colucci explained that the term “antimicrobial” could be confusing, as it’s “an overly-broad category that includes everything from the most sophisticated sterilizing agents used in organ transplant surgery, to mold and mildew treatments for swimming pools. And that’s where the confusion stems from.”

Unlike sanitizer and disinfectant, the term antimicrobial does not represent a level of efficacy. Instead, it’s weakly defined as any product marketed with any claim related to killing or inhibiting the growth of any microorganism.

Antimicrobial products must be approved for registration with the EPA. The exceptions are those capable of achieving the efficacy standards of a sanitizer (must kill 99.9% of bacteria) or a disinfectant (must kill 99.9% of bacteria and viruses), or even a hospital-grade disinfectant (99.999% of bacteria and viruses), they’re not viable options in today’s new microbe-conscious world, he said.

With the liability potential, dealers should consider bypassing the use of sanitizers for disinfectants containing antimicrobials, Colucci said.

He advised dealers evaluating disinfectant products to insist on seeing and reading the products’ EPA Master Label. It defines what the product does, its safety profile, correct use and the marketing claims you can make about its use in your store," he said.

The EPA has yet to register any disinfectant product as capable of killing COVID-19. Some disinfectants, such as PermaSafe CLEAN, have been approved by the EPA for use against SARS-CoV-2. This virus is the novel coronavirus that causes the disease COVID-19.

“COVID created unique new challenges for dealers, but as the industry has always done in a crisis, it knuckled down to meet it. Consumer awareness and vehicle disinfectant protection programs help dealers fulfill their commitments to customer safety,” said Jim Maxim, DealerMax chief executive officer.

 DealerMax offers free training and tools, including a customizable dealer-branded COVID-19 “Protection Promise” program, which includes a safety checklist of disinfecting steps and processes for all operations of the dealership, including vehicles on the lot and in service.

"Equally as important as using the right products is articulating to customers how you’ve created a safe environment for them - or they likely won’t buy from you. We are selling safety and have to be doing what we say consistently, with accountability. Our program helps dealers promote this concern and protection to their customers," Maxim said.

Dealers Speak

“Our process for all vehicle cleaning is the same – we have homemade 8” by 11” heavy stock COVID Dirty and COVID Clean signs for vehicles, which we place on the driver-side dash, to identify their sanitation status,” said Bregou. “We use 98% alcohol in spray bottles and disposable paper towels to sanitize vehicle interiors. We clean a car in about five minutes, though trade-ins, which we sanitize before we move those cars into recon, take longer.”

Rubbing alcohol solutions having at least 70% alcohol is effective against coronavirus. WebMD reports that this treatment should be left on surfaces for 30 seconds to ensure they will kill viruses. Pure or 100% alcohol, the site noted, evaporates too quickly.

Bregou said his disinfectant process follows NADA guidelines for disinfecting automobile interior “hot spots.”

Napoleon’s approach to inventory sanitation is similar: treat vehicle interiors with a long-acting antimicrobial spray-on product and then use placards that state which vehicles have been treated.

“I visited PermaSafe at NADA and purchased their system just days before COVID hit the U.S. hard,” Napoleon said. “I had no idea then how fortuitous the decision to visit their booth would be for us.”

Jim Leman has been writing about automotive retail variable and fix operations since 1992.

jimleman@gmail.com

New Integrated Vendor and Sublet Functionality adds Mutually Advantageous Dealer-Vendor Recon Workflow Accountability with new Cost Controls

PALO ALTO, Calif., Feb. 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Rapid Recon, the creator of time-to-line (T2L) reconditioning solutions for used car departments, will unveil Vendor Advantage at NADA'20 in Las Vegas this month. This new offering gives dealers exceptional oversight of their sublets and vendors to expedite the return of vehicles to reconditioning and for improved cost control.

"For years, we've worked with dealers to integrate their sublet partners and vendors directly into Rapid Recon workflow software. Those who have selectively accommodated their vendors have reaped the benefits to their overall T2L," said Dennis McGinn, Rapid Recon founder and chief executive officer.

With Vendor Advantage, Rapid Recon takes vendor management to the next level, giving fixed and recon operations managers control and simplicity to:

• Add vendor users with restricted access to Rapid Recon on desktop and mobile – Vendors manage, track and report work in progress through completion like the process used by internal reconditioning
• Explicitly assign and notify vendors when work is available, even outside of steps – Eliminate the back-and-forth frustration of missed phone calls and miscommunications
• Receive notifications on pending approvals – Vendors know immediately when repair needs are approved, preventing false starts, delays, and frustration
• Receive updates when work is completed – Enables transfer of vehicles back into the internal recon flow without delays that otherwise erode time to line efficiency
• Request and manage work estimates – Eliminate paperwork, estimate-tracking complications, and expedites vendor payments
• Message directly with vendors in real-time.

Visit Rapid Recon at NADA '20, Booth 2693C, Central Hall. www.rapidrecon.com

By Dennis McGinn, Founder, CEO Rapid Recon

In 2019, at least two new companies have stepped into the vehicle reconditioning arena to transition dealers out of their old manual and costly ways of processing used cars.

The objective behind automated recon workflow software is to improve time to line (T2L) and thus drive turn performance, cost savings and better sale margins.

New market entrants endorse the value T2L software brings to the used car department. Dealers, fleets, rental companies and remarketers all benefit by jumping on the T2L bandwagon.

What’s to Lose?

Nothing is lost by improving how fast cars get reconditioned --- ability to process cars more quickly from acquisition to the front line is vital to any dealer selling used cars! Recon driven by T2L continuous process improvement is critical if you want to “amp up” speed to sale.

This core idea is that by removing waste, costs and delay from reconditioning — primarily in the recon-repair approval process — dealers will get cars ready for sale in three to five days, far surpassing the average dealership’s T2L of 10 to 21 days!

From the financial side, T2L and speed to sale are the GM’s most productive profit-making tools.  GMs who are focused on these making these metrics happen in their store get cars get from acquisition to the sale line in hours, not days so that they can be sold, and that revenue used to pay overhead and commissions and buy more cars.

When cars languish on their way to sale-ready, nothing good happens.

Unsold cars mean floorplan interest continues to accumulate. Holding cost depreciation — each car’s share of general overhead — continues to pile up at the rate of $35 to $85 per day, depending on the brand, and as they age, their value approaches zero.

Much to Gain

The automation and art of rapid reconditioning has come a long way since the first T2L recon workflow software hit the market in 2010. A few dealers gave the software a try, chatted it up at 20 Groups, and the demand took off.

Yet there is more to creating and managing a faster recon shop than getting cars through those processes faster. Dealers tell us their T2L, driven by a unified speed to sale culture among fixed ops, recon and the used car department, motivates efficiency up and down the line, because steps, processes and people are driven by accountability to meet specific time-centric performance goals.  

With the right recon automation in place, a manager building high-performance teams is better equipped to bring everyone involved in recon into tighter agreement of what needs to be done, by whom, and when. The right events, the right vehicles, the right next steps are communicated clearly –and annotated so incidents of “I forgot,” or “It’s not my responsibility,” and “I thought I’d done that” no longer drive others crazy or cause undue speed delays or drive up holding costs during the actual reconditioning steps.

The use of the right recon software starts recon performance improvement - and gives teams the tools to nurture a culture of improved communications, cooperation and multi-department focus.

Dealers, pay attention to the new entrants into the recon automation marketplace – their presence is a sure sign they smell opportunity and so they should; too many of you continue to plug away at your used car department without recognizing the need for speed to sale to increase turn and sales margin.

The entire industry is better off when unnecessary costs and delays are removed from recon time to line.

If you doubt, we’d be happy to put into your hands the T2L bible, Recon T2L, the Starting Line for Reversing Margin Compression, which discusses precise guideline for how to drive more revenue from your used car operation.

Just recently, a Honda dealership principal called Keith Brice, our Virginia-based performance manager, to inform him he’d read the book and was requesting six more copies for his management team. For more substantial groups, we’ve shipped boxes of the book to their managers at the request of their senior-level executives because they understand the implications of running an efficient recon department(s) that gets cars sale-ready in three to five days to:

Increase inventory turn – one turn for every 2.5 days faster recon

• Get cars sale-ready having nearly 86% of their prime retail days remaining, not 52% when routine recon typically consumes 10 days of a car’s primary retail window.

•  
•  
•  
• Deliver a ROI – a payback – of $50 for every $1 spent for the recon automation

It’s tempting to assign competition to the category of flattery. Perhaps…but instead, let’s use a more accurate description of other companies’ rush to imitate success, provided by Gospel musician Cheryl James. She once said, “The best form of flattery is to be admired, respected and imitated.”

We’re all three now.

Dennis McGinn is founder and chief executive officers for Rapid Recon, the standard in automated recon workflow software. www.rapidrecon.com

Getting used cars ready for resale is so time delicate that even a few hours’ delay tarnishes their value. 

Luxury vehicle dealers in possession of data confirming this reality say they’re working hard to get luxury model trade-ins into mechanical inspection and cosmetic detailing faster, so they are sale-ready as quickly as possible.

Their reasons for getting cars through reconditioning in less time means business, they say:

• Lowers recon-related costs

• Gets cars ready for resale so prime margin potential is retained
• Increases inventory turn to improve used car efficiency

Driving this enhanced used car efficiency and profitability for any dealership is a commitment to applying to the business the most significant commitments determining used car profitability, speed to sale, which proper recon time to line or T2L launches.

“Used vehicle sales are about velocity – sourcing the inventory and getting those vehicles ready for resale as quickly and efficiently as possible,” said Justin Hoisington, pre-owned operations director for Hennessy Jaguar-Land Rover of Duluth, Georgia.

“We’re constantly trying to figure out how to increase our efficiency, and it’s imperative we get used vehicles ready to sell because we don’t have them ready to sell it does no one any good,” said Geoff Meeker, general manager for Mercedes-Benz of Buckhead of Atlanta, Georgia.

Speed to sale

“We see now where used car department profitably improves significantly over status quo where speed-to-sale strategies are applied to reconditioning time-to-line automation,” said Dennis McGinn, founder and CEO of Rapid Recon.

The reality of today’s used car business is speed matters – it matters more than ever, and speed to sale enhances the profit potential dealers expect from using an automated inventory management tool, McGinn said.

“In the car business,” McGinn added, “life begins at a sale. The industry has focused too much on vehicle provisioning, which while important, is routinely a once-a-week event, and consists primarily of going back to the same sources Monday or Tuesday and acquiring the same vehicles. Selling goes on all day, every day — and to sell more cars faster at higher gross, it is speed to sale, not provisioning that determines success for a used car department.”

As speed of sale has its roots in expedient recon, T2L, itself a time-based motivator, is a process discipline that structures, organizes and encourages the multiple steps and people necessary to transform trade-ins, private-party purchases and auction vehicles into eye-appealing, like-new, ready-for-retail vehicles for merchandising online and on the lot.   By implementing T2L technology disciplines as part of used car practice, dealers reduce recon turnaround time from days to hours; a 72-hour turnaround is the ideal.

Time is No Luxury

Dealerships using manual recon management assists such as Google Docs or spreadsheets find those tools too static to help with managing a multi-step, multi-process function such as vehicle reconditioning. Dealers using T2L recon automation typically reduce 10-to-21-day recon cycles.

“The ideal and achievable recon cycle under T2L speed-to-sale practices managed by recon workflow software is 3 to 5 days. T2L may be longer for luxury vehicles, given the often receive the highest level of recon to meet the higher standards the buyers of those brands and from luxury dealerships that sell them,” McGinn said.

In reconditioning, time not only influences recon cycle speed but also how a depreciation value known as holding cost erodes sale margin. Holding cost is defined by dealership benchmarking firm NCM Associates has a $40 per day per car holding cost. Luxury vehicle reconditioning hold costs can be more, by as much as two times the depreciate assigned to non-luxury models.

At a $40 holding cost, a 10-day recon cycle equals a $400 charge against sale gross on every used car the dealer retails. By using reconditioning efficiency tools such as T2L, that 10-day cycle can be reduced to 5 days, reducing holding cost erosion against sale gross by half.

Where faster T2L is at work in recon, the reduction in holding cost erosion to sale gross is evident.

“Our time to line before Rapid Recon was 8 to 18 days; dealers who think their time to line is faster than that kid themselves. I’ve worked for some whose detailing took 8 days alone!” Hoisington said.

Time is Money

Many managers miss the importance of why faster recon matters because they don’t understand cash flow or its significance to dealership vitality, said Joe Lescota of Joe Lescota Management Education & Training Co.

“Faster turn is paramount for luxury car dealers, especially, given their higher cost of inventory, which means higher floor pan and thus higher inventory holding costs, which is why faster recon is so important – it’s about cash flow,” Lescota said.

His team specializes in providing financial statement analysis, variable operations consulting and training to dealers, concentrating in used vehicle operations.

“Import dealers spend more for reconditioning because their market and their customer demands more, but they often allow more dollars for recon than many of these cars will require,” Lescota said. When that number appears in appraisals, it can mean undervalued trades that cost the dealership business. “This happens because managers don’t look at recon as a return on investment but rather an expense.”

 He pointed out that 58 to 64% of the recon expense the service department will charge the used car department is profit to the dealership, as actual recon hard costs are solely parts and labor. “This is why recon must be kept in-house,” Lescota said.

Other cash flow benefits that recon tools provide dealers include vehicle locators, so vehicles get into recon fast and they give managers near real-time costs related to each car. When the sales department has to wait for R.O. and other recon expenses to be collected to complete a customer transaction, recon expenses can be missed. This can require a wash down charged off as Policy Work on the financial statement. When done, this loss affects the dealership’s profitability but not the manager’s who should have caught those expenses before finalizing the vehicle transaction.

“That recon tool is essential as it allows maximum dollars to be earned for your cars,” Lescota said.

PALO ALTO, CA, July 24, 2019 — J.D. Power Valuation Services recently reported continued strong used car sales through the first half of 2019. Though the market cooled somewhat in June, the month’s performance was still better than historic June figures.

While this data is good news for franchise and independent used car dealers, the profit potential these sales numbers infer could be better, said a leading proponent of dealership speed-to-sale strategies.

“We see now where used car department profitably improves significantly over status quo where speed-to-sale strategies are applied to reconditioning time-to-line automation,” said Dennis McGinn, founder and CEO of Rapid Recon.

The reality of today’s used car business isn’t just that speed matters — it matters more than ever. Speed to sale enhances the profit potential that dealers expect when using an automated inventory management tool, McGinn said.

“In the car business,” McGinn added, “life begins at a sale. The industry has focused too much on vehicle provisioning, which while important, is a once-a-week event. Selling goes on all day, every day — and to sell more cars faster at higher gross, it is speed to sale, not provisioning that determines success for a used car department.”

Visually, this model looks like this: SELL > adjust > ACQUIRE > adjust > SELL

McGinn said speed to sale either advances or delays how quickly the used car manager approves mechanical and cosmetic services to inventory in the pipeline. “It is this speed of approval that is central to used car departments getting cars from acquisition to sale-ready in three to five days,” McGinn said.

Speed of approval not only promotes inventory turns but influences inventory aging, floorplan expense and wholesale losses. It also makes provisioning tools more effective.

With speed-of-approval and speed-to-sale triggers on mobile devices, used car managers can approve repairs from anywhere, and the sales staff has real-time access to cars in inventory, along with their recon status and costs. Some dealers practicing these strategies retail 40% of incoming inventory off the transport or while the vehicle is in recon.

“These speed tools mean cars are sale-ready having most of their prime 21-day retail window ahead of them,” McGinn said.

Rapid Recon benchmarks and best practices have helped thousands of GMs, used car managers and service managers fine-tune their reconditioning methods. As a result, they achieve faster time-to-market and speed-to-sale rates, allowing them to move more vehicles while retaining gross.