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

WAYNE, PA., June 6, 2017 --  MaximTrak Technologies, international F&I platform provider and technology partner for top names in the industry, has once again been named a Dealers’ Choice Award winner by the readers of Auto Dealer Today magazine, a sister publication of F&I and Showroom.

To vote, dealers and dealership personnel needed to write in providers’ names and then score them on the product or service itself. Scoring also pertained to customer support and service, value, and whether the user would recommend the company to another dealer.

“Regular readers of Auto Dealer Today voted MaximTrak as a best-in-class technology provider in our space – for the third consecutive year,” said Jim Maxim, Jr., President of MaximTrak Technologies. “We thank all the dealers who took the special time to get involved and vote for MaximTrak because of how we impact their business.”

“That dealers went out of their way to voluntarily recognize us affirms to OEMs and our other global partners in the U.S., Canada, China, Australia, South America and Europe that MaximTrak creates world-class F&I experiences that not only handle the challenges of modern F&I but increase profitability and CSI scores.” Maxim added.

MaximTrak, a RouteOne Company, offers the industry’s only all-in-one, flexible F&I system preferred by top names concerned with efficiency, profitability, compliance, and the modern customer experience.

With a comprehensive array of best-in-class products, MaximTrak has redefined the F&I transaction into customizable workflows to meet the demands of F&I Managers, Agents, Dealer Principals, and OEMs around the world. These products include; FLITE™ (interactive touch technology, smart survey, decisioning engine, risk profile, intelligent product recommendations), MenuTrak (interactive menus, sales aids, videos, compliance management), ETrak (e-rating, electronic contracting) and Dashboards (custom executive reporting).

“Using MaximTrak for their F&I processes, dealers deliver a customer experience that replaces any feelings of ‘being sold’ with trust and transparency when offering the best solutions for the customer. This is a significant step in serving modern consumers who demand informed, individualized, and intelligent decisions," Maxim added.

The MaximTrak platform transforms the vehicle delivery process into a customer-friendly program that converts traditional F&I wisdom into consistent, repeatable and sustainable results. For more information, call 1.800.282.6308 or visit www.maximtrak.com

SCOTTSDALE, ARIZONA, June 5, 2017 – Fidelis PPM, a CU Direct company, reported today that the Lester Glenn Auto Group is generating $200,000 a month in incremental customer-pay revenue and long-term customer retention since including its prepaid maintenance (PPM) program in each vehicle sale. 

This multi-step PPM features free, two-year oil changes for all customers plus the option to upgrade to two- and five-year discounted maintenance services that include full synthetic LOF services, tire rotations, key replacement, and various discounts.

The Group sells 13,000 vehicles a year, of which 60 percent are leased. At its one-year mark, plan penetration is at 10 percent, and on its way toward a goal of 20 to 25 percent. 

“Not bad in a substantial lease market as ours is,” notes John Perillo, Group Director of Variable Operations. 

“It’s a proven fact that where people service their cars is where they buy or lease their next one, so we want to be sure that is at a Lester Glenn dealership,” Perillo adds. 

With just a year’s use of this program, the auto group reports it is helping attract and retain: 

• Lease customers’ routine maintenance services for at least two years.
• Finance customers’ routine maintenance services for up to five years.

• $75.00 per repair order upsell or $200,000 a month in additional customer-pay service revenue across the Group.  

The New Jersey-based Group founded in 1956 today includes eight dealerships, representing 11 brands, including Hyundai, Chevrolet, Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, Ram, Subaru, Ford, Buick, GMC, and Mazda.  Each store prides itself on providing an unparalleled car-buying experience focused on customer satisfaction.  

For several years, part of this commitment has included lifetime free oil changes for customers who purchased a new or pre-owned vehicle at any Lester Glenn location. That lifetime free oil change strategy did not, however, generate the long-term repeat service traffic and customer retention management had hoped. 

So, instead, to accomplish that objective, Perillo and Monica dismantled that lifetime program and in its place rolled out a more structured and measurable program driven by Fidelis PPM. 

“Even at this early stage, 3,000 of the 7,000 customer-pay repair orders we are doing a month are customers who’ve come in for an oil change, whether due to the two-year free or upgraded PPM programs,” notes Monica.  

“Moreover, we are upgrading 30 percent of those free LOF customers to our full synthetic service. Without this PPM program in place, those customers might have come in regardless, but we would not have had these upsell opportunities,” Monica adds. 

Fidelis PPM administers and manages all three program levels for the dealerships. The company is the authority in helping dealers retain customers through process-driven prepaid preventive maintenance retention programs.

Ryan Williams, Fidelis President, notes that dealers evaluating any retention-promotion plan should make sure they have a track record of: 

• Driving consumers to the dealership, especially the service department
• Delivers a positive experience, so customers continue to come back
• Has baked-in accountability tools to measure the lift in customer-pay dollars for each visit, so program ROI is measurable. 

To promote plan transparency and ease of program use for both plan holders and service advisors, Fidelis custom-built a plan tracking and reporting website for the Group, which it markets as part of its LG Advantage program. 

At this early date, PPM plan renewal and upgrade data are not available, but Perillo and Monica expect continued program redemption will continue to show an increase in both service RO dollars and customer retention. 

“Increasing repair order volume, higher customer retention, and the sale of additional services and vehicle – these are the reasons we put in place this Fidelis PPM plan,” Perillo says, “not to make money on their sale in finance, but to get customers back in the door. It works.” 

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 the dealers’ ROI on their PPM program. For more information, visit www.getfidelis.com  or email Williams at ryan@getfidelis.com

By Ryan Williams, president, Fidelis PPM

Customer loyalty does not necessarily translate into repeat business for your auto dealership. What drives measurable business gains – repeatable business gains -- is customer retention.

A new study reported by Wards Dealer Business notes that 45% of respondents who defined themselves as loyal to an automotive service center go elsewhere for that service.  While loyalty has value, what benefits the dealership is more customers (and the same customers) visiting the service department more frequently.

Customers who develop a habit of servicing their vehicle at your store are 86 times more likely to purchase their next vehicle from you.

As one pundit noted, “A loyalty program can be a great way to bring more engagement with your customers. But it’s not a silver bullet for customer retention.”

Being clear about these distinctions and using the right ones at the right time can have help convert the growing CPO customer base into long-term service and repurchase customers of your dealership.

With CPO vehicle sales an increasing opportunity for new-car dealers, operators should plan to retain that new business beyond the immediate sale.

One very effective way to retain CPO buyers’ service business is to connect them to the dealership through their continued use of prepaid maintenance plans (PPM) provided or sold by the dealership.

A survey by DMEautomotive, part of AutoPoint and Solera Holdings since 2015, noted three of five customers who receive prepaid or complimentary maintenance plans from dealerships “are likely to continue servicing their cars at the dealership after their plans expire.” Retention is only 22-40% range without plan use. 

The study further noted that 86% of customers who kept returning to their dealership for routine maintenance services were 86% more likely to repurchase from that same dealer the next time.

PPMs’ Appeal to CPO Buyers

A recent CBT Automotive Network broadcast noted the following about CPO buyers that make PPMs attractive to them:

1. They are risk-avoidance buyers who want peace of mind about future vehicle maintenance needs.  They have grown up watching OEMs give PPMs away with the purchase of new cars and come to expect it, just like the base warranty.
2. They are cash flow-strapped consumers whom Bankrate.com notes cannot meet even a $500 emergency expenditure.
3. They have increasingly busy lifestyles and have little tolerance for inconveniences like vehicle maintenance -- prepaid plans help smooth the bumps
4. They are deal shoppers. Retailers report that 85% of consumers look for coupons before visiting. Discount-priced PPM packages convey value to these buyers.

Dealer-branded plan advantage

Every dealer hopes every customer will buy from them again when ready for a new or another vehicle. Car know the power of incentives to bring customers into their dealerships. These are not only cash and finance incentives, but programs like PPMs.

Mercedes-Benz, Lexus, Maserati, BMW, and Audi among many luxury brands and many domestics engage customers using PPM incentives to connect them to their brands.

Dealers appreciate these OEM-based PPM plans, but also recognize their weakness: they brand the OEM, and don’t require use at the selling dealership.

Dealers like their OEMs, but they love their own brand, which is why many opt for instead (or provide in addition to) a dealer-branded PPM.

Most of these discount-priced service packages include an oil and filter change, and often other service commodities such as tire rotations, key replacement services, or are bundled with other products such as road hazard insurance.

True retention marketing should create long-term retention that drives full retail customer-pay upsell repair order dollars.

Never assume your store’s retention is as good as it can be. A dealer-branded PPM programs will increase retention and customer-pay service dollars at most any dealership. Choose an automated plan that administers, monitors and manages program details for you – and provide the dealership web-based reporting and usage savings details for plan users.

On a national basis, prepaid maintenance programs like this average an 85% first-year retention rate, with retention at 65% through year three. As most of these plans encourage customers use them three to five times a year, they get into the buying habit at your dealership quickly. Plus, on average plan use nets a $70 per visit RO upsell.

Ryan Williams is president of Fidelis PPM and DRIV Technologies. Reach him at Ryan@getfidelis.com or visit www.getfidelis.com

by Ryan Williams - Fidelis PPM

Margin compression attacks from within and without. Every business should scrutinize every process to stop profit leaks and spot margin opportunities.

Be sure to explore these processes:

Service Turnover: Sales’ failure to conduct a professional and well-structured sales-to-service turnover kills retention. Dean Estep, a former fixed-operations training director for the AutoNation dealership chain and current managing partner at Next-Level Automotive Group, has said this is the point where dealers “stumble in establishing a long-term relationship with the customer.” Cox Automotive notes that conducting this turnover results in customers 2.3 times more likely to use that dealership’s service department.

Advisor Engagement: Service consultant Lou Aronica of MSX International says advisors who sell in the lane at check-in may trade nickels for dollars. Don’t upsell customers in the service drive until techs have gone through their vehicles and report their findings. It’s by choosing not to grab for every penny that trust is built. Both revenue and retention opportunity suffer, Aronica says, where a service department pushes advisors to up-sell in the lane during the R.O. creation. “Customers are more interested in getting in and out quickly than about your advisors looking over their car. They come back because of how they’re treated and the perceived value of the service,” he says.

Retention Sales: Stop wasting opportunities. Every retained customer is future service and vehicle business.  Many dealers kick-start retention by engaging customers with discount-priced dealer-branded prepaid maintenance plans they offer or sell in F&I. Does it work? Our studies show the right plan can drive first-year retention by eighty-five percent and two- and third-year rates by sixty-five percent. They also can boost customer-pay repair order averages by $70 each. Those that return these benefits have the following in common:

• Drive consumers to the dealership, especially the service department
• Deliver a positive experience, which encourage customers continue to come back
• Have baked-in accountability tools to measure the lift in customer-pay dollars for each visit, so program ROI is measurable.

F&I: Studies by digital F&I technology provider MaximTrak Technologies, show that use of e-menu technology lifts per-vehicle retail (PVR) lifts of $538 and product penetration  fifty-two percent. When more customers buy more products, especially ones like service agreements, prepaid maintenance plans, and tire and wheel services you build retention and service dollars.

Used Car Reconditioning: Keep an eye on at least two costs here: (1) Holding cost depreciation, which accumulates at an average of $50 a day per vehicle you own until you sell it, and (2) Over- reconditioning. Both accumulate to eat margin. Dennis McGinn, CEO for Rapid Recon, pushes dealers to get vehicles through recon in three to five days to reduce holding costs and get cars to the frontline quicker.  When done, cars sell faster for more gross.

Lost Opportunities: Never give up on Declined Service customers. Call them back the next day, the next week and a month from now – they may not yet have attended to those services. You may find them in a better frame of mind, with more time and even a little more cash.  Consider offering credit services for repairs. Tim Clay, Chief Revenue Officer for Confident Financial Solutions, notes that the service provides a desirable alternative to credit card financing. He notes that many dealerships report a 20 percent or greater increase in monthly service revenues because of signing up for the company’s service.

Ryan Williams is president of Fidelis PPM and DRIV Technologies. Reach him at Ryan@getfidelis.com or visit www.getfidelis.com

By Brooke Fernandez

Radical dealership technology should automatically engage and satisfy customers. It should increase business through traditional and new channels – all along the customer’s purchase journey. It must generate income and repeat business 24/7 without requiring hands-on staff time.

Vehicle service protection is one F&I product line now being marketed and sold via innovative all-digital technology. A self-serve customer engagement platform enables your dealership to market and sell to buyers of high mileage vehicles at any point along their customer journey without F&I having to lift a finger.

Consider these five reasons why technology like this will revolutionize how dealers sell service contracts and re-capture lost VSC sales opportunities:

• No start-up fees.
• Gives dealers a new way to make money without having to rewrite the loan.
• Customers can purchase online by logging onto your dealership-branded VSC site to complete the only end-to-end buying experience of its kind.
• Sales are seamless. Dealers earn commission dollars without lifting a finger.
• The platform automatically mines the dealer’s DMS to identify lost opportunities and remarkets those lost leads to recapture lost revenue for the dealer.

Self-serve online F&I technology like this brings advanced sales throughput to a dealership while expanding its market reach and penetrating new market demographics. It promises to give new and used car dealers a new way to offer protection services to a wider group of customers.

This sophisticated yet hands-off portal resides in the Cloud and the F&I desktop. Customers selecting coverage for their higher mileage vehicles may finance the purchase through a vehicle installment loan or finance it directly through funding sources integrated into this platform. Either way, dealers earn commission on every sale.

A new wave

This portal is the latest example of how technology continues to revolutionize vehicle and F&I sales. From emerging virtual reality engagement devices to shopper behavior analysis, digital innovation promotes, markets, and sells vehicles and ancillary products seamlessly. In cases like dealer-branded self-serve portals, timelessly and tirelessly.

The portal would also expand a dealership’s reach beyond traditional channels and broaden the demographics it can now seamlessly service. Dealers using this technology will see an increase in their VSC sales – and a built-in VSC remarketing engine brings more revenue potential to dealers using it.

VSC closing rates average 35-40%. After separating out the potential lease and cash customers who don’t buy service contracts, most dealers are leaving considerable VSC revenue on the table. Revenue that most dealers rarely pursue after the sale.

Using self-serve digital VSC sales and remarketing technology, dealers can:

• Expand VSC sales into new markets and buyer demographics
• Re-target lost VSC and vehicle sales opportunities; VSC remarketing can typically close 15% of retargeted opportunities. At the average dealer profit on a VCS, the upside is significant.
• Engage customers where they are, at the time convenient to them. No irritating phone calls or direct mail. Instead, providing a menu of plan benefits and prices to mix and match to fit their risk profile and budget.

Dealers can experience this radical new VSC sales engine April 11-13, at the Tampa (Fla.) Convention Center, booth 729 at Digital Dealer 22, the leading technology-based conference for automotive dealership profitability tools.

Attended by 90% of the nation’s leading dealer groups, Digital Dealer Conferences set the pace among auto dealers, GMs, and their marketing and technology staffs to learn how to be leaner, faster, more transparent, and more productive.

This new technology forever changes VSC sales outcomes:

• Provides a powerful tool for remarketing to customers who declined to purchase a VSC when buying their vehicle.
• Helps monetize leads that either did not convert the first time or converted as a vehicle sale but not a service contract.
• Leverages the power of peer review, by providing web-based customer experience reviews from TrustPilot, so consumers trust the site, its content, and VSC providers represented.

ForeverCar is the vehicle service contract industry’s only technology portal providing engaging and intuitive decisioning for consumers, whether interacting with the tool in a dealership’s finance office or online. It is the only portal of its kind that markets VSC sales to a dealer’s customer database to help dealers monetize those original investments.

About the author:

Brooke Fernandez, VP of Business Development at ForeverCar, is a seasoned sales and marketing executive who brings a range of B2B enterprise experience in the technology arena — and now tackling the inefficiencies of the extended warranty market. She earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) and a master’s degree from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Brooke is integral in ForeverCar’s mission to transform the extended warranty space using technology, transparency and big data to modernize the industry.

ATLANTA, GA, January 16, 2017 – CompetitorPro, the first competitive intelligence software built specifically for auto dealerships, reported today that December dealership performance metrics signaled caution as we move into the new year: 

• Consumer engagement on dealership websites softened, despite record vehicle sales in December.
• Widely predicted weaker car sales may be upon us.
• Dealership inventories of new and used vehicles shrank per store, while sales per dealership increased for both new and used vehicles. 

“It’s a healthy sign that dealers were able to reduce inventories of new and used vehicles on their lots, in anticipation of a softer Q1 2017,” said Steve Greenfield, founder and CEO of CompetitorPro. 

CompetitorPro is the auto retail industry’s first competitive intelligence solution, providing automobile dealers with actionable, in-depth performance metrics on their top competitors. 

“With the record-breaking level of new car incentives driving consumer demand, car sales are likely to start to slow down in the near future,” he said CompetitorPro’s analysis indicates. “This is supported by the fact that we’re seeing softening consumer engagement metrics across franchised dealership websites." 

CompetitorPro will provide NADA ‘17 attendees a free analysis of how they compare against their top local competitor. Visit Booth 5607 during January 26-29 at the New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center. Visit http://www.competitorpro.comfor a demo. 

Key web metrics

CompetitorPro’s analysis of over 20,000 franchised dealership websites shows that consumer engagement metrics softened in December: 

• Average website visits to dealer websites continue to move downwards, averaging 1.64K, down 12.8% versus November
• Average bounce rate was 21.0%, up from 20.0% the previous month
• Average page views per visit was 3.36, down from 3.46 in November
• Average website visit duration was at 1 minute, 28 seconds, down from 1 minute, 38 seconds the month before

Weakening website engagement in December may mean we see a softening in new and used vehicle sales for dealers in Q1 2017. Research shows that consumers typically spend an average of three months shopping online before they buy a vehicle, although consumer traffic to dealership websites is closer to their date of purchase.

Other industry sources also point to shifting short term market dynamics. 

AutoWeek reported that new car sales in December hit a record high, driving the seventh straight year of sales gains. Last year full-year sales came in at 17.5M cars and light trucks. The seasonally adjusted annualized sales rate (SAAR) in December hit 18.38M, the highest of 2016, and the fifth-highest SAAR of all time. 

OEMs have their new car incentive spigots wide open. ALG estimates that the average incentive on new vehicles increased 20% last month to $3,673 per vehicle sold. 

For used cars, Edmunds estimates that December was the highest sales month of the year, beating December 2015’s count of 1.1M used vehicles sold. The SAAR for used-car sales for 2016 sits at 37.9 million units. 

Industry analysts are cautiously optimistic about vehicle sales in 2017, but few (if any) are forecasting higher overall sales. Peaking vehicle sales is supported by weakening consumer engagement on dealership websites. 

It’s worth noting, according to CompetitorPro data, the large variability of individual dealership performance across these consumer engagement metrics: 

• The top 25% of dealers experienced average website visits of 29.3K per month, compared to the industry average of 1.64K
• The bottom 25% of dealers experienced average website visits of 149 per month
• Top performing dealers are experiencing average page views of 10.8 per visit, and average website visit duration of 9 minutes, 52 seconds 

Dynamics driving sales efficiency

An environment of increasing sales with decreasing website engagement metrics is driving more efficiency — taking fewer website visits to yield a sale: 

• The average dealership experienced 14.5 website visits per vehicle sold, compared to 16.8 website visits per unit sold the month before
• The average dealership experienced 9.5 visits for the average unit held in inventory last month, compared to 8.5 visits the month before
• Finally, there is a wide difference between how some of the large dealership website vendors are performing for dealers: 

Dealer.com

• Average website visits of 2.9K per month
• 20% bounce rate
• Average page views per visit of 3.6
• Average time on site per visit of 1 minutes, 39 seconds 

CDK Global

• Average website visits of 1.7K per month
• 20% bounce rate
• Average page views per visit of 3.0
• Average time on site per visit of 1 minutes, 15 seconds

 DealerOn

• Average website visits of 5.7K per month
• 19% bounce rate
• Average page views per visit of 3.8
• Average time on site per visit of 1 minutes, 50 seconds 

“We’re thrilled to be able to bring this level of transparency to helping dealers benchmark their website performance,” said Greenfield. “Dealerships now better understand how they perform relative to their competition, enabling more informed conversations with both their dealership website vendors as well as their marketing agencies. 

"At CompetitorPro, we’re a big believer in bringing actionable insights to a dealer’s operations. Despite having access to an overwhelming amount of data, the industry has a long way to go towards providing dealerships with comparative metrics versus other dealers — so they know exactly where to focus to improve their operations,” Greenfield said. 

About CompetitorPro

CompetitorPro is the industry’s first competitive intelligence tool built specifically for automotive dealerships. 

As dealers look for ways to compete more effectively, advanced competitive intelligence solutions provide accuracy, analytics, and actionable recommendations that are missing in the market today. CompetitorPro’s competitive intelligence solutions utilize complex algorithms that summarize insights so dealers can perform at the highest level of effectiveness in today’s dynamic marketplace. 

Visit NADA, booth 5607 to get a free competitive analysis of how your store compares to your key competitor’s performance metrics. Visit www.competitorpro.com now for a demo. For more information, contact Steve Greenfield at (470) 223-0227.

CAMPOBELLO, SOUTH CAROLINA, January 16, 2017 – Auto dealers could add tens of thousands of dollars a year to their bottom line by asking their OEMs to increase their parts and labor reimbursement rates, says OEM warranty reimbursement expert Mike Volkman, founder and CEO of Service Department Solutions. 

Most OEMs will not voluntarily increase their standard rates, though, he noted. 

At NADA, Booth 5847, Volkman will reveal for dealers secrets for appealing to OEMs for obtaining higher warranty claim reimbursements. See Volkman at the convention for show specials. 

Most dealers fear retribution by doing that, said Volkman, a former dealership technician who then spent 34 years with General Motors and FCA in positions of dealer placement, parts and service operations before opening Service Department Solutions. 

“In our history of providing warranty parts and labor reimbursement services for dealers, that fear is unwarranted,” he said. 

Most OEMs extend their dealers a 40 percent markup, the standard reimbursement rate, less than OEMs should pay, Volkman stressed. Petitioning OEMs for a scaled up parts reimbursement rate to 50 to 60 percent is why dealerships employ his services. A dealer that uses matrix pricing for parts can expect a 100% increase in markup; a dealer using list pricing can expect to increase gross profit by about 50 percent. 

Currently, 38 out of 50 states have some variation of the law which requires auto manufacturers to reimburse the dealership for warranty repairs at the average rate of what the service department would charge the retail consumer. 

“That is a huge amount of money we generate for dealers, and our success is founded in knowing the right way to approach and appeal to OEMs on this matter,” Volkman said. 

Service Department Solutions is a full-service fixed operations audit and consultancy, specializing in helping franchise automobile dealerships drive cost out and profitability into their service, parts, and warranty departments. Company experts have experience interacting with all domestic and foreign automotive manufacturers. For more information, contact Volkman at info@ServiceDepartmentSolutions.com or telephone 412-651-2356 or www.servicedepartmentsolutions.com.

TORONTO and ROCHESTER HILLS, Mich., Jan. 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Dealer-FX, the leading customer experience management platform for dealers and OEMs, said dealers using ONE Platform, its mobile service technology suite, report more engaged customers who spend more dollars with them across their entire ownership experience.

ONE Platform is comprised of seven hardware and software components which together manage the entire service experience, from initial Connection through Scheduling, curbside Check-In, Inspection, mobile Check-Out and Retention marketing. An intuitive set of dealer-facing tools, Total Service Management gives dealership employees real-time visibility into the whole process, so they can easily plan, adjust and communicate both internally and externally to ensure expectations are properly set and met. ONE Platform optimizes dealership workflow and efficiency by improving capacity management and cycle time. By benchmarking dealer operations, ONE Platform enables dealership employees and management to continuously improve customer satisfaction and dealer profitability.

Dealers report ONE Platform helps them drive meaningful improvements in key metrics, including:

• 24% increase in parts and service
• 21% increase in number of repair orders
• $75 increase in dollars per VIN
• $295 increase from appointment to final RO
• 3x improvement in retention

"Dealers using ONE Platform deliver a demonstrably better experience to their service customers and simultaneously drive improvements in all the metrics dealers care about. Our mobile applications help create an enduring bond with customers, starting at the sales-to-service handoff, and nurtures those relationships well into the highly profitable post-warranty ownership years," said Dealer-FX President and CEO, Gary Kalk.

"OEMs and their dealers using Dealer-FX report the kind of performance results that leave no doubt about ONE Platform's ability to increase service lane volume, repair order dollars and customer retention," Kalk said. "In a world of heightened consumer expectations, churning ROs doesn't lead to long-term business success. Instead you need tools and processes that build consumer trust, which translates into highly profitable long-term relationships," he said.

A preferred vendor of Fiat Chrysler, Nissan, Audi and other global automakers, Dealer-FX will demonstrate ONE Platform and its relevance to modern dealer service trends at booth #2360 at the NADA convention in New Orleans, January 27-29th.

About Dealer-FX
Dealer-FX is transforming how millions of consumers interact with automotive brands and their retailers. Our customer experience management platform uses advanced data analysis and mobile applications to deliver convenience, transparency and trust to consumers, and increased efficiency, profitability, retention and brand loyalty to OEMs and dealers.

The ONE Solution Platform comprises seven components which together manage the entire service experience from initial contact through drive-off and to next visit. It delivers the best dealer service experience available.

Dealer-FX is the exclusive or preferred service technology provider for several OEMs in the US and Canada, and has more than 2,000 dealership customers. Dealer-FX is based in Toronto and maintains an office in Rochester Hills, MI. For more information please visit dealer-fx.com, or connect with us on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Media Contact:
Maurice Benatar
Director, Marketing
416.493.0039 x206
MOBILE: 416.788.9239
maurice_benatar@dealer-fx.com

PLANO, TX, January 9, 2017 – DealerDoc, the solution for out-of-state titling made easy, said today its one-stop online process helps new and used car dealers capture more business from millennial-aged buyers wanting to buy from out-of-state dealers. 

Today, millennial’s make up 28% of the new-car market nationwide, which was almost as many vehicles the baby boomer generation purchased in 2015, noted the Associated Press recently, citing J.D. Power’s Power Information Network.  

Millennial’s comfort level with today’s e-commerce process will effectively mean more will purchase their vehicles at dealerships across state lines. 

Dealers currently generate from 5 to 20 percent of their sales volume from out-of-state purchasers, depending on the franchise and/or marketplace.  These sales are likely to grow as internet e-commerce continues to increase, and lenders get more aggressive with buying across state lines. 

“Lienholders are expanding their buying territories throughout the U.S. as millennials continue to purchase in numbers that are exceeding any other age group.   The reality is these buyers will not let borders limit their choices or how businesses service them,” said Ken Roberts, Founder and CEO of DealerDoc, LLC. 

“DealerDoc’s automated software and titling service ensure dealers will not be held captive by misinformation that often complicates out-of-state titling due to traditional error-prone manual process, but instead gives them the confidence to sell, title and register a vehicle accurately and almost effortlessly in all 50 states,” Roberts added.

This national reach is critical to online retailer Vroom, as it expands its market reach nationally, said Vroom Corporate Controller Todd Wilkinson.  Consumers browsing Vroom.com use the online DealerDoc service to get a quick and accurate summary of their tax, tag, title, and licensing fees to facilitate the purchase of a vehicle. 

“DealerDoc expands our customer base, enabling Vroom to touch every corner of the country. It improves the customer experience with the real-time titling and registration accuracy it delivers, which keeps the deal moving forward,” Wilkinson added.

Dealers serving military families also find DealerDoc a convenient and accurate solution for titling vehicles out of state for buyers based in those dealers’ communities.

“Many of our customers are stationed here in San Antonio but want to register their vehicle in their home state, DealerDoc lets us do that quickly and accurately,” said Mirt Medina, Finance Director for Red McCombs Toyota in San Antonio, Texas, a military community.  “I have had customers buy from us because a competitor didn’t want to bother with their out-of-state titling. DealerDoc is about professional F&I and taking care of customer needs, from A to Z.” 

DealerDoc allows a dealer to send all out-of-state paperwork to one location for processing.  Once DealerDoc receives the titling packet, it’s processed and sent out within 24 hours. 

“Our tool is so accurate that we guarantee all taxes and fees for processing,” Roberts said. 

Using DealerDoc, dealers obtain the correct taxes and fees needed in seconds for quick bank approvals.  It gives dealers the luxury of pre-populating and printing all state-required documents along with a detailed checklists for specific requirements in every jurisdiction - all with just the click of a button. The software guides the manager by only asking the necessary questions for that jurisdiction to eliminate errors and delays. 

“It would be great if every out-of-state lien was recorded correctly the first time, which a service like DealerDoc ensures,” noted Matthew Mulkey, Senior Vice President, Dealer Service Center Manager for CRB Auto, powered by Mechanics Bank. 

“DealerDoc simplifies the entire process,” Roberts noted. 

DealerDoc representatives will be in New Orleans during the NADA convention to discuss how the company’s out-of-state titling software can help dealers market to and better serve out-of-state customers quickly and accurately for closing more of these opportunities. 

For more information or a demo, visit DealerDoc. At NADA, contact Joel Ferrier, National Director at 318-349-0288 or Ken Roberts at 469-223-6321 or email contact@dealerdocusa.com.