NORCROSS, GA. —August 23, 2021 – APCO Holdings, LLC, a leading provider and administrator of automotive F&I products and home to the EasyCare, GWC Warranty and MemberCare brands, has named Kylie Price as Vice President, Post-Purchase Sales. In her new position, Price is responsible for the evolution of APCO’s post-purchase channel to continue to drive growth and advance digital outreach efforts.

“For F&I products, managing the post-purchase relationship with the consumer is just as important as the initial sale. We’re thrilled to have Kylie spearhead this critical retention and growth channel for our dealership customers,” said Scot Eisenfelder, CEO of APCO Holdings.

Prior to joining APCO, Price spent five years at Affinitiv where most recently she was Executive Vice President of OEM accounts. Price has more than a dozen years of experience in sales, marketing and digital advertising in the automotive industry, and holds degrees in public relations and advertising from Aquinas College and Loyola University of Chicago.

About APCO Holdings

Since 1984, APCO has grown to become a leading provider and administrator of F&I products for the auto industry. Built on a foundation of financial security and a commitment to understanding our customers’ needs, APCO is a trusted partner to some of the most well-respected insurers, highly successful dealerships, and leading auto industry players in the country. The company markets its products using the EasyCare, GWC Warranty, and MemberCare brands, as well as other private label products, through a network of independent agents and an internal salesforce that specialize in consulting with and servicing the automotive dealership markets. EasyCare, GWC Warranty, and MemberCare F&I products are the only “MotorTrend Recommended Best Buy” in the industry. They also carry top ratings from the Better Business Bureau, have protected over 11 million customers and paid over $3.5 billion in claims. For more information about the APCO Holdings family of brands, please visit apcoholdings.com.

Combination creates a leading provider of marketing technology and software solutions exclusively serving automotive manufacturers and dealerships in the U.S.

Chicago, IL and Clearwater, FL—July 18, 2019— Affinitiv, Inc. (“Affinitiv”) and Loop LLC (“AutoLoop”), leading providers of data-driven marketing automation and software solutions to the automotive market, today announced that they have signed a definitive agreement to merge the two companies. The transaction is subject to approval under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976, as amended (the “HSR Act”).

The highly strategic merger will combine two industry-leading platforms to create the largest provider of data-driven marketing and software solutions exclusively focused on the automotive customer lifecycle. Key highlights of the combined company include:

• Modern and scalable SaaS offering, purpose-built for automotive OEMs and dealerships
• Fully integrated product portfolio across retention marketing, equity mining, online scheduling, service lane software, digital marketing and appraisal solutions
• Proprietary analytics platform that provides sophisticated customer and marketing insights based on the combination of unique data sets from OEMs, dealerships and third parties
• Long-term and highly strategic relationships with over 10 OEM partners and over 6,500 dealerships

The merger will result in a combined company with revenues of approximately $200 million and over 800 employees. The combined company will operate under the Affinitiv brand name, but will continue to leverage the AutoLoop brand across its product portfolio. NY-based private equity firm CIP Capital will continue as majority owners of the combined business going forward.

“The combined company is ideally suited to help guide OEMs and dealerships through the major disruptors that are facing the automobile industry, putting tremendous pressure on the profitability of dealers including lengthening servicing intervals, digital presence, and the ever increasing complexity in marketing with the proliferation of ‘Big Data’ and new mobile and digital channels,” said Scot Eisenfelder, CEO of Affinitiv.

AutoLoop CEO Steve Anderson continued, “The pace of technological evolution has accelerated tremendously over the past decade, and we’re committed to staying at the forefront of innovation as we continue to invest aggressively in new software and analytics capabilities for our clients. Partnering with Affinitiv gives us an extraordinary opportunity to enhance our existing products, expand our offerings and better serve our customer base as they navigate the industry challenges ahead.”

The combined company will continue to leverage its scale, resources and unique set of marketing, software and analytics offerings to drive innovation while providing clients with world-class levels of customer support for all Affinitiv and AutoLoop solutions.

About Affinitiv

Affinitiv is a leading marketing technology company serving automotive manufacturers (OEMs), dealership groups, and individual dealerships. Through a technology-driven and consultative approach, Affinitiv enables dealerships to produce, manage, measure and optimize omni-channel communications to drive brand loyalty and increase revenue. Affinitiv’s Connectiv1 Platform is designed to provide a 360° view of customer, vehicle, dealership and marketing campaign effectiveness all in one place. Affinitiv’s digital and analytics capabilities support a consistent customer experience through the entire ownership lifecycle. Affinitiv was formed in 2016 and is headquartered in Chicago, IL.

About AutoLoop

Since 2005, AutoLoop has been helping automotive dealerships grow their businesses. It all began with the AutoLoop Sales and Service Suite, a set of seamlessly interconnected Sales, Service, and Engagement tools designed to give dealerships industry-leading features, intelligent analytics, and streamlined performance. Together, these elements enable dealers to boost sales, optimize service, market with precision, and – most importantly – drive revenue. AutoLoop products are built by dealers for dealers, and are constantly evolving to help over 2,100 franchise dealerships elevate their automotive businesses every day. An Inc. 500 company with nearly 70 million names in its database and over 2 billion individual communications initiated, AutoLoop is passionate about being America's best customer retention partner for progressive dealerships. AutoLoop is headquartered in Clearwater, FL.

Read the headlines and you see it everywhere: online used vehicle sales are booming.

Carvana is expanding into dozens of new markets and although it has yet to turn a profit, its vehicle unit sales more than doubled and gross profit nearly tripled in Q3 2018. The retailer just announced $2 billion in financing from Ally Financial.

Large dealer groups have recognized the opportunity and are jumping on the bandwagon. AutoNation has invested in Vroom and Lithia Motors has invested in Shift.

But assuming you're not a huge dealer group with millions of dollars to invest, how can you compete with online used vehicle retailers? Carvana certainly doesn't offer the lowest prices, so what attracts consumers to their brand, as well as other brands?

The answer is simple. Customer experience. What consumers want more than anything in a shopping experience is information and pricing transparency. When dealers withhold these items, many people choose to shop elsewhere.

In virtually every other industry, retailers post prices online and give information freely. Consumers expect similar transparency in the auto industry but many dealerships are still reluctant to give customers what they want.

But the way consumers shop today is never going to change. The Internet has changed that forever.

Years ago, when my wife and I were looking for a new house, we filled up a Manila envelope with information about desirable neighborhoods, school districts and proximity to venues, restaurants and other places that we thought we might frequent. Ninety percent of the shopping was done before we called a realtor. When it was time, all we had to do was find a house in our price range in the neighborhood we liked.

Of course, today's consumers don't use Manila envelopes to store research. Everything is done online, but it's the same concept. They know what they want and the last step is to call a dealership to get the final pieces of information they need in order to make a decision.

This information includes:

• The real, final price on the vehicle that includes all taxes and fees
• Value of their trade-in
• Financing options and monthly payments
• Aftermarket product options and pricing

When a car shopper has this information on two or three vehicles in consideration, it's easy to make a final decision.

Once that decision is made, the consumer is more than willing to visit the dealership to see the vehicle, do a test drive, validate the trade-in and finalize paperwork. Ideally this final part of the process should take no more than one hour.

So, back to the original question. How can individual franchises and smaller dealer groups compete with online used vehicle retailers?

Be transparent. Invest in technology that gets your customers 90 percent of the way through the purchase transaction. Several affordable technology options exist so it doesn't require a huge up-front investment.

And don't forget what you can offer these pre-owned customers that Carvana and other online used vehicle retailers can't. Service. In fact, the four- to six- year old vehicle market is a prime target for dealerships looking to grow service revenue.

If you're worried whether pricing transparency will erode your used-vehicle margins in the same way that it has affected new vehicle margins, you're worrying about the wrong thing.

When you create a transparent and customer-friendly used-vehicle purchasing process, you create more opportunities to service those vehicles and build lasting customer relationships. That's where the real, long-term profit potential lies.

Chicago, IL- November 14, 2018- Affinitiv announced today it has completed all requirements to participate in the Digital Advertising Program under the GM Dealer Digital Solution. 

This allows dealers the opportunity to leverage in-Market Retail (iMR) funds to reimburse themselves for the cost of their Digital Advertising services.  Please refer to the iMR Dealer Program guidelines located at www.gmlam.com for further information.

Providers who are participating in the Digital Advertising Program provide advertising solutions that include:

Improved efficiency, coordinated spend and strategy across all tiers of advertising

Participation commitment for:

-Streamlined packages each offering full service solutions for sales and fixed ops

-A single, managed monthly fee with cap

-Performance accountability

-Day 1 Go-to-Market readiness

-Strategic and tactical advertising coordination with brands and LMAs

Dashboard for visibility into performance

If you have any questions about the benefits of Digital Advertising Program, contact Affinitiv at 888-865-3166 or via email at GMSupport@affinitiv.com

About Affinitiv:

Affinitiv is a leading marketing technology company serving automotive manufacturers (OEMs), dealership groups, and individual dealers. Affinitiv’s Connectiv1 Platform is designed to provide a 360° view of customer, vehicle, dealership and marketing campaign effectiveness all in one place. It makes it easy for auto dealerships to leverage data and target customers with the right message at the right time on the right communication channel.

Affinitiv enables dealerships to produce, manage, measure and optimize omni-channel communications to drive brand loyalty and increase revenue. Affinitiv’s digital and analytic capabilities support a consistent customer experience through the entire ownership lifecycle. Affinitiv was formed in 2016 and is headquartered in Chicago, IL.

For many, autonomous vehicles are synonymous with ride sharing and hence reduced fleet size and negative implications for dealership sales and service.   

Well, I see the world differently.  I see autonomous vehicles opening new opportunities to expand ownership in underserved segments. I also see likely increases in vehicle usage intensity, even should heavy ride sharing usage emerge. 

Let me explain my perspective, starting with the potential for increased vehicle ownership: 
First, while analysts suggest massive fleet reductions based on low vehicles utilization, they do not consider limits imposed by peak utilization and limited population density inherent in our social structure.  

Autonomous vehicles will dramatically improve personal mobility for our rapidly growing population with diminished driving skills, extending vehicle ownership much longer.  Furthermore, ride sharing provides the same freedom and productivity enjoyed by many Americans, to large numbers of the working poor who cannot afford a whole car.  These segments greatly outnumber the low mileage, near urban households, who forego ownership, or at least reduce household fleet size. 

Even as ride share takes hold, I expect usage intensity and miles driven per vehicle per year to rise with autonomous vehicles. This increase in total miles driven will ultimately lead to increased service visits and faster vehicle replacement.   

In addition, ride sharing enables increased drive-time productivity for passengers. This will dramatically shift fly/drive and public/private transportation decisions and may even encourage longer commutes as the office moves to the car.  More importantly, ride sharing has, by its very nature, significant “empty backhauls,” which increase the number of total miles driven per passenger mile, as vehicles find the next passenger. 

These factors should increase total fleet miles driven annually, growing service needs for the US fleet. That is until, or unless, more significant structural changes take place in American work schedule and residential patterns.  

Furthermore, autonomous vehicles can inherently address the distance convenience gaps which tilts service works toward more ubiquitous independent repair facilities.  However, this does not mean that dealers can just sit back and wait for the increased service business to arrive.   

Imagine your vehicle leaving your driveway or the mall at an appointed time to get serviced while you sleep or shop.  This is the future of service!  The competitive tide turns to those dealers who can manage more complex, consumer-responsive service operations.  Not only does this require seamlessly managing multiple shifts, but encourages proactively finding nearby vehicles to service when bays are empty.   

This requires new levels of integration between consumer engagement, telematics integration, shop load management and operation effectiveness. Those who invest first to create these capabilities with grow a service business that generates a return on fixed operations investment multiples over today’s vastly underutilized business model. 

Undoubtedly increased ride share/fractional ownership will drive greater “fleet like” ownership.  Not only will Uber and Lyft evolve into large fleet companies, but we will likely see thousands of private “fleet” owners investing to serve underserved markets, or seeking to cover ownership costs by leasing spare capacity.   

I was recently struck by the entrepreneurism of one of my young developers in India, who bought a car, not for commuting, but for leasing to an Uber driver who drove him to work, then used the car to take fares during the day, before returning him home at night.   

Welcome to the new era of vehicle ownership, Air B&B for cars! Dealers will all need to optimize their business models around fleet. I can easily imagine a world where passenger vehicles are up-fitted like commercial vehicles are today, based on different uses.   

As a dealer, you will have the opportunity to sell vehicles based on Total Cost of Ownership, or even lease on a per mile basis, with all service included.  Aligning service times to down time will be even more critical to these vehicles, because time in the bay takes away from time earning money.  Managing utilization could be a key differentiator for OEMs and dealers. 

If you are a franchise dealer, you can and should benefit from autonomous vehicles, if you recognize and embrace the underlying changes.