OAK BROOK, Ill., and KANSAS CITY, Kan. -

vAuto and VinSolutions announced this morning the integration of their used-vehicle appraisal and pricing features for dealer customers who use both systems.

“This integration marks another step in our effort to provide software solutions that drive greater efficiencies, process improvements and profitability for dealers,” said Keith Jezek, president of AutoTrader Group’s software division. “In particular, this integration helps dealers deliver more customer-satisfying and seamless appraisals of vehicles, and makes it easier for dealers to align their used vehicle pricing to the current market.”

The companies indicated that with the integration, elements of vAuto’s appraising and pricing tools are brought into the VinSolutions customer relationship management system’s used inventory module.

“Typically dealers lose efficiency and productivity as they toggle between systems to appraise and price vehicles,” says Brian Skutta, vice president and general manager for VinSolutions. “Now, for dealers who use vAuto and VinSolutions, our new two-way integration is a ‘best of both worlds’ scenario that allows dealership personnel to easily access the information and tools they need while working in a single system.”

The ‘single-system’ integration offers three key benefits, as outlined by the companies in their news release announcing the deal:  

1. Customer-Centered Appraisals

The appraisal process in many dealerships is problematic for customers. Typically, salespeople must leave their customers to physically check on the status of the appraisal. With the integration, a dealership’s used-vehicle manager can complete a vAuto-powered appraisal in the VinSolutions system.

When the appraisal is complete, the salesperson receives an automated alert and can instantly access and share the appraisal details with customers. Similarly, a salesperson can print an appraisal voucher for customers who want to consider the offer and come back to sell or trade their vehicle at the dealership.  

“Salespeople don’t like to leave their customers during appraisals — and now they don’t have to,” Skutta said. “Likewise, the integration eliminates double-entry of appraisal information, which minimizes errors and saves time.”

2. Productive, Market-Smart Pricing

In the VinSolutions system, dealers can now access vAuto’s Pricing tool “Gauge Page” with a single click. The “Gauge Page” is a robust interface that lets dealers base their used vehicle pricing decisions on real-time market comparisons and data, as well as the profitability potential of each car.  

“A growing number of dealers understand that their used vehicles must always be competitively priced to appeal to today’s price-smart buyers,” said Jim Menard, vice president and general manager for vAuto. “The integration’s single-click Gauge Page access saves dealers significant time by instantly giving them the real-time insights they need to make market-smart pricing decisions.”

3. Efficient, “Workflow-Smart” User Access

With the integration, the VinSolutions and vAuto systems “remember” individual dealership users and their workflows — instantly taking them to the screens and tools they need. This efficiency-focused enhancement effectively lets users “pick up where they leave off,” Menard says.

Over the course of the past three years, ATG has purchased Homenet, vAuto and VinSolutions, and these three firms are now each business units of the ATG’s software division.

Officials touched on the collaboration between these businesses to bolster existing tools and develop new shared solutions to help dealer customers.

“The vAuto/VinSolutions integration is only the beginning of key initiatives underway across ATG’s software division business units to help our dealers gain a competitive advantage and achieve higher levels of success,” Jezek said.