Technology meets marketing in a new joint venture announced this week by AutoAlert Inc. and The Ready Group. Boyd Warner, chief executive officer of AutoAlert, made the partnership announcement, noting a joint venture with Boston-based strategic automotive marketing agency The Ready Group LLC. The new entity is called DirectAlert LLC, which company officials said will […] [Read More]

Late last week, Chrysler Group revealed a group of dealers the company is honoring for their eco-friendly operations, in an effort to share some of the stores’ energy-efficient best practices across its dealer network. This is Chrysler’s second annual Dealer Enviromentally Councious Operations (ECO) program, which recognizes 30 Chrysler Group dealerships in the U.S. each […] [Read More]

Many dealers are familiar with Edmunds.com’s car appraisal tool that many customers use to check the value of their current vehicle on the site. But now, dealers can utilize the tool on their own websites. Edmunds revealed Monday that its True Market Value Trade-in Tool is now available for dealer websites and allows shoppers to […] [Read More]

New tools and tutorials aimed at building auto dealers’ efforts at online reputation management are part of a product launch by dealer review website DealerRater. On Monday, DealerRater introduced a Dealer Panel account management hub, which the company says will provide its Certified Dealer partners with immediate access to a full suite of tools included […] [Read More]

Ever wonder how many customers are out there “on the fence,” or on the verge of buying from your dealership? According to Paul Potratz, chief operating officer of Potratz Partners Advertising, one of the keys to securing these leads is website chat. In the latest edition of Think Tank Tuesday — Portratz’ weekly video featuring […] [Read More]

Dealers looking to obtain higher quality used-car inventory could benefit from a new product announced this week by auto website MaxTradeIn. The new service allows participating dealerships to make “nearly-instant” offers for consumer trade-ins, rather than just estimates, the company said. Called MaxTradeIn DealerDirect, the service asks consumers visiting a dealership’s website to enter their […] [Read More]

On Tuesday, DealerSocket launched a solution the company calls Smart Reply, a tool that allows dealerships to send intelligent emails to customers with concise and accurate content tailored to their specific vehicle interests. “We’re really fired up about launching Smart Reply because this technology surpasses traditional CRM solutions that simply send a text heavy email […] [Read More]

As we covered in our last post, following the components of MARK in your listings creates maximum consumer relevance. The first element of this is “mission.” Mission lets the consumer know if your vehicle meets their needs. If a consumer is looking for a family vehicle, which vehicle attributes make it a great choice for […] [Read More]

Training dealers is nothing new to Ally Financial. That’s been a huge part of the near century-long history at the company founded as General Motors Acceptance Corp. in the 1900s. But the format in which Ally teaches dealers has evolved greatly, with the latest offering coming Monday. The company introduced the Performance Development Center, which […] [Read More]

When a customer leaves the showroom without buying, it’s the dealer’s job to find out why, and to re-engage him. A new product aims to help dealers do just that. CAR-ResearchXRM this week announced the launch of Showroom WatchDog, a service it says can help auto dealers sell their unsold customers.  Showroom WatchDog uses CAR-Research […] [Read More]