On Wednesday, Work Truck Solutions finalized its third industry relationship since the beginning of September.
Coming after alignments with Manheim as well as FordDirect, the company specializing in commercial vehicles announced inventory listing partnership with Holman’s small business division, providing Holman’s customers greater access to locate and acquire commercial vehicles.
When companies with shared goals come together, new solutions seem to fall into place naturally.
With that in mind, dealers of Work Truck Solutions are now able to add commercial inventory listings and details to the Holman Fleet Marketplace, to increase visibility and provide opportunities to move more units.
While Work Truck Solutions customers already have access to business tools that help them adjust to today’s dynamic market conditions, the company sees that adding Holman’s connections with a nationwide network of fleet managers means dealers can grow their commercial prospecting possibilities.
“Some dealers simply don’t historically carry enough inventory to fulfill a sale of twelve or more commercial vehicles for a fleet,” said Kathryn Schifferle, founder and chief vision officer at Work Truck Solutions.
“Smaller dealers can get passed by when a buyer needs numerous vehicles quickly. But, our partnership with Holman opens the door for our dealers to these larger fleet opportunities. Larger dealers just become more efficient,” continued Schifferle, who also is among the speakers set to appear during Used Car Week that begins on Monday.
Work Truck Solutions dealer listings can go much further than basic chassis information, to include on-lot photos and searchable, detailed upfit information, which is pulled into the Holman Fleet Marketplace.
Holman is a leading provider of fleet management services, helping fleet operators source, fund, manage, and dispose of commercial vehicles as efficiently and cost effectively as possible.
“This partnership with Work Truck Solutions offers our customers access to the most robust inventory in the industry at the click of a button via our innovative Holman Fleet Marketplace,” said Kevin Quinn, vice president and chief operating officer of small fleet at Holman.
“In all market conditions, but even more so in today’s disrupted supply chain, inventory availability is critical. This partnership offers significant growth potential for Work Truck Solutions’ dealer network and provides a simple and efficient vehicle acquisition process for our small fleet customers,” Quinn went on to say.
Two dealership service providers now are working together to help managers get their inventory to stand tall on the front line faster.
Dealer Image Pro, a leader in professional photo, video, and interactive 360-degree software for dealerships, announced it has integrated its Photo Assistant and Autoport software with Rapid Recon’s reconditioning workflow software to improve the time to market for a dealership’s reconditioned vehicles.
Now displayed within the Photo Assistant and Autoport inventory dashboard, dealership sales teams can view the Rapid Recon status of their used vehicles in real-time to quickly identify what stage of the reconditioning process a specific vehicle is in and whether that vehicle is ready to have photos taken.
Once photos are ready, Dealer Image Pro can provide mutual dealers with their inventory photo feeds directly to Rapid Recon, which can make it more convenient for the dealership staff to verify that the photos have been published on the dealership website’s vehicle detail page.
Based on the premise that a vehicle with zero photos on the VDP will receive zero clicks and ultimately few leads, Dealer Image Pro’s integration with Rapid Recon can help dealers easily reference the stage of a used vehicle’s reconditioning process for the in-house photographer to streamline the photos and merchandizing of that vehicle.
Additionally, if a dealership already has the Rapid Recon software plugin installed on a Google Chrome browser, the vehicle identification numbers of the vehicles undergoing reconditioning can be identified from the Autoport inventory dashboard to then locate the specific vehicle directly on Rapid Recon’s desktop website.
“In this fast-paced world, swiftly uploading photos and videos to vehicles has become more critical than it’s ever been,” Rapid Recon vice president of product development Bridget Townsend said in a news release. “We’re excited to be working with Dealer Image Pro in an effort to provide mutual customers the optics they need for improving this process.”
Louis Norman is director of operations at Dealer Image Pro.
“We continue to see dealers wait a couple days to get their inventory photos and videos loaded onto their website’s VDP, which is why this integration with Rapid Recon was a no-brainer for us,” Norman said. “We have made it easier for our mutual clients to hold everyone accountable from the trade walk to the frontline to make sure no car is left behind.”
To book a demo and learn more about Dealer Image Pro’s Photo Assistant with Rapid Recon’s software integration, visit https://www.dealerimagepro.com/demo/.
The phone not ringing at your dealership likely is not a good sign for either your retail department or service drive.
But having the phone ringing so much that your staff can’t keep up can be a challenge, too, so a quartet of service providers formed a pair of partnerships to help.
First, WeGotYourCalls, a vBDC call center owned and operated by CallSource, announced a partnership with CallRevu, a leading provider of call management solutions for the automotive industry.
Also, Car Wars and AutoAlert have joined forces to bring dealers capabilities where users will gain access to AutoAlert’s advanced data ecosystem paired with Car Wars’ detailed call tracking software right from AutoAlert CXM.
Through the partnership involving WeGotYourCalls and CallRevu, the service providers said dealers are equipped to combat the most significant challenges preventing them from reaching their growth potential: high call volumes, understaffed departments and sacrificed customer service.
By leveraging the WeGotYourCalls and CallRevu partnership, dealers can reduce their load and drive more appointment conversions.
“We’re very excited about this partnership with CallRevu as our business principles, innovative culture, and customer-centric mentality are very aligned,” WeGotYourCalls president Pogo Parr said in a news release. “Teaming up with CallRevu on our call center puts both companies in a strong position to help dealers drive service retention, improve CSI scores, and increase profits.”
By combining the best of both solutions, the companies said dealers can count on better call connectivity, more booked appointments and higher absorption rates.
On average, the companies acknowledged that dealer service departments are only connecting with customers 76% of the time. They said dealers utilizing the vBDC have increased their connectivity rate to 98%, resulting in an additional 80 ROs per month.
In addition, dealers benefit from service maintenance reminders, live OEM recall alerts, as well as stay-in-touch reminder calls to boost customer communication, while alleviating employees so they can do what they do best — sell vehicles.
As partners, WeGotYourCalls and CallRevu are committed to empowering dealerships with best-in-class solutions that drive service retention and increase profitability.
“Ensuring our dealership partners have best-in-class solutions is our top priority. We are excited to partner with WeGotYourCalls to empower dealers with the technology to have full visibility into all calls with our vBDC call center. With the CallRevu platform, all calls are captured, all lines are analyzed, and blind spots are removed with our immediate alerts to prevent missed opportunities, reduce repeat callers and avoid missed calls that go to voicemail,” CallRevu CEO Anthony Giagnacovo said in the news release.
“We believe this partnership reinforces that our customers are receiving the most reliable customer engagement tool designed specifically to support all departments within a dealership — from service to sales and marketing. With CallRevu, we alert, advise, and analyze to help you optimize your performance and keep your customer engaged,” Giagnacovo continued.
And now more details about the other technology partnership.
Car Wars’ Click to Call feature can capture outbound calls and assign them to the salesperson and the correct customer with audio available right within AutoAlert.
Inbound calls are shared with AutoAlert’s ability to create leads based on customer phone number matching.
In AutoAlert’s Call Tracking Dashboard, inbound and outbound calls can display whether those calls matched an existing customer in CXM and to whom the lead is assigned. Leads that are not assigned can be assigned manually.
"We are very excited about our Car Wars partnership and seamless integration with our AutoAlert CXM platform,” AutoAlert chief technology officer Tom Walls said in another news release. “As the largest provider of call telephony in the auto industry, Car Wars will provide AutoAlert CXM dealers with the ability to monitor and listen to all daily calls made to their customers and provide an even better customer experience. The AutoAlert/Car Wars integration delivers higher accountability, seamless matching of inbound calls to active leads and existing customer profiles while dramatically improving efficiency from a single tool.”
Jackie Bowers, executive vice president of marketing and product planning at Car Wars added, “Car Wars’ goal is to create a great experience for users of our product. With that same goal in mind, it made perfect sense to team up with AutoAlert. As a leading provider in the CXM space, the AutoAlert partnership will create greater efficiency for dealers where the phones can be properly tracked and measured, and all the necessary customer information needed to be successful is in one place.”
To learn more about the AutoAlert and Car Wars integration, call (833) 256-4935. To learn more about Car Wars' full suite of solutions and integration abilities, visit carwars.com/home/news-resources.
CT Services and Claim Genius recently announced a strategic partnership to develop and market new artificial intelligence-based inspection solutions for the automotive remarketing and transportation markets within North America.
The companies highlighted in a news release that the partnership will combine CT Services’ vehicle inspection process with Claim Genius’s AI inspection technology to create new digital service model solutions for OEMs, remarketers, fleets, auctions and dealers.
Both parties expect to begin jointly marketing new products during the fourth quarter, according to the announcement.
Claim Genius’ AI-based inspection platform can allow customers to assess the physical condition of a vehicle though uploaded videos and photos, including identification and classification of damage on over 200 parts, automated prediction of vehicle repairability and line-by-line calculation of repair costs.
Customers also can use Claim Genius technology for lease and rental inspections, pre/post transportation inspections, insurance underwriting and claims, and more.
Claim Genius said its solutions are available via mobile, web, or API access in multiple languages today.
“Since our founding in 1988, CT Services has been committed to implementing service innovations and helping our customers drive new efficiencies into their inspection/logistics processes,” said Bob Gapinski, vice president of business development of CT Services. “We are very excited to collaborate with Claim Genius to help reinvent the future of automotive inspections.”
Mike MacDonald is chief operating officer and head of product development for Claim Genius.
“CT Services is highly recognized as a long-standing leader in developing industry leading vehicle inspection solutions in North America,” MacDonald said. “Their expertise and deep market knowledge coupled with Claim Genius technology will help us design some amazing products together to transform the inspection process for OEMs, finance institutions, rental car companies, auctions and the entire remarking industry.”
Autonomy keeps collecting relationships that meant to boost its place as an electric vehicle subscription company.
On Thursday, Autonomy entered the insurance category, finalizing a connection with DigiSure — a software company that provides screening, insurance management and claims — as its insurance platform partner.
Executives highlighted the platform partnership with DigiSure provides Autonomy with the ability to digitally onboard, evaluate and qualify a subscriber for month-to-month auto coverage that Autonomy will launch this month.
“Being able to provide Autonomy subscribers with fully digital auto coverage that’s month to month, without them having to buy annual insurance, and is tailored to their needs is core to delivering on our promise of providing easy and affordable access to electric vehicles,” Autonomy founder and chief executive officer Scott Painter said in a news release.
“We need proven partners, like DigiSure, with tested capabilities that allow us to provide a simple, intuitive, and frictionless customer experience,” Painter continued.
Mike Shim is CEO and co-founder of DigiSure.
“Autonomy is inventing a completely new way for people to enjoy EV ownership, and we believe that requires a new kind of insurance experience as well,” Shim said. We are excited to collaborate with Autonomy to embed auto insurance and protection products seamlessly into their offering for subscribers.”
The relationship with DigiSure arrived after Autonomy finalized arrangements with AutoNation to gain scale by working with the large, publicly traded dealer group. Autonomy also crafted a relationship with EV Mobility, which provides EVs on demand 24/7 as an amenity to luxury hotels as well as at multifamily apartment buildings and other commercial properties.
We start this auction news roundup with the latest news from Black Widow Imaging.
The company, which specializes in high-quality automotive imaging, said Wednesday it has partnered with Orlando Longwood Auto Auction, which will use the company’s imaging services and imaging marketing services.
Orlando Longwood Auto Auction is part of the Auto Auction Holdings group.
“Orlando Auto Auction is excited to begin Auto Auction Holdings partnership with Black Widow. OLAA stives to deliver our customers thee tools they need to have confidence in buying online,” OLAA general manager Josh Lorenz said in a news release.
“Black Widow’s technology is industry leading and will provide high-quality images for our online and in lane buyers. Black Widow will also allow us to maintain our efficiency as we will run thousands of cars a week through the booth,” Lorenz said.
Black Widow Imaging chief operating officer Darren Kemper added: “Black Widow Imaging is thrilled to have the opportunity to partner with Orlando Longwood Auto Auction to provide their customers with the most consistent and transparent vehicle images for their online and in-lane sales.
“We can’t wait for Orlando Longwood to experience first-hand how our system can drastically improve their image capture process that will generate new incremental sales, reduce labor costs and arbitrations, as well as remove the worry of not getting all your dealers vehicles imaged.”
Next up, Greater Rockford Auto Auction announced the headliner for its fifth annual GRAA’lapaloozza Anniversary Sale, which is slated from July 26-27.
Performing after the auction’s sale on July 26 is country music artist Niko Moon. The auction will also have a sale on July 27, which will feature more than 1,000 vehicles from fleet/lease and dealer consignors, along with $10,000 in giveaways.
“We are very excited to have Niko Moon headlining GRAA’lapalooza 2022. We are looking forward to a fantastic event for customers and employees, filled with cars, music, giveaways, and excitement,” GRAA general manager Chad Anderson said in a news release. “We are grateful to celebrate 48 years in the auction business with the best customers in the industry who have supported us along the way.”
A spider and wizard teaming up at a castle sounds like something out of a “Harry Potter” book, but in the case of the used-car market, it’s all about reconditioning and efficiency.
Black Widow, which provides automated vehicle imaging, said Wednesday it has partnered with Dent Wizard, which provides vehicle reconditioning services.
Under the partnership, Dent Wizard will utilize Black Widow’s imaging services and imaging markets services at Castle Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram and Castle Buick in Chesterton, Ind., and plans to expand the partnership elsewhere later this year.
Black Widow's technology is designed to capture images and generate 360-degree virtual tours in a matter of seconds, while automatically uploadig images to a dealer's software system. The camera system is suspended from the ceiling.
“Dealers are under unprecedented pressure to flip vehicles faster than ever,” Black Widow director of sales Tim Grimes said in a news release.
“With consumers beginning their vehicle search online, quality imaging is what moves a potential customer from behind the screen to on the lot, and we’ve developed a system that enables dealers to handle photography in house — minimizing investment while still maximizing quality,” Grimes said.
Longtime auto industry analyst Jesse Toprak, whose background includes time with Edmunds, TrueCar and Cars.com, is now the chief analyst at Autonomy, the electric vehicle subscription platform from Scott Painter and Georg Bauer.
Toprak was most recently the chief executive officer of CarHub. His auto analyst roles included being the chief analyst at Cars.com, the vice president of market intelligence at TrueCar and the executive director of industry analysis at Edmunds.
His 25-plus years in automotive includes roles at franchised dealerships, consulting with OEMs and work with consumer automotive companies.
“The automotive industry is making transformative changes at a pace that’s unprecedented in the last several decades and consumer preferences are starting to shift toward electric vehicles as an influx of models enter the market,” Toprak said in the release.
“I’m excited to join the Autonomy team and advance their mission to make access to electric vehicles more affordable and share my insights on the trends emerging across the mobility sector,” he said.
Painter, who is the founder and CEO of Autonomy, also founded TrueCar and worked with Toprak at that company.
“I’m excited to be working with Jesse again. As a leading automotive analyst with rich experience in the EV space,” Painter said in the news release.
“His insights and analysis will be important as the industry transforms, not only from ICE to EV’s, but also from buying, leasing and owning a vehicle, to flexible access vehicle subscription programs,” he said.
Autonomy’s partnership with Equifax
In other news from the company, Autonomy announced Friday that it has teamed up with Equifax. As part of their partnerships, Autonomy will utilize the Equifax InstaTouch ID mobile consumer identity and authentication solution as well as differentiated data and analytics from the company to help facilitate completely digital subscription transactions to occur on the consumer’s smartphone.
Autonomy said those transactions can happen in as quick as 10 minutes.
The company debuted its Tesla Model 3 subscription platform in January in California, and plans to expand to other markets and EVs.
"Consistent with our mission to deliver the cheapest, fastest and easiest way to get a Tesla Model 3, and to make access to electric vehicles easy and affordable, Equifax has enabled us to deliver on a 100% mobile and digital experience for consumers in 10 minutes," Painter said in a news release.
Equifax InstaTouch ID is designed to authenticate a consumer’s identity through the company’s differentiated and alternative data sources, allowing for pre-population of consumer data while they’re submitting an online application. This can help facilitate quick and easy consumer verification and credit standing on consumers for Autonomy.
“Leading subscription services today and tomorrow will define the new digital retailing in automotive, where consumers enjoy a fast, seamless and trusted transaction process in a mobile environment,” Lena Bourgeois, who is Equifax’s general manager of automotive services, said in a news release.
“We're excited to leverage our advanced data, tools and resources that only Equifax can deliver to help power Autonomy as a leader in subscription services today and in the future,” Bourgeois said.
Two dealership service providers in the news recently now are working together, leveraging the capabilities of artificial intelligence (AI).
ProMax — which said it plans to nearly double its employee base in the coming year — and SpinCar — which was chosen to be a part of General Motors’ omnichannel used-car sales platform — announced a strategic partnership on Wednesday.
The companies said the combination of ProMax’s award-winning CRM and SpinCar’s Sales AI can enable their joint dealer customers to deliver instant personalized engagement automatically as well as follow-ups to every incoming lead.
It’s all being done in an attempt to increase appointments and conversion rates.
“We are very excited to partner with the automotive leader in AI & machine learning,” ProMax chief operating officer Shane Born said in a news release. “SpinCar’s Sales AI engages shoppers by providing conversational dialogue via email and text, which intelligently answers even VIN-specific questions. This integration enables real-time flagging of leads to be turned over to the dealership staff, or to set the appointment directly in ProMax.
“As a longtime provider of BDC services we understand the challenges of both staffing and handling leads that come in after-hours,” Born continued. “Sales AI is an excellent solution to augment our efforts not only with its quick, consistent, and professional initial contact, but also by enabling dealers to focus on engaged shoppers versus chasing leads that have gone dark for weeks.”
With much of the vehicle-buying process now online, ProMax and SpinCar insisted that dealers need solutions that can effectively engage and nurture the growing influx of digital leads.
Using natural language processing, machine learning and automated communication protocols, Sales AI’s conversational solution automatically can engage every incoming lead with human-like conversational dialogue via SMS/text and email.
By integrating seamlessly with ProMax’s CRM platform, Sales AI automatically can schedule appointments, send calendar reminders and update lead details in real time for dealers with no need for human intervention.
“Continued labor shortages and inventory constraints in a high-demand market mean auto retailers must maximize efficiency while enhancing their omnichannel buying experience. But many dealers still struggle to effectively manage the many inbound leads and inquiries they receive. Delayed response times, incomplete replies and inconsistent follow-up create lost opportunities dealers can’t afford,” SpinCar chief executive officer and co-founder Devin Daly said in the news release.
“Sales AI augments dealership productivity and results by delivering exceptional always-on engagement and a true conversational experience that moves shoppers efficiently through the sales process,” Daly continued. “We’re thrilled to partner with ProMax, a leading automotive software provider, to bring the industry’s best conversational AI to dealerships across the nation.”
Born and Daly will be hosting a joint webinar titled, “A.I. and the Future of Your Dealership” highlighting the synergy of the two platforms. The session is set for 11 a.m. (ET) on Feb. 3. Dealers can register for the webinar via this website.
Two firms in the transportation industry started the new year by working together.
On Tuesday, Ship.Cars, a leading automotive transport technology company, announced a partnership with CarrierSoft, an automotive transport software provider.
According to a news release, CarrierSoft has integrated its Broker TMS platform, MegaBee, with Ship.Cars’s Market, enabling brokers to post loads directly from MegaBee to the load board, potentially providing thousands of new load opportunities for carriers and brokers.
The companies highlighted the new partnership is designed to create a seamless flow for brokers to contract with the tens of thousands of auto carriers on the Ship.Cars platform.
By leveraging the Ship.Cars suite of products, MegaBee users now have access to new tools and customer features. These include the ability to negotiate on the platform and receive automated notifications for carrier offers and status updates on loads processed post-dispatch.
CarrierSoft mentioned that its broker customers benefit not only with greater access to carrier capacity, but also improved visibility. Customers can receive automated dispatch process updates and timely status emails with the Electronic Bill of Lading (eBOL) attached, providing greater accountability and insight into each shipment’s condition throughout its journey.
“CarrierSoft’s MegaBee platform is a popular choice for brokers in the industry and offers a powerful, but user-friendly CRM tool,” Ship.Cars vice president of strategy Eftim Eftimov said in the news release.
“Through this partnership, Ship.Cars increases load capacity on the digital marketplace where the MegaBee broker network can now directly post thousands of loads, greatly expanding their access to our vast network of carrier partners and improving their overall user experience,” Eftimov continued.
In addition to granting access to thousands of carriers, Ship.Cars pointed out that its features include tracking loads in real time, negotiating and confirming bookings online, instant dispatching and enhanced electronic proof of delivery — all without the need of phone calls.
