Of the more than 35,000 vehicles serviced each day by Valvoline Instant Oil Change, nearly 1 in 4 has an open manufacturer recall, according to an analysis by Carfax.
Thanks to a partnership between the two companies, Valvoline will now check vehicles serviced at any of its locations for open recalls using myCarfax.com to send a courtesy email to customers if any recalls are found.
“The sheer number of our customers who are driving vehicles with open recalls is surprising, and we’re happy to do our part to help,” said Rob Stravitz, vice president of marketing for Valvoline. “We have a great partner in Carfax that is a leader in the effort to keep people informed about open recalls. Powered by VIN-specific open recall information from myCarfax.com, this customer service initiative is a quick, easy and trusted way for us to contact affected customers and uphold our commitment to their safety.”
Carfax data suggests there are more than 47 million vehicles in the U.S. with unfixed recalls. Because drivers often are unaware of recalls on their vehicle, a link in the email they receive will take them to myCarfax.com so they can see more recall details and get notified of future recalls after setting up a free account.
“Staying informed about recalls and taking action on them is vital to maintaining the safety and performance of our vehicles,” said Vern Poyner, general manager at Carfax. “Almost 3 million people already turn to myCarfax.com for open recall information and other vehicle maintenance needs. Working with VIOC to alert their customers about safety recalls is a total team effort that will help keep our roads safe.”
AutoLoop LLC, a provider of auto industry marketing and customer relationship management solutions, has partnered with Recall Masters Inc. to help streamline the recall lookup process and help bridge the recall-service gap.
Recall Masters, which provides automotive recall news, data, training and communication, will be integrated into AutoLoop’s Fixed Ops Suite, resulting in what the companies say is the industry’s first totally integrated, end-to-end service platform that will enable real-time recall lookup of vehicles during service appointment schedule as well as during the check-in and inspection process.
“Since the start of 2014, there have been more than 100 million vehicle recalls in the United States, just shy of half of all vehicles on the road today. Most of these affected vehicles have yet to be repaired and these open recalls represent a unique market opportunity to grow sales and service revenue, drive up each dealership’s CSI and restore the brand’s integrity in the eyes of the consumer,” said AutoLoop chief operating officer Matt Rodeghero. “Recall Masters has been revolutionizing the auto dealer recall process for years and promises to be an invaluable addition to our comprehensive Fixed Ops Suite.”
The AutoLoop Fixed Ops Suite allows dealers to immediately present precise, all-inclusive quotes to customers who are scheduling online or over the phone, or who are being checked in on the service drive. And at every point along the way, the system alerts dealers to all possible profit opportunities — now including real-time recall lookup of vehicles from Recall Masters.
“Getting a customer to accept the work depends entirely on the service team having the right information at the right moment — both manufacturers and dealers realize how critical this is,” said Rodeghero. “But due to technology limitations, there were just too many service systems in use and too much invaluable data being overlooked. By bringing these systems together, AutoLoop and Recall Masters plan to help manufacturers bridge that critical gap, improving access to information by making technology truly work for the dealerships.”
“With the unprecedented level of vehicle recalls, reaching out to and informing customers of any that affect their vehicle can be a major pain point for most auto dealers. Customers don’t typically enjoy having to take their vehicle in for service in the first place. Having to stay even longer for a surprise recall repair is not exactly great for customer relations,” said Christopher Miller, president of Recall Masters.
“Our relationship with AutoLoop ensures that the dealer’s customers know about any open recall in real-time while scheduling their appointment or during the check-in and inspection process, which builds trust and strengthens relationships between automotive dealers and their customers.”
DRIVIN, an online solution that aims to help dealers secure pre-owned cars at wholesale prices, teamed up with Experian Automotive on Tuesday to enable its dealer partners to utilize AutoCheck vehicle history reports.
The company explained that dealers who work with DRIVIN to source and acquire inventory for their lot will have access to the reports prior to purchase of the vehicle.
The integration of AutoCheck reports with DRIVIN’s proprietary inventory trading tool is designed to give the company valuable information to accurately determine whether a vehicle is a good fit for a potential dealer partner’s lot. AutoCheck can allow dealers to review important information that is reported on a vehicle's history, including title brand records, prior accidents or odometer rollback issues that can influence an automobile's safety and resale value.
DRIVIN chief operating officer Justin Mahlik emphasized that being able to clearly convey this information to shoppers can allow dealers to instill the confidence they need in purchasing their next used vehicle.
“Through our relationship with Experian Automotive, we are able to provide our dealer partners with the tools to make evaluating and acquiring vehicles for their used-car lot quicker and safer,” Mahlik said.
“Being able to gain insight into a vehicle’s history is invaluable to our team and our dealer partners in today's competitive used-car market,” he continued. “We are pleased to work directly with an industry leader and are confident that adding AutoCheck to our already robust inventory data set will give our dealer partners and their customers even more confidence to make an educated buying decision.
AutoCheck will also power the vehicle history data available within DRIVIN Insights, a dealer tool that aims to turn 100 million data points into actionable stories for a dealer’s lot and local market, based on consumer shopping trends, local market supply/demand, optimal inventory levels, and unique dealer behavior.
DRIVIN Insights is currently available to a limited number of DRIVIN dealer partners in each market without a subscription. Market access can be reserved on the DRIVIN website.
Black Book reached a partnership to become the exclusive provider of vehicle valuation data for Auction Simplified, a custom online auction service for individual dealers.
When making the announcement on Wednesday, Black Book highlighted wholesale vehicle buyers and sellers accessing Auction Simplified dealer auctions now can receive access to instant vehicle valuation data powered by Black Book. The data will be used to help both buyers and sellers make the most competitive and profitable decisions possible for inventory procurement or reduction.
“We are pleased that we have established such a strong relationship with an automotive icon such as Black Book,” said Kevin Leigh, co-founder and vice president of sales for Auction Simplified from his office in Lancaster, N.Y.
“For our company, it’s all about the dealer experience and our partnership with Black Book will help us push the envelope in providing dealers with the best possible auction software,” Leigh continued.
With Black Book, Auction Simplified can enable dealerships to instantly make available cars and trucks for wholesale buyers. In addition to maximizing each day for wholesale auctions through the Auction Simplified program, Black Book data can help buyers and sellers maximize profit potential on every transaction.
This arrangement, combined with Auction Simplified’s value-added process of limiting additional transportation and transaction fees, can enable a truly profit-minded transaction for buyers and sellers.
“Our agreement with Auction Simplified positions Black Book as an enabler of profitable dealer-driven auction sales in what has become a digitally concentrated industry,” Black Book senior vice president Jared Kalfus said. “Now, wholesale buyers can become everyday buyers at a dealership, with the tools they need to make profitable decisions on both sides.”
Cloud-based customer engagement solutions provider GoMoto recently finalized integration with Kelley Blue Book to help dealership customers and shoppers see trade‐in values right on the showroom floor as part of the overall vehicle‐buying experience.
By integrating GoMoto’s customer experience platform with information from Kelley Blue Book, dealers can offer the appraisal tool as part of the initial customer registration process and encourage service customers to trade up and explore inventory while on site.
Additionally, dealers can use the GoMoto HUB technology platform to encourage service customers to explore inventory while waiting on site, thus creating more sales opportunities.
“By the time a consumer walks into an auto dealership, many have already done their research online and are hoping for an expedited sales process. GoMoto is working to help dealerships bring the online experience to their brick and mortar stores and being able to bring the trusted Kelley Blue Book information through our software will do just that,” GoMoto chief executive officer and founder Todd Marcelle said.
“Not only will customers have trusted trade-in value at their fingertips, they will experience an efficient, quick and transparent buying process that will make car buying fun again,” Marcelle continued.
The GoMoto platform is a cloud-based, customizable software that can enable dealers and their customers to enter their contact information with an integrated driver’s license scanning tool, assign salespeople, track ad sourcing, research vehicles, value trades, browse dealer incentives and connect directly to a dealer’s CRM.
Applying compelling calls to action can entice buyers to take immediate action while on the showroom floor, test drive or in the service lane.
“Our mission is to empower car buyers with the necessary information to help them get the best deal possible for their trade-in value as well as their new dream car. We’re pleased to partner with GoMoto, an innovator in this space that understands the needs of today’s consumers,” said Damon Bennett, vice president of syndication and eCommerce for Kelley Blue Book.
Coinciding with the NADA Convention & Expo, Black Book formed a distribution agreement with ProMax, which the companies think will help expand the footprint of the new Bullseye Prospecting turnkey platform for dealer marketing campaigns.
Under the agreement, the companies explained ProMax will market the Bullseye Prospecting platform to its network of dealers throughout the United States. Powered by data from Black Book, Bullseye Prospecting is designed to reduce and consolidate the many different touch points involved in the development and execution of a customer campaign.
In early tests, officials indicated Bullseye Prospecting yielded impressive results, helping dealers consolidate their marketing efforts while lowering their cost per car sold overall.
Black Book acknowledged that dealers and their marketing partners often work with several different vendors; all who add to the overall cost of production after markups are taken into effect. Bullseye Prospecting is designed for seamlessly leveraging economies of scale for data coming from DMS, consumer, incentives, and vehicle equity and valuation sources.
The program also can leverage partnerships with photo and printer vendors for direct marketing collateral.
“In today’s automotive industry, dealers are looking for every opportunity to grow margin for their bottom line, especially as profits tighten on vehicle sales,” said Jared Kalfus, senior vice president of sales at Black Book. “Bullseye Prospecting helps drive costs out of their marketing campaigns, and ProMax will help distribute this important resource throughout the dealer community.”
ProMax chief operating officer Shane Born added, “ProMax had the opportunity to conduct an early trial of Bullseye Prospecting and the initial testing produced great results for those dealers involved.
“Bullseye Prospecting will change the way dealers plan and executive customer campaigns, with an eye toward efficiency and cost reduction,” Born went on to say.
To schedule a demo of Bullseye Prospecting, call Black Book at (855) 371-7531 or visit BullseyeProspecting.com.
Data-mining and sales-generation platform AutoAlert expanded into the United Kingdom alongside a partnership with Manchester-based ASE Global.
The company highlighted on Tuesday that AutoAlert’s entrance into the U.K. market leads the way for continued growth opportunities and is supported by ongoing product innovation and enhanced consumer solutions.
AutoAlert said it is focused on creating and implementing cutting-edge products to give dealerships the edge they need in order to provide the best customer experiences.
“AutoAlert is committed to revolutionizing automotive software and providing global solutions to dealerships in order to offer increased opportunities for growth and success,” AutoAlert chief executive officer Mike Dullea said.
“We are focused on adapting our compatibility, utilization of information, and overall profitability for the U.K. automotive market, and our partnership with ASE makes our vision of global expansion a reality,” Dullea said.
Leading expansion efforts will be U.K. AutoAlert co-founder Jeff Cotton, who said, “ASE continues to provide dealers with pioneering automotive solutions, facilitating AutoAlert’s ability to equip dealers with automotive insights that will pave the way toward continued expansion in the U.K., as well as across the globe."
The company pointed out that AutoAlert’s partnership with ASE Global offers a unique opportunity to align itself with a company designed for performance tracking and improvement, as well as automotive-specific financial assurance services.
ASE Global’s commitment to enhance automotive retail performance, alongside AutoAlert's cutting-edge technology in the consumer experience management arena, is culminating in a global industry solution that can offer increased actionable dealership opportunities.
“With ASE’s mission to drive profitability across the global motor industry we are constantly searching for tools and best practices to support our goal,” ASE Global CEO Rob Jones said. “AutoAlert last year was demonstrably responsible for 450,000 vehicle sales in the U.S. and is delivering impressive results for in excess of 2,500 dealers who currently use it in the U.S. and Canada.
“After extensive research and piloting we know that combined with the expertise of our automotive profit optimization team it can do the same in the U.K. and the rest of Europe,” Jones said.
Both AutoAlert and ASE Global mentioned that they look forward to growing together throughout the U.K. and developing new global partnerships.
“By leveraging the expertise and experience of their dedicated professionals, the companies will continue to deliver progressive solutions to the European automotive industry,” the companies said.
AutoAlert professionals will be on-hand to demonstrate the company's most recent product developments and comprehensive solutions for dealerships at during this week’s NADA Convention and Expo in Las Vegas. The company is stationed at booth No. 2341C.
Black Book has signed a partnership deal with DRIVIN to be the exclusive vehicle valuation provider for the company’s proprietary inventory trading platform.
Also, under the partnership announced Monday, Black Book will power the vehicle valuation function of DRIVIN Insights. That tool, which is currently being piloted, allows dealers to take 100 million data points and turn them “into actionable stories for a dealer’s lot and local market, based on consumer shopping trends, local market supply/demand, optimal inventory levels, and unique dealer behavior.”
DRIVIN dealer partners can tap into the Insights tool without paying a subscription fee.
Other pieces of the partnership include the following: Black Book is integrating the DRIVIN Buy Confidence and negotiated inventory widgets into their Black Book Digital mobile application; Black Book and DRIVIN will collaborate on creating data-based insights and used-car trend reports to share with dealer partners.
“DRIVIN is disrupting the used-car industry by offering dealers a better way to source, acquire and receive the right, quality inventory for their lot,” said Black Book’s Jared Kalfus, senior vice president of sales. “We are excited by this long-term partnership and look forward to being their exclusive partner for valuation services, while offering our dealers access to DRIVIN’s pre-negotiated inventory and premier sourcing service via our Black Book Digital mobile app. DRIVIN helps dealers rethink their sourcing strategy and stock the right used cars for their lot based on consumer demand, local market analysis and profit margins.”
DRIVIN chief executive officer Kayne Grau said: “We are proud to join forces with Black Book, a leader in the automotive industry. Using their data and standardizing vehicle valuations across our suite of products, including Insights and Marketplace, will help us better serve the needs of our current and future dealer partners
“Additionally, we are excited to integrate our Buy Confidence and negotiated inventory widgets into the Black Book mobile app, expanding our reach and delivering real value to their dealer network with expanded nationwide access and efficient sourcing,” he said.
Customer contact management company CallRevu and dealership software provider ELEAD1ONE recently introduced the seamless integration of CallRevu into the ELEAD1ONE CRM platform.
CallRevu can provide call management tools for dealers to handle phone calls, improve employee phone skills and discover more sales and service opportunities through live, actionable alerts.
“Every phone call is an opportunity to get or keep a customer and the only way to increase sales, ongoing loyalty and improve CSI is to focus on your caller’s journey,” CallRevu said.
The advanced integration is geared to bring all of the CallRevu data and functionality inside of ELEAD1ONE CRM platform. With a single login, dealers can get the data to have familiar conversations that lead to appointments. Because CallRevu listens to every call, the CRM is populated with “only true” sales opportunities.
CallRevu estimated the average lifespan of a phone up is nine days so dealers can benefit from the integration by getting phone ups into the CRM so follow up can happen before a caller buys somewhere else.
Chip King, founder and managing partner at CallRevu addressed what he described as the importance of earning asking and receiving customer contact information for proper entry into CRM.
“Our bench-marking call study indicates that the average dealership fails to obtain customer contact information 52 percent of the time,” King said. “CRM administrators tend to only want to use caller stated contact information, as it is not only accurate but the preferred customer experience.
“Here at CallRevu, we are pleased to automate our dealer client workflows, and continuing to stress that success comes with an optimal caller’s journey and that only happens when you earn, ask, and receive contact information,” he continued.
Dealers will be able to view the full transcription, the ad source, the agent who handled, the vehicle information, and other important data without switching between tabs or systems to follow up on missed opportunities. CallRevu said effective management of ad dollars requires that leads are followed.
The company went on to mention managers can be confident that agents are following up with leads in their CRM system by making outbound calls with a click-to-call. In addition to tracking the calls the store’s team makes, CallRevu can creates more opportunities for agents to connect with customers through texting.
Offering text visibility and response tools directly inside the CRM system, agents can now double their contact rates.
“Without a doubt, ELEAD1ONE understands the importance of measuring phone performance. The CallRevu team has done a great job writing telephony integration standard APIs,” said Mark Queen, partner of ELEAD1ONE, a division of Data Software Services.
“Last year, they recognized and responded to an industry-wide need for measuring outbound call productivity on a daily basis,” Queen added. “It’s a pleasure to partner with companies who share an open architecture belief, as we do. Secure integration allows the dealer, not their vendors, to decide how best to run their business.”
Born in a dealership in 2007 to understand why an ad campaign didn’t sell more vehicles, CallRevu is designed to put dealers in contact with more phone leads and prevents any opportunities from being missed, improving chances that they will turn into sales.
Since inception, CallRevu’s approach has been complex and more labor intensive because dealers need real-time missed opportunity alerts, along with great call data and reporting. To achieve these goals, CallRevu created a process to certify live agents who listen to all important calls from beginning to end.
And now CallRevu is integrated into ELEAD1ONE
“We are excited about the integration. It provides dealers with additional efficiencies, which in turn will help them maximize their CRMs to follow up with customers and sell more cars,” CallRevu executive vice president Tom Harsha said.
“We believe that these new partnerships also support our mission to improve the customer experience and our laser focus on helping automobile dealers measure and improve the most common contact point with their customers — the phone,” Harsha went on to say.
Canada-based automotive technology company Selectbidder has recently penned a partnership with one of California’s largest independent auctions: North Hollywood’s own All Valley Dealers Auto Auction.
AVDA Auction plans to use Selectbidder’s platform to manage real-time bids between its network of dealers for their respective trade-ins.
“This new technology is important to our business,” said Victor Soghomonian, the auction’s owner. “Using Selectbidder will help our dealers buy and sell more cars straight from their lots because they will be dealing with us at the point of trade. This makes the whole process faster and easier.”
Meanwhile, 3,500 miles away, in Moncton, New Brunswick, Selectbidder continues its roll of signing auctions in the United States, including other, previously signed independent auctions in Florida, Maine and Pennsylvania.
The Selectbidder platform itself is fairly simple: a selling dealer scans the VIN and takes a few photos of a potential trade-in vehicle and posts the information along with a condition report to Selectbidder. A notification is sent to select dealers in the auction’s network of dealers and interested dealers can make bids on the vehicle in real time. The dealer can then show this offer to their customer during negotiations to ensure they know they’re getting a fair deal.
“We’re pleased to welcome AVDA Auction to the growing Selectbidder family,” said Sean Liptay, Selectbidder’s chief executive officer. “They are part of a growing wave of independent auctions who see how technology can make their business more efficient and profitable. We look forward to helping them make the trade-in process more efficient for their dealers.”
For more information on Selectbidder, check out its site here.
