ServNet auctions now have the capability to scrub another part of vehicles that are coming down the lanes at their facilities.
According to the group’s recent newsletter, ServNet recently formed a partnership with Privacy4Cars, which has a platform designed to erase nonpublic personal information (NPI) from vehicles.
And auctions already using the technology praised its capabilities to help them serve consignors and other customers.
ServNet leaders highlighted that Privacy4Cars’ proprietary platform makes it possible to delete NPI from vehicles consigned at the auction, produce comprehensive compliance records that are fully integrated with AutoIMS, and mitigate associated liabilities of data related issues with a Privacy4Cars limited liability warranty certification.
Robert Sullivan, ServNet’s administrative director and certified corporate compliance and ethics professional explained that NPI is a rising compliance and reputation risk for the remarketing business.
“While many data security and privacy laws have been written by regulators with computers and phones in mind, the growing capabilities of vehicles to capture and store personal information makes them fall under those laws,” Sullivan said in the newsletter sent to Auto Remarketing.
“Using car menus is not a documentable process and we found that manuals are hard and time-intensive to use, if they are even available,” Sullivan continued. “Privacy4Cars is easy to adopt, simple to use, and, most importantly, it provides auctions with a certificate confirming that NPI has been deleted from the vehicle and is backed by a warranty.”
Developed by Andrea Amico, an authority on vehicle privacy and cybersecurity, Privacy4Cars offers a standard process that makes data deletion simple and scalable.
Auctions and their personnel can reliably, rapidly and intuitively delete the NPI stored in vehicle systems, complete with receipt of completion and warranty.
“We are very excited to offer yet another service to our customers that we feel is vital in today’s environment,” said Chad Bailey, president of Akron Auto Auction and ServNet’s vice president.
“Knowing that a vehicle can capture a huge amount of personal information, including home addresses, garage codes, previous destinations, call logs, contacts, text messages and the like, we want to ensure that such information is safely and securely wiped clean from each vehicle, ensuring yet another level of customer and consumer satisfaction,” Bailey continued.
Cindy Mitchell is vice president commercial accounts at BSC America’s Bel Air Auto Auction, which has been using the platform for the past year.
“We love the ease of using the application that walks you through the steps needed for each make and model to complete the removal of personal data from the car’s computer,” Mitchell said. “The added assurance of getting the ‘Green Light,’ telling you the removal was successful is also important for us to know.
“Now with the integration of Privacy4Cars with AutoIMS, our customers can see first-hand that personal information has been deleted by looking at the data deletion status and viewing the warranty for data deletion fields in AutoIMS, which is an added plus,” she went on to say.
The Privacy4Cars platform was highlighted in the Remarketing Superheroes webinar recently hosted by AutoIMS and the International Automotive Remarketers Alliance (IARA). In that workshop, several industry members pointed out that Privacy4Cars’ centralized and certified records on AutoIMS are the simplest way for consignors to generate reports across their entire remarketing portfolio and prove to their internal auditing (and potentially to third party inquiries) that their policies are being followed, greatly reducing potential legal liabilities and reputation risks.
“Thanks to our partnership with Privacy4Cars, clearing all of the electronic NPI from a vehicle at State Line AA is now streamlined,” said Mark Kuzma, inspections and imaging manager at State Line Auto Auction.
“The Privacy4Cars app provides us with a detailed, vehicle specific, step-by-step process, that ensures 100% success when clearing electronic NPI content for our remarketing partners,” Kuzma added.
Two more dealership service providers became part of the CDK Global Partner Program, which provides its partners with access to a diverse CDK ecosystem through the ability to integrate with a range of CDK applications, as well as with CDK dealer and third-party websites.
The two newest additions to come on board Tuesday include Arcade, a software company engaging people across workforces, and Volie, creators of communication software for the automotive industry.
Founded in 2015, Arcade leverages gamification and other technology to enable companies to increase employee performance, productivity and engagement across their workforce and teams.
Through Arcade’s all-in-one, innovative solution, companies can implement rewards, recognition, contests and other programs via any smartphone, tablet or other device, as well as streamline communication and staff training.
The company’s participation in the CDK Global Partner Program brings Arcade to dealers seeking to increase productivity, employee retention and other benefits.
“We’re thrilled that automotive dealers that run on CDK around the world will now have access to Arcade through the CDK Global Partner Program,” Arcade chief revenue officer Andre Riley said in a news release.
“We know how challenging it can be for these organizations to engage employees and drive productivity, particularly across multiple locations and teams. Arcade provides a solution,” Riley continued.
Meanwhile, Volie’s BDC-in-a-box can is designed to enable call centers and dealers to run their operations more profitability. The solution can allow dealers to run very granular campaigns that target their highest priorities. This integration speeds up the process as they no longer have to go back and forth between CDK and Volie.
Volie’s integration with the dealer’s DMS also can allow the dealer’s BDC to use DMS data to build sales and service campaigns, and the campaign engine ensures there are no duplicate customers across all marketing initiatives.
“We are very excited to be part of CDK’s Global Partner Program. This data integration will enable Voile’s BDC in a Box to power sales and service BDC’s for many of North America’s best dealers,” Volie president and co-founder Scott Davis said in another news release.
“Our mission is to deliver software people love to use and make it easy to communicate with their customers. This integration helps improve the process for our CDK dealers,” Davis continued.
In each news release, Dave LaGreca, senior vice president and general manager of Fortellis and Data at CDK Global, described what it means to add these two service providers into the program.
“We’re very pleased to introduce Arcade as the newest member of the CDK Global Partner Program,” LaGreca said. “Arcade is a welcomed addition.
“We’re pleased to introduce Volie as the newest member of the CDK Global Partner Program,” LaGreca continued. “Volie is a welcome addition to our vibrant program that provides dealers with a range of partner choices and the assurance that their programs can be seamlessly integrated with our applications.”
Along with finalizing a commercial agreement with Inmar Intelligence, Modal, which that provides e-commerce tools to dealers and brands, this week announced its newly appointed chief executive officer.
Taking over the role is an executive who already has been with the company since last August, as chief operating officer Sameer Bhalla has been chosen to be CEO.
According to a news release, Modal founder Aaron Krane will continue as executive chairman.
Modal highlighted that Bhalla has been instrumental in driving the company’s product, engineering and corporate strategy. The company noted that Bhalla possesses more than a decade of high-growth technology expertise as both an exited founder and growth investor, during which he has spearheaded all facets in a technology company’s lifecycle.
Most recently, Bhalla built and exited San Francisco-based Swoop, a vertical SaaS roadside-assistance platform, for which the company raised $3 million in seed capital and scaled up to more than $100 million in gross transaction value and more than 40 employees. Post-acquisition, Bhalla served on the senior executive staff of Agero, an enterprise provider of digital driver-assistance services.
“Since joining the company a year ago, Sameer has been playing a pivotal leadership role, and it’s great to finally make it official by announcing him as Modal’s new CEO,” Krane said in the news release.
“His deep expertise in operations, team building, and partnership development throughout the automotive ecosystem, starting with Inmar Intelligence, will continue to be a tremendous asset to the company’s growth,” Krane continued.
And the company certainly is in growth mode having landed the relationship with Inmar Intelligence.
Modal’s current automotive ecommerce solution encompasses the entire buying process, including trade-in, financing and final purchase documents.
Combining those capabilities with Inmar Intelligence’s deep experience with consumer packaged goods and retail brands to segment and target individual audiences, the companies said their agreement will empower dealers to increase overall ROI by seizing the digital transformation of traditional vehicle buying.
The companies went on to mention their enhanced technology can allow dealers to segment consumers to secure highly qualified leads, deliver personalized messages to engage customers, and increase conversions.
“The COVID crisis has pushed online car-buying to unprecedented levels, and that consumer behavior is here to stay,” said Rob Weisberg, senior vice president of automotive at Inmar Intelligence.
“In working with Modal, we are leveraging aggregated purchase data and AI to drive more qualified visitors to the dealer websites and improve visitor-to-buyer conversion. Simply put, dealers will sell more cars online by driving more customers through the sales funnel at a higher rate,” Weisberg continued in another news release.
Flow Automotive already has enjoyed the potential gains the agreement Inmar Intelligence and Modal could generate.
“The collaboration between Inmar Intelligence and Modal has transformed our Flow Express digital retail experience into a true profit center. Online as a channel now represents over 50% of our sales and over 800 customers a month utilize Modal,” said Flow Automotive president Eric Flow, who is enjoying a 348% return on his investment, according to the other news release.
“This technology has allowed us to remain nimble throughout the pandemic, providing a safe contact-free buying experience that our customers expect, and we are thrilled with our success so far,” Flow went on to say.
Now as CEO, Bhalla is looking to create more success stories like Flow Automotive through the collaboration with Inmar Intelligence.
“Under Aaron’s strong leadership in an ever-consolidating market, we’ve proudly remained one of the few independent and privately held key players, experiencing an 800 percent increase in online transactions year-on-year, which Inmar Intelligence will accelerate,” Bhalla said.
“By leveraging Inmar’s segmentation, targeting, and lifecycle-attribution capabilities, we’re catapulting analytics to the forefront. More than a transaction, it’s connecting with the right customer at the right time, and we are already seeing spikes in order conversion,” he went on to say.
Last fall, Carketa secured funding to expand nationwide. Then in January, the dealership solutions software company added condition reports to its platform.
And according to a news release distributed on Monday, the Utah-based startup announced that it has become a participant in the CDK Global Partner Program.
As a member of one of the largest third-party partner programs in the industry, Carketa is now part of a marketplace of applications and integration of CDK Global
The CDK Global Partner Program provides its partners with access to a diverse CDK ecosystem through the ability to integrate with a range of CDK applications, as well as with CDK dealer websites.
“We’re very pleased to introduce Carketa as the newest member of the CDK Global Partner Program,” said Howard Gardner, vice president and general manager of CDK Data Services.
“Carketa is a welcome addition to our vibrant program that provides dealers with a range of partner choices and the assurance that their programs can be seamlessly integrated with our applications,” Gardner continued.
The Carketa integrations can push dealership inventory through a streamlined system to move vehicles to the frontline of your sales lot faster.
“We are excited to be partnering with CDK helping dealerships streamline their process to sell more cars, in less time, for more money,” Carketa chief executive officer Brady Thurgood said.
For more information on Carketa’s vehicle condition reports and available integrations, go to Carketa.com.
Black Book added to its collection of five integrations the company has finalized so far this year.
On Monday, Black Book formed a relationship with CarDr.com that will focus on data points to help dealers better identify vehicles with lower risks and higher potential profitability.
Black Book reiterated its pricing and value data includes statistical analysis that can allow for current and time-sensitive changes in historical valuation to be easily understood, resulting in reliable predictors of the vehicle’s actual value.
The CarDr.com’s Vehicle Appraisal smartphone application can allow dealership staff to detect not only p code, but OEM-level C & B codes. OEM OBD diagnostics can allow a dealer at an auction or a trade-in point to make an immediate OEM level diagnostic of a vehicle to understand the potential issues better.
In addition, CarDr.com said its appraisal report generated from the application has proven to be a valuable tool for automotive wholesalers to share appraisal reports with their potential buyers easily.
“This tool will be critical, allowing dealers to instantly determine precise values of used vehicles,” Black Book vice president of data licensing Susan Moritz said in a news release.
“When we talk about providing the most accurate real-time valuation data, this tool illustrates the real-world impact. This has the potential to save dealers thousands of dollars per transaction,” Moritz added.
The company went on to mention the mutual relationship will foster an understanding of what drives the auto market and what factors help set vehicle-specific values. In addition, they will include essential data points, like how key attributes such as model, year and trim options affect value.
Beyond those core attributes, Black Book values are affected by industry trends, depreciation rates and curves and future predictions.
By providing accurate car values from Black Book, CarDr.com said it will uniquely position itself as a one-stop-shop for dealerships that need to accurately manage and weigh risks associated with their physical inventories.
Furthermore, the site highlighted historical data of a given model’s market performance and data analysis will be accessible to allow dealers to better manage, understand and calculate their inventory risks.
“We are excited to partner with Black Book to offer instant OEM-level vehicle OBD diagnostics with real-time data. The solution offers used-car dealers a world-class vehicle appraisal solution that generates most reliable predictors of values and potential risks,” CarDr.com founder Parry Singh said.
Black Book’s relationship with CarDr.com arrived after the company landed alliances with other firms earlier this year, including:
—Constant
—Origence
—Your Auto Advocate
—360 AUTO
—Vettx
Transporting a vehicle can have a lot of moving parts and, well, logistics involved.
And new partnership aims to help improve the chain of custody, communications and transparency in that process of moving vehicles.
ConditionReports.com has created a new app called “TransportCR” that’s connected to AutoIMS. The tool aims to better capture the transportation inspection by giving the user the ability to take photos and catalogue damage at the time the vehicle is picked up or dropped off.
The app uses geo-tagging, date and time stamps and user-specific authentication.
It aims to give auctions, consignors and dealers a way to ensure accountability all-around when working with independent transporters, should any damage occur.
The TransportCR app’s inspections automatically populate on AutoIMS.com, giving the user an easy way to compare the inspection to the auction condition report.
AutoIMS membership is not required to use TransportCR.
“The beginning of this idea came from our friend, Joe LeMonds, while he was with Carolina Auto Auction,” Joe Miller of AutoIMS said in a news release. “Fast forward many months, and thanks to a very patient team at ConditionReports.com, we are eager to see the value this new tool will now deliver to the industry.”
Greensboro Auto Auction is the first to adopt TransportCR. In the release, general manager Jerry Barker said: “We were in the right place at the right time to test this, and are now excited to partner with both AutoIMS and ConditionReports.com as this new app helps us close a number of gaps with our transporters.”
Added ConditionReports.com chief executive officer Brian Schear: “This app is a potent antidote for an issue that affects so many remarketers. We were uniquely positioned to understand and balance the needs and capabilities of the transporter community with those of the auction and consignor world.
“The Greensboro input paired with AutoIMS support has helped turn this into a robust, easy-to-adopt, value-adding tool,” he added.
During the fall, ACV Auctions formed a partnership with the American Recovery Association to inspect, list and sell vehicles directly from ARA member storage facilities.
And now, in an effort to grow its commercial and rental business models and increase services for dealerships, ACV has announced a partnership with ParkMyFleet to provide flexible property solutions and staging on the ACV platform.
ACV plans to leverage off-site vehicle remarketing with this latest relationship with ParkMyFleet, which offers flexible, agnostic, property solutions for fleet mobility that include parking, servicing, staging and logistic support in its phase one growth structure.
Like many ways the industry has responded to the pandemic, ParkMyFleet chief executive officer Mike Landau explained how this partnership developed from the ongoing situation.
“When COVID-19 hit, we were faced with a national portfolio of properties in different stages of development,” Landau said in a news release. “Not knowing what the environment would look like in a post-pandemic world, we chose to pivot and identify properties that could answer to a problem in the auto Industry.
“We expected to be a short-term solution, but as we delved into the industry, we found a need for agnostic properties where vehicle fleets and logistics companies could park, be serviced, or staged for virtual remarketing,” he continued.
Landau added that other industry feedback suggested several verticals could leverage ParkMyFleet’s property assets and partners to create a collaborative life cycle service product. He noted that ParkMyFleet’s short-term “Band-Aid” became a permanent, long-term model servicing several auto and trucking segments with full mobility sites in its vision.
“Partnering with ACV was a logical extension of our initial plan and an invaluable partnership for ParkMyFleet’s continued growth,” Landau said.
ACV chief executive officer George Chamoun also shared his perspective about the latest partnership the company has forged.
“ACV has proven to be a trusted business option for dealers across the U.S. as we guide them through the digital auction process with as much transparency as possible,” Chamoun said.
“With our growing business, we are excited to be partnering with ParkMyFleet to leverage off-site vehicle remarketing as we build our relationships across commercial and rental business models, offering an easy way to buy and sell vehicles based on inventory needs,” he went on to say.
Especially if you reside within the city limits, you can have beauty products, burritos or beer brought to your front door with just a couple of taps on your smartphone.
To help the service providers who need a vehicle to deliver those items, TrueCar and HyreCar announced a new partnership on Wednesday, targeting the car-sharing marketplace for ridesharing, food and package delivery services.
The companies highlighted that launch of the HyreCar Auto Buying Program powered by TrueCar addresses the vehicle purchase needs of drivers and owners that work in the mobility and transportation industry.
HyreCar said its Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) marketplace generates tens of thousands of potential automotive purchase and rental leads per month. The partnership will leverage TrueCar’s online vehicle research, trade-in, pricing and payment tools.
TrueCar explained its national dealer network of more than 14,000 stores now can assist HyreCar customers to acquire a new or used vehicle or to sell or trade-in their vehicle.
Additionally, the TrueCar partnership will support HyreCar’s Earn to Own program for qualified HyreCar customers.
“HyreCar customers rent, sell and buy vehicles. The TrueCar partnership offers a seamless way to address this significant market in a relevant and effective manner for dealers and customers,” HyreCar chief executive officer Joe Furnari said in a news release.
“Additionally, TrueCar helps create awareness that vehicle dealers can benefit from serving the Mobility-as-a-Service industry via HyreCar’s platform,” added Furnari, who also mentioned that the partnership will potentially grow to include special OEM offers and dedicated vehicle finance solutions.
Brian Allan is senior vice president at HyreCar and a former general manager at Galpin Motors. Allan described what the partnership could mean for stores.
“From a dealer’s perspective, I am excited about the TrueCar partnership because vehicle dealers are best suited to serve mobility customers and the entire dealer ecosystem benefits from this under-served customer segment,” Allan said.
Furthermore, TrueCar president and chief executive officer Mike Darrow elaborated about why the company is embarking on this partnership.
“We’re excited to make car buying easier for HyreCar’s car-sharing community and to help them in their journey to find a safe, reliable, and affordable vehicle that is not only used as a personal vehicle, but one that’s also used to earn their livelihood,” Darrow said.
“We are also very pleased to offer TrueCar dealer partners a new channel to sell and acquire vehicles through the HyreCar marketplace,” he went on to say.
The HyreCar Auto Buying Program can be accessed at https://hyrecar.truecar.com.
Two dealerships service providers — DealerPolicy and FRIKINtech — announced on Wednesday that they’re now working together.
The insurance marketplace solution for dealers and the retail desking and CRM tool provider said they have teamed up to provide online car shoppers with a better experience. FRINKINtech has integrated with DealerPolicy’s FastPASS API, allowing them to offer customers access to DealerPolicy Insurance while they shop for a vehicle.
Leveraging the technology of DealerPolicy’s FastPass mobile solution, the company highlighted that the integration can allow customers to compare insurance rates for the model of their interest and seamlessly buy insurance during the vehicle-buying process.
“For car buyers, this new solution lends a more holistic picture of the overall monthly vehicle cost representing the two largest expenses side by side: auto insurance and the vehicle payment,” DealerPolicy chief executive officer Travis Fitzgerald said in a news release.
“When customers save money on auto insurance, they often realize, that also increases their spending power as a result. Those extra dollars can be reinvested back into other value-add F&I products or services offered by the dealer,” Fitzgerald continued.
The companies explained the API FRIKINtech is accessing was developed off DealerPolicy’s proprietary customer experience, FastPass, which is designed to be a simple and intuitive way to shop and buy auto insurance online.
Its proprietary one-touch questionnaire and aggregate of prefill solutions from leading data providers can produce multiple insurance quotes to present to customers and can connect them to a licensed insurance agent instantly.
The integration of J.D. Power’s Intelligent Match platform adds a scoring value to each FastPass quote based on shoppers’ personal preferences, increasing the overall buying experience with a new degree of accuracy and efficiency.
Alex Snyder of FRIKINtech emphasized that dealers also win with the integration.
“Not only are car buyers getting a more complete picture of the cost to purchase, but the integration passes back valuable data to our dealers on the customer’s insurance savings and trade-ins, giving them a much better sense of a customer’s available budget,” Snyder said.
The majority of DealerPolicy Insurance customers save an average of $63 per month or $762 per year. Those savings translate into an additional $3,694 of buying power when financing a car, which is often put toward F&I products.
Dealers in DealerPolicy’s network report an average increase of 34% in their back-end gross sales for deals where the customer also purchased an insurance policy through DealerPolicy Insurance.
The new FastPass API is available now to digital retailers and automotive vendors.
More details can be found at https://www.dealerpolicy.com/fastpass-api. For more information on integrating the FastPass API, send a message to rfitzgerald@dealerpolicy.com.
Spiffy began as a mobile car wash and detailing service, but has since expanded to cover other aspects of car care, like oil changes, tire replacement and vehicle disinfection.
And Wednesday, the company announced a trio of partnerships and a third-party marketplace that address the needs of vehicle ownership to an even deeper degree — and beyond vehicle care and maintenance
Through its Complete Car Care program, Spiffy has lined up partnerships with Carvana, Gabi and Uproar.car to help consumers handle the vehicle lifecycle needs involving trade-in valuation, insurance and warranty/repairs, respectively.
Breaking those down, Gabi is designed to help vehicle owners change or bundle insurance coverage to save money, using an insurance comparison tool. Uproar.car aims to take extended warranties and convert them to monthly subscriptions.
And while most know of Carvana as an online car retailer, its partnership with Spiffy involves the trade-in process, using its trade-in valuation tool.
Consumers can use the Spiffy app to punch in vehicle information to generate a trade-in value from Carvana, the consumer can either put that towards the purchase of a vehicle from Carvana or sell their car to Carvana.
“This idea of ‘complete car care’ has been a long-term goal for a while, and started coming together with Safelite earlier this year,” Spiffy chief executive officer Scot Wingo said in a news release.
“What excites us most about these partnerships is how the combined value elevates the experience of every Spiffy customer,” Wingo said. “Instead of just getting a car wash or oil change, we’re aiming to simplify every step of car ownership, from insurance coverage and warranties to lifetime maintenance and trade-in valuation.”
