Users of both AutoManager’s suite of solutions and data from NADA Used Car Guide will now be able to access the latter across three of AutoManager’s offerings.
Previously only available in the DeskManager DMS software, users can now utilize the NADA UCG data in AutoManager’s mobile app as well as via its WebManager marketing platform.
The company’s aim? To allow users to value vehicles on the road at auctions, on the lot and during private sales.
“We have had great success with NADA Used Car Guide in the past, which is why we are so excited to expand our integration,” said Kami Tafreshi, AutoManager’s chief executive officer. “Many of our dealers rave about the NADA Used Car Guide valuation tool, so to be able to offer it among all products at one low price per lot, regardless of number of users, is a great benefit to our customers.”
According to the company, AutoManager is the first company in the industry to offer NADA Used Car Guide’s valuation tools in both its DMS and its Web marketing platform.
“We are excited to work with AutoManager to provide pricing data across three of their products,” said Mike Stanton, NADA Used Car Guide’s vice president and chief operating officer. “The integration helps make the marketing — and ultimately selling process — more efficient for dealers.”
Want more info on AutoManager’s offerings or a free download of its software demo? Visit its site here.
Selectbidder, a Canadian auto tech company best known for its auction-centric dealer trade networking platform for trade-in vehicles, launched its product in the United States market last month and officially announced its first American auction partner on Tuesday.
Eighteen-hundred miles away from Selectbidder’s Moncton, New Brunswick home is Melbourne, Fla.-based Space Coast Auto Auction, who will utilize the Selectbidder platform to orchestrate real-time bids for its network of dealers handling trade-ins.
How exactly does it work? To put it simply, the Selectbidder platform takes an auction’s already established network of dealers and connects those with recent or pending trade-ins to other dealers interested in buying them.
Joe Pritchett, Space Coast’s chief executive officer, explains his reaction to the solution, which was recently demonstrated for him at the 2015 NAAA Convention in Orlando, Fla.
“Once we saw how Selectbidder puts our auction into the trade-in process, I knew we needed to start using it,” Pritchett said. “With Selectbidder, our selling dealers are going to deal with us at the point of trade, allowing us to sell more cars straight from their lots. Our dealers and their customers are going to love how quickly and easily they get live offers on their Trade-ins. For our dealer buyers, it’s going to allow them to tap into fresher vehicles earlier in the remarketing process.”
Basing the system around what Selectbidder considers the “original dealer network” – the auction – the company aims to increase transparency for everyone involved, including the customer, who can see for themselves how much the dealer will receive for the trade-in vehicle at the next step in the sale cycle.
In a previous interview with Auto Remarketing, Selectbidder chief executive officer Sean Liptay said he hopes this is just the beginning of his tech-company’s growth in the U.S.
“The beauty of the product is that it can be up and running within a week in any location in North America, based around surrounding independent auctions,” Liptay said. “So it doesn’t matter if it’s the local auction in Florida versus the local auction in Louisiana, they can be up and running because they already have the relationship network built.”
Interested in reading more about Selectbidder and other companies making noise in the auction industry? Stay tuned for our Oct. 15 issue of Auto Remarketing, both in print and online, where we delve further into the topics of digital trends, tools and strategies for the wholesale market.
Editor Joe Overby contributed to the reporting for this story.
Online vehicle retailer Carvana has set up shop in Houston, its second stop in the Lone Star State after adding Dallas to its list of markets earlier this year.
Offering its free, next-day delivery services to the estimated 7.7 million consumers within a 100-mile radius of the Houston city center, Carvana now brings its physical presence tally to six markets. In addition to Houston and Dallas, those markets also include Atlanta; Birmingham, Ala.; Nashville, Tenn;. and Charlotte, N.C.
According to the company, Carvana’s free, next-day delivery offering is now available to 39.2 million consumers, with additional delivery options to consumers throughout the country.
“We are extremely excited to bring our offering to more than seven million residents in the greater Houston area,” said Ernie Garcia, Carvana’s founder and chief executive officer. “The response from customers around the country for a new way to buy a car — including getting financing, trading in their old car, signing contracts online and direct delivery, along with a seven-day, no questions asked return policy — has been has been very enthusiastic. Opening Houston is an important, 7-million person step in our mission to offer customers everywhere a better way to buy a car.”
The company added that it is offering to refund the delivery fee for the Houston-area shoppers that purchased vehicles from Carvana prior to the latter’s physical expansion into the area.
For more information on Carvana, visit its site here.
After reading this headline, you may be saying to yourself, "What is a 'phablet?'"
Or holding back a chuckle at the silly sound of the word.
While either of those might be an appropriate response, a "phablet" — a smartphone with a screen size of 5.5 inches or larger, nearing the size of a tablet — is the source of media for a large constituent of mobile users.
And, according to the J.D. Power 2015 Automotive Mobile Site Study, the satisfaction with OEM and third-party automotive websites is higher across all aspects of the online experience among shoppers using them.
"Automotive manufacturer and third-party website designers should be mindful of growing phablet usage and take advantage of the larger screen by displaying more content and adding detail to maximize shopper satisfaction and drive more traffic to dealer showrooms," said Arianne Walker, senior director of automotive media and marketing at J.D. Power. "The time spent on mobile devices for automotive shopping is increasing, and this trend of buying and using phablets is expected to continue."
Breaking down the numbers, the study shows that vehicle shoppers using "phablets" are more satisfied with their individual website experiences than those who use smaller smartphones (797 versus 771, respectively, on a 1,000-point scale).
There are also significant satisfaction gaps in individual study measures for shoppers using larger or smaller smartphones, including satisfaction with information/content (796 versus 769), navigation (783 versus 758), appearance (816 versus 791) and speed (794 versus 767).
Acura, TrueCar shine in website rankings
Looking directly at the ratings of manufacturer-branded and third-party website rankings, on the same 1,000-point scale, Acura ranked the highest (812) in overall customer satisfaction index scores of OEM sites while TrueCar ranked the highest (776) among its third-party rivals.
Here are the top three for each segment:
Manufacturer-branded mobile site rankings
- Acura (812)
- Infiniti (809)
- Fiat (808)
Third-party mobile site rankings
- TrueCar (776)
- CarGurus & Yahoo! Autos (both 744)
- U.S. News Best Cars (742)
Want to check out the full J.D. Power Automotive Mobile Site Study? Click here.
The JM&A Group has renewed its agreement with Kia Motors America.
Partnered since 2007, JM&A will continue to offer the Kia Distinction branded F&I products and extended warranty services.
According to JM&A, 716 Kia dealers offer at least one of JM&A’s products, with more than 400 utilizing at least five of its offerings.
“We are thrilled to continue our relationship with Kia,” said Forrest Heathcott, JM&A’s president. “We have a great momentum and expect another excellent performance year. JM&A remains committed to providing automotive dealers with strategic support and we look forward to helping Kia maintain superior performance and growth.”
In addition to Kia’s suite of branded products, JM&A also offers Kia dealers F&I training in several areas, including associate development, consumer-friendly sales methods, compliance, marketing and e-contracting.
According to JM&A, Kia Distinction product sales have increased by 25 percent over the last eight years while the Kia certified pre-owned program continues to experience retail growth at 43 percent.
“Our customers’ satisfaction and peace of mind is our highest priority, and providing our dealers with the best possible F&I products and training in the industry helps us ensure that the needs of Kia customers will be met,” said David Carp, Kia’s director of fleet, remarketing and CPO. “We look forward to continuing this relationship with JM&A and utilizing the tools they help us provide our dealers.”
This week, customer relationship management solution OneCommand finalized the certified integration of its HigherGear CRM with Guest Concept’s 1st Pencil, a dealership sales presentation software provider.
Executives explained that 1st Pencil and HigherGear CRM have historically been used autonomously by dealers across the country. They indicated this new integration is designed to provide enrolled dealers with the ability to utilize the 1st Pencil presentation software and processes within their HigherGear CRM workflow to improve payment negotiations, customer satisfaction, and month-over-month sales.
The HigherGear CRM’s current desking tool has been replaced by 1st Pencil’s software to provide dealers a fresh and easy approach to selling vehicles and presenting numbers.
“For years, the OneCommand team has focused on providing control, accountability, and utilization of the HigherGear CRM for their dealer clients. With the 1st Pencil integration, these dealers will also receive an enhanced set of tools to sell more customers on their first visit to the dealership,” OneCommand president and chief executive officer Jeff Hart said.
“When selling a car, presenting numbers to potential buyers, if not done properly, can turn the buyer off from the sale. That’s why this integration is so important to our dealer clients. 1st Pencil instantly creates a customer-friendly presentation zeroing in on the motivating factors in the car buying decision,” Hart went on to say.
Hart added that the ease-of-use features within the HigherGear CRM have always been a top priority for the OneCommand team, and dealers are utilizing the combination of these two products to seamlessly close more opportunities.
Using Guest Concept’s 1st Pencil solution can provide dealerships a customer-friendly approach to sales negotiations that enhances profitability, increases closing rates, reduces negotiation times, and improves customer satisfaction rates.
“We are extremely excited about working with the HigherGear team. The feedback we’ve received from the enrolled dealers about the integrated system has been outstanding,” Guest Concepts president David Krier said.
For more details, go to www.onecommand.com or www.guestconcepts.com.
Dealers looking for cars at auction should be able to make quick and “better-informed” decisions with an integration that brings Carfax data and insights to vAuto’s Provision and AuctionGenius products.
That’s according to a news release Tuesday announcing a deal for Carfax Advantage dealers using those two tools to receive instantaneous views of reported accident and ownership, service and usage history of used cars at the auction.
“It’s a significant undertaking to bring tens of thousands of Carfax Reports and auction vehicles together in a manner that allows dealers to know right away if a vehicle matches their acquisition criteria,” says Randy Kobat, vice president and general manager of vAuto. “Dealers trust Carfax, and we made it a priority to bring their trusted information to the forefront of the auction acquisition process
“A lot of credit goes to the integration teams at vAuto and Carfax for helping vAuto dealers work faster and smarter as they acquire inventory,” Kobat added.
Here’s more on how it works. The Provision and AuctionGenius tools from vAuto will show icons for each car at the auction. These auctions will indicate reported accidents, available service records, number of previous owners and ownership type (for example, if the car was lease or a rental).
Dealers can simply click to get more information and view the entire Carfax Report inside the vAuto platforms.
The integration also allows for dealers using Provision and AuctionGenius to filter cars at auction based on specific Carfax details.
“The Carfax-based filters create additional time savings, as dealers can choose not to look at vehicles that don’t fit their acquisition criteria,” Kobat said.
Carfax vice president Joe Koenig said: “vAuto has created a unique way to help Carfax Advantage dealers use the Carfax information they rely on as part of their used-vehicle evaluations.
“We’re proud to partner with a company that’s equally committed to giving dealers valuable information that helps them make fully informed inventory acquisition decisions,” Koenig added.
String Automotive announced new agreements with several large dealer groups on Monday while also highlighting the new local-market focused upgrade to its Dealer Positioning System.
String has entered new enterprise-level relationships with the March Hodge Automotive Group, Feldman Automotive and All Star Automotive Group.
The company’s latest release of its Dealer Positioning System, or DPS, includes a local-market area view to help market within that range. The metro-market area view includes enhancements that aim to help traditional budgets and market share growth plans for both Tier 2 and Tier 3 budgets.
“Though our team had great respect for our vendors, we began placing a great deal of importance on believing only our own metrics for success,” said Kelly Deets, the digital marketing director at Your Auto Giant of New Port Richey, Fla. “At first, the only place we could find ROI-related metrics was through the reports that we received from our digital marketing vendors. After installing the DPS, we are able calculate our wins and loss across our entire advertising budget, customizing the plan based on each store’s best opportunity for growth.”
String also reported a 206-percent growth in year-over-year subscription sales in September for its dealership intelligence platform.
“With the ever-growing technological and digital marketing-related offerings in the vendor space, automotive marketers are under increasing pressure to understand what’s working and what’s not,” said Ken Kolodziej, String’s chief executive officer. “Our growth speaks to the fact that we answer that question for marketing director and VP of operations roles within the mid-major and regional automotive groups.
“With monthly budgets north of $100,000, the return associated with hyper-focused, market-share-driven advertising is too substantial for them to ignore.”
A handful of photos taken at the time of your customers’ deliveries could help drive up your word-of-mouth leads and repeat service.
That’s the aim of Vboost’s recently improved “customercials,” which create a short photo package video for your customers that can be easily distributed and shared online and via social media.
The company says that the speed of delivery of these shareable videos has been improved, making it possible to send to customers via text or email within minutes of taking delivery of their vehicle. The company has also added instant-share capabilities, leading viewers back to the dealer’s social sites.
The Vboost solution has an app for both iOS and Android.
“The influence of social media on the car-buying process is exploding, which is why I am so excited to launch the next generation of Vboost,” said Paul Moran, Vboost’s chief executive officer.
“Vboost dealers enjoy outstanding share rates and video views through our proactive process," Moran continued. "We bring them more referral business by creating positive viral marketing from customer photos and videos at the time of vehicle delivery. These then get shared by the customer on social media. As our dealers see the huge value of video, they have been asking for more features and options.
"I think our dealers will be very happy with the all-new Vboost," he went on to say.
According to Vboost, up to 25 percent of photo packages convert into online traffic for the dealership.
Through the company’s Vboost Viral Marketing Platform, the company monitors and quantifies results from each viral marketing campaign and reports the info back to its dealers.
For more information about Vboost, you can check them out online here or at the Digital Dealer 19 Conference and Expo from Monday to Wednesday in Las Vegas.
Insurance Auto Auctions recently launched what the company dubbed the IAA Total Loss Solutions, a suite of products that executives highlighted can directly impact the opportunities to improve customer satisfaction and more effectively manage costs during the total loss claims process.
The first two product lines the company rolled out are IAA Inspection Services and IAA Title Services.
The company indicated IAA Inspection Services was developed to reduce the cycle time from date-of-loss to total loss determination. Three components are included:
— Enhanced images
— Condition report
— Appraisal
The company explained these offerings are designed to allow direct towing to the salvage auction, where high-resolution imagery can support virtual inspection of vehicles, resulting in faster cycle time and reduced claims cost.
Efficiencies within the inspection process can be further leveraged by IAA providing a pre-loss vehicle condition and option report, and a vehicle valuation to provide a comprehensive solution to the total loss claims process.
Executives highlighted IAA Title Services includes three components, too, all designed to suit the specific needs of the customer. The segment rundown includes:
—Title Procurement
—Title Solutions
—Title Direct
Title Procurement is geared to be a seamless offering that can be used by carriers to manage the document procurement process on all total loss claims.
Title Solutions can be utilized on those complex claims with unresolved title and document issues.
Title Direct is a service that can allow documents from multiple sources, typically the insured and lienholder, to be sent directly to an IAA branch, reducing cycle time and cost for the carrier.
“Our customers are consistently focused on providing the best possible experience for their insureds while increasing the efficiency of their claims process,” Insurance Auto Auctions chief executive officer and president John Kett said.
“The total loss claims process has become a more important success factor for our property and casualty carrier clients, as well as a primary influencer of customer satisfaction and retention,” Kett continued.
IAA senior vice president of business development Pat Walsh added, “These are the first products IAA is bringing to market within our Total Loss Solutions strategy.
“We completed extensive research on the total loss claims process and our results clearly indicate that opportunity exists to help our clients improve customer satisfaction and gain economic benefits,” Walsh went on to say.
