Dealertrack Technologies announced Wednesday that it added enhancements to CentralDispatch, its Web-based transportation marketplace, to improve shipping efficiencies and make more profitable loads for its carrier customers.
The offering, which connects dealers and transport brokers with over 7,900 vehicle carriers nationwide, provides several carrier-specific capabilities, including the following, according to Dealertrack:
- Multipoint Route Search and Mapping, which uses a powerful new search algorithm to help locate extra loads along a chosen route, giving carriers the opportunity to earn more cash on each haul.
- Preferred Shipper, allowing carriers to designate preferred partners to work with, while filtering out non-favorable partners for specific jobs.
- Document Storage, enabling carriers to store and share pertinent files associated with a dispatched vehicle order, such as contracts and vehicle documents, from a single platform or job folder.
- Carrier Invoicing, which allows carrier subscribers to quickly send an invoice to their customers directly from the Central Dispatch platform to accelerate payment and save time with routine billing tasks.
Robert Granados, the senior vice president and general manager of inventory at Dealertrack, says enhancements are focused “to use advanced technology to offer the most efficient vehicle transport system possible for carriers nationwide.”
“This new functionality to CentralDispatch can have a direct positive impact on a carrier’s bottom line, while helping to improve their overall operations,” Granados said. “When carriers have more visibility into available loads along their routes, they can maximize loads with more frequency, leading to greater revenue.”
More information about the services offered by Dealertrack’s CentralDispatch can be found here.
NCM Associates recently teamed up with DrivingSales Data to provide NCM 20 Group clients a monthly Internet Marketing Vitals Composite compiling a dealerships' digital marketing efforts in one, easy-to-understand report.
The firms highlighted that clients will receive their monthly report in a composite-like format, allowing them to have more productive 20 group discussions with peers about the performance and effectiveness of their digital marketing and techniques to improve ROI.
NCM Associates chief executive officer and president Paul Faletti Jr. insisted that having the analytics in one composite allows car dealerships to better manage marketing goals and tasks across the entire organization and tie them to metrics.
“Digital marketing is a must-have for successful dealerships,” Faletti said. “As a data resource for our clients, the Internet Marketing Vitals Composite is one more way NCM, together with DrivingSales, is able to help increase dealership performance.
“As the focus and investment for digital marketing grows, we are happy to provide visibility to key digital marketing metrics to help dealers better manage and plan for the dynamic digital landscape,” he continued.
The Internet Marketing Vitals Composite can provide clients with aggregated website metrics, traffic sources, inbound marketing, social media, AutoTrader.com and Cars.com data. The alliance will allow NCM 20 group clients the ability to integrate with multiple marketing platforms to help drive discussions on the effectiveness of their digital marketing efforts.
A soft launch with a select group of NCM 20 Group clients will begin this month.
“Digital marketing provides opportunities and challenges for dealerships,” DrivingSales president Kevin Root said. "Dealers armed with the right data, insight and strategy will be able to leverage digital marketing's strengths as a competitive advantage.
“This alliance provides dealers with powerful data through the Marketing Vitals Composite paired with insights from NCM enabling them to translate the data into impactful strategies,” Root went on to say.
LeasePlan USA, a fleet management provider, recently announced the launch of its new solution to help its clients save money by bundling its risk management services.
The company’s 3D Coverage combines accident prevention programs, fleet auto insurance and claims management services in one plan. LeasePlan clients can leverage competitive auto insurance rates and streamline processes via one number to call to report a claim.
“Through 3D Coverage, companies can choose the level of risk and safety management that’s best for their fleet,” said Jon Toups, LeasePlan’s chief sales and marketing officer.
“As companies increase their commitment to safety, they see benefits to their bottom line with few accidents and lower insurance premiums,” Toups added. “But more importantly, the 3D Coverage solution offers a balanced approach to protect drivers while behind the wheel of a company vehicle.”
Tony Blezien, the vice president of operations at LeasePlan, touted the successes of Bob Krueger, the company’s newly appointed director of safety services, who has been with the company’s growing safety department since 2012 and has aided the 88 percent increase the company has seen with client migration toward a more comprehensive fleet safety program.
“We’re continually identifying new ways to help companies create a safe environment for their employees,” Blezien said. “3D coverage, along with Bob Krueger’s direction, positions LeasePlan to provide the right tools and expertise that equate to time and cost savings, but most importantly, safer drivers.”
More information about the company’s “3D Coverage” can be found here.
Dominion Dealer Solutions announced Tuesday that Dominion ACCESS, the company’s Windows-based dealership management system, is now a fully integrated partner of the Toyota DMS Integration Program.
Toyota’s Dealer Daily Open Access (DDOA) program integrates with Dominion ACCESS through live, secure communications across multiple departments, including F&I, service and accounting. The DDOA interface, developed based on the Standards for Technology in Automotive Retail (STAR), is available to Toyota dealerships nationwide with the exception of GST and SET Toyota dealers.
“The integration between Dominion ACCESS and Toyota DDOA lets us provide another cost-effective solution to Toyota dealerships,” said Van Koppersmith, the president of Dominion DMS for Dominion Dealer Solutions. “We were very pleased to work with our existing customers, helping to streamline their operations, during the development process and look forward to forming long relationships with additional Toyota and Lexus dealers in the near future.”
Jerry York, dealer principal at York’s of Houlton in Maine, commented on his first-hand experiences with the DMS.
“We are a long-time ACCESS customer and have been very pleased with the ease of use, customer-friendly screens and personal customer service,” York said.
York added: “The recent integration of Toyota has only enhanced our enthusiasm for Dominion ACCESS. It has saved us double-entry time in the parts department, warranty claims administration area, and financial statement processing. I’m especially happy to see that Dominion is continuing to make improvements to the software, ensuring a competitive DMS product for the foreseeable future.”
More information about DDS’s offerings can be found on its website.
Dealertrack Technologies and Digital Air Strike announced Monday that they have entered into channel and product agreements to help their dealer clients drive lead response and generation opportunities.
According to the companies, the agreement facilitates the information from the DAS Response Logix Smart Quote to be integrated into Dealertrack’s Dealer.com digital marketing solution and Payment Driver.
“Leveraging Digital Air Strike’s Response Logix with our Dealer.com digital marketing and Payment Driver solutions gives us a uniquely powerful means of targeting and generating quality leads for automotive retailers,” said Brian Green, the senior director of corporate business development at Dealertrack. “Our Certified Provider Program assures our clients that the specialized partners we are integrating into our technologies are well-vetted, best-of-class products. We look forward to the added value Digital Air Strike will bring to our overall solution.”
Thom Brodeur, the chief operating officer at DAS, says his company has won market share “the hard way” over the last few years.
“We’ve done it one rooftop at a time,” Brodeur said. “These complementary and parallel initiatives with Dealertrack allow us to accelerate our go-to-market efforts through partners who lead their markets. It also allows us to provide a larger universe of auto dealers access to the industry’s most ROI-conscious and measurable lead response solutions to sell and service more cars.”
Dent Wizard International announced Thursday the introduction of Ready Line Express, a vehicle reconditioning program designed for rental companies.
Ready Line Express consolidates paintless dent removal, minor paint, bumper repair, wheel repair and interior repair into its program, which focuses on fast, quality repairs.
“Ready Line Express is designed to help major fleet managers with two major issues: keeping cars in service and more value at wholesale,” said Pete Stuckert, Dent Wizard’s vice president of rentals. “And we accomplish this in a manner that makes it very easy for them.”
More information can be found by calling 800-DENT-WIZ.
Carvana announced today that it has continued its expansion in the southeast with free next-day delivery to customers in Birmingham, Ala.
This location is the fourth in the region for Carvana, which expands their reach to 2.2 million consumers with next-day delivery there as well as in Atlanta, Nashville and Charlotte.
“In the last year, we have seen strong consumer interest and steady month-over-month sales growth from the Birmingham market,” said Ernie Garcia, founder and president of Carvana. “Given its proximity to our Atlanta operations, its tech-savvy population and the web traffic we’ve seen from Birmingham, it was a natural fit to be our next service market.”
The company has also announced that it has offered to refund the delivery fee paid by any previous customers in the Birmingham area.
“Purchasing a car is a big decision, and we are so appreciative of our customers who trusted us and our online dealership model,” Garcia said. “Refunding their delivery fee I sour way to thank them for their support, and leading us into the Birmingham market.”
For more information on Carvana, visit its site here.
Cell My Ride announced recently that auto dealers nationwide can utilize the company’s automatic text message marketing solution for simply the price of a few minutes of their time after participating in a five-minute demo of its system.
“Cell My Ride has been proven to generate quality leads after normal business hours, when a lot of serious car buyers visit dealer lots to see their inventory up close,” said Dorsey West, founder and chief executive officer of Cell My Ride. “We want Cell My Ride to be an industry standard marketing tool and that starts by making our system free for any dealer that wants to use it.”
How does it work? The system assigns an ID number to each vehicle in a dealer’s inventory. Interested shoppers can call a toll-free number, enter that ID number, and receive a text message with vehicle information along with a link to the dealer’s website.
Follow up information is sent to the dealer’s sales team based on the phone number the customer uses to submit data, which can later be used as a follow-up lead.
The Cell My Ride number and vehicle ID can be included on dealer window stickers and other forms of media to drive interest outside of operating hours and the doors of the dealership.
The program is available to both independent and franchised dealers, anywhere in the U.S., free of charge.
For more information, or to schedule a demonstration, visit the Cell My Ride website.
Insurance Auto Auctions on Friday launched the vehicle assignment feature for Android as part of the CSAToday by IAA mobile app.
This development follows the feature’s successful November launch on iOS devices, which can enhance the CSAToday customer experience by offering "anywhere" access to begin an assignment with IAA. The feature also enhances the application's capabilities through GPS location services.
Other key user features and benefits for vehicle assignment include the following:
— A streamlined, "five swipe" workflow focused on required fields only
— Built-in mobile technology, such as camera functionality for vehicle identification number (VIN) scanning and GPS for location entry, to reduce manual effort
— Assignment confirmation via Android-supported share options including text, email and print
“IAA is continuing to lead in the industry for integrating mobile into our customer offerings. We are now delivering on our plans to share this feature with Android users after great success with our iOS launch last year," said John Kett, chief executive officer and president of Insurance Auto Auctions.
“IAA continues to value innovation and our customers know that we are committed to investments in technology — no matter how big or small — that improve their experience,” Kett continued.
Vehicle assignment is one of many features available on the CSAToday by IAA mobile app. The mobile app is available for download in the Apple iTunes store and on Google Play.
A video demonstration of the vehicle assignment feature can be seen at the top of this page.
AU.TO, which markets itself as the “Google for cars,” announced this week that a beta version of its site has gone live, which it claims is the “largest truly organic search engine for cars.”
True to its name, AU.TO (which is also its URL) aggregates vehicle sales and collects both vehicle and dealer data and sorts them based on predicted interest, much like Google does with generic searches. AU.TO also says it uses a user-predicted interest algorithm for online car shopping, which it would like consumers to think of as “Pandora for cars.”
The site says it processes 2.1 million used vehicles daily and is the single-largest index of used cars for sale – indexes it says are processed in near real-time.
“We are poised to capture the hearts and minds of consumers seeking fast, timely, and relevant information on buying and selling vehicles,” said Aaron Rosenthal, the chief executive officer of AU.TO. “By providing more information in a faster timeframe, we help consumers spend less time shopping and buying and more time driving.”
In other automotive search engine news, AutoWeb announced this month that it now receiving over one million new-car shopping searches per month.
“Our search volume’s remarkable growth confirms the high quality search traffic we are able to aggregate and provide to our advertising partners and move the needle for their businesses,” said Matias de Tezanos, the company’s chief executive officer. “Everybody wins. In addition, we are happy to report that we’ve had quick adoption and retention by our clients.”
More information about AutoWeb can be found on its website.
