Propelled by the merger with CAR-Research XRM earlier this year that brought 20 years of call center experience, AutoLoop introduced Engage — a solution geared to gather customers and increase sales and service profitability for dealers.
Among the five capabilities AutoLoop highlighted this week, officials explained the Engage call center solution can deliver dealers the following benefits:
— Increase sales and service appointments: Engage agents can respond to Internet leads, mine CRMs for inactive leads and set sales and service appointments. In dealerships that retain Engage for their service departments, the company insisted agents have increased service appointment volume by an average 10 to 30 percent, resulting in a larger average repair order (RO) total overall.
— Turn unsold customers into be-backs: On average, AutoLoop calculated that 80 percent of all showroom ups leave a dealership without purchasing. Engage associates can make multiple follow-up attempts and connect with 60 to 70 percent of these unsold customers within a critical two to 24 hour time period–before they’ve had time to buy from another dealership. This follow-up can result in increased be-back and closing ratios.
— Discover process breakdowns: AutoLoop pointed out Engage agents are trained to ask customers about the road to the sale (RTS) process in order to discover if and where breakdowns occurred. The company believes customers often had a positive experience at a dealership but don’t share their issues while at the dealership and won't tell the salesperson if they call. The company emphasized Engage agents can find the truth, resulting in more be-backs and more sales.
— Identify best ad sources: Engage agents can ask every unsold customer which ad was most prominent in their decision to visit, resulting in the industry's most accurate ad sourcing available. Dealers can receive information about which ads, online and offline, are working for them so they can save in their overall ad spend.
— Increase customer satisfaction and dealership CSI scores: Engage agents can report customer issues from both sales and service to dealers so they can be quickly resolved, increasing customer satisfaction and boosting automaker CSI scores. U.S.-based call center associates can ensure that the customer experience is seamless and there won’t be any language barriers.
“Data collected from the thousands of customers we have spoken with shows that dealerships often answer only one of six incoming sales and service calls properly, and that in service departments more than 70 percent of inbound calls can go to voicemail or result in customer hang-ups from long holds,” said Keith Shetterly, vice president of AutoLoop Engage. “
“Capturing and engaging these missed opportunities is critical for dealerships to stay competitive and build customer loyalty. That’s why we named the product Engage,” Shetterly continued.
Shetterly went on to mention agents undergo rigorous training in AutoLoop's Adept Agent program and are continually focused on getting the best results for dealer clients. They engage with customers to increase sales and improve dealership CSI.
"Because we are a third-party service, customers are more comfortable opening up to us, and our agents get to know the 'true voice' of the customer,” Shetterly said. “We find out the real reasons why the customer didn't buy, gather valuable CSI information, and drive a significant percentage of customers back to the dealership.
“Over time our unmatched customer engagement results in improved processes, better customer retention, and increased profitability,” he added.
AutoLoop Engage is CRM-agnostic and available to dealers using virtually any CRM System. Engage is available immediately to dealerships in the U.S.
For more information, visit http://www.AutoLoop.com.
Dealertrack Technologies announced this week that its customer relationship management tool’s interface has received certification from Reynolds and Reynolds.
The system, Dealertrack CRM, received certification from the Reynolds Certified Interface Program, which applies to the ERA dealership management system.
Robert Granados, senior vice president and general manager, inventory and CRM Solutions at Dealertrack, believes the certification further reinforces the tool’s mission.
“Dealertrack is committed to supporting dealers’ technology needs by enabling secure, real-time and seamless integration between systems running in a dealership and Dealertrack systems and solutions,” Granados said. “With this new certification, dealers can confidently and easily exchange information between our CRM and the Reynolds and Reynolds ERA DMS.”
The RCI Program handles dealership data from a Reynolds DMS in a secure manner while providing supportability of interfaces for both dealerships and third-party vendors. Dealertrack also has certified interfaces between Reynolds’ ERA DMS and Dealertrack’s Credit Application Network, along with its inventory management, eMenu, SalesMaker, DealTransfer and eContracting solutions.
Data collector Vast announced early this week the availability of its new CarStory Market Reports, the company’s grouping of data models that analyze more than 100 million used-vehicle searches.
The reports, available for free to dealers as well as consumers, provide individual vehicle information such as supply, demand and market features, as well as special features about a vehicle that makes it different from others.
“We are thrilled that we can now bring that data to such a broad audience of people who can benefit from it,” said John Price, Vast’s chief executive officer.
The company is offering dealer-branded market reports for free to dealerships who sign up before the end of the year.
“CarStory Market Reports are built for simplicity so that they both enhance and accelerate the car-buying process,” said Joe Webb, founder and president of DealerKnows Consulting.
Digital marketing company Search Optics has launched a new mobile-optimized website platform built to enhance mobile search engine optimization and conversions for dealerships.
The new Blueprint Platform is designed to ensure customer websites are viewable across every device and screen size.
“The Blueprint Platform was built from the ground up for the mobile Internet and to empower our dealership customers to capitalize on the digital marketing dynamics re-shaping today’s automotive landscape,” said Troy Smith, president and founder of Search Optics. “Automotive customers increasingly carry more devices with them on the go, making a platform with true responsive design essential and a major competitive advantage for dealers. The Blueprint Platform is designed to generate better results, increase conversion rates and lead to greater sales opportunities than traditional website platforms.”
Company management also highlighted a few of the new platform’s key features:
- Responsive to every screen size versus just being adaptive to each device
- Schedule content updates, create new custom pages or make live changes on the fly with quick deployment
- Multi-device support with custom designs and integrated inventory
- Fast-loading inventory system with real-time refresh
- Responsive content management system and website management backend
The platform uses patent pending, cloud-based technology.
Earlier this fall, Search Optics announced the launch of a next-generation certified pre-owned inventory platform for Jaguar Land Rover North America.
J.D. Power released the results of its recent report on customer reactions to their interactions with automotive mobile sites on Thursday. The J.D. Power 2014 Automotive Mobile Site Study found that smartphone users are more likely to share vehicle information on social media when they are satisfied with the experience they had on either a manufacturer’s or third-party’s automotive website.
In its third year, the study was redesigned to collect details on content and tool usage while measuring which content was the most effective during the vehicle-shopping process. Website usefulness was measured in four ways: information/content, navigation, appearance and speed, while calculating satisfaction on a 1,000-point scale.
While it’s probably not surprising that customers tend to share on social media their most positive experiences, several key findings were derived from the most recent iteration of the ongoing study, according to J.D Power. The company listed them as follows:
- Shoppers who share vehicle information on social media are more likely to share imagery, such as exterior images (48 percent), interior images (42 percent) and videos (40 percent) than other less visual content, such as payment/lease (18 percent) or dealer information (25 percent).
- Use of videos, interior 360-degree and exterior 360-degree tools has a significant positive impact on satisfaction among smartphone shoppers when researching how a vehicle looks on both OEM and third-party websites.
- When researching vehicle information shoppers who access an OEM website on a smartphone are much more likely to use a build and price tool (43 percent) than those who shop on third-party sites (30 percent). However, vehicle shoppers accessing a third-party website on a smartphone are more likely to use an inventory search tool (36 percent) than those on an OEM site (32 percent).
- The largest gap (90 points) in satisfaction between OEM (806) and third-party sites (716) is in appearance of the website.
“When vehicle shoppers have a positive experience on an OEM or third-party site, they are more likely to share the content they find useful or interesting with others,” said Arianne Walker, J.D. Power’s senior director of automotive media and marketing. “This provides auto brands a great opportunity to get their content out in front of consumers through social media. The challenge is not only having great content to encourage sharing, but also ensuring that consumers have an outstanding experience no matter what site they are accessing on their smartphone.”
The report also outlined several manufacturer websites that customer responses said they had the best experience viewing. Topping the list was Acura with a score of 811, followed closely by Cadillac (803), Porsche (802) and Chrysler (801).
Peer-to-peer used-vehicle marketplace Beepi announced Monday the closing of $60 million in Series B funding to aid in the company’s desired national expansion.
The company, which began in April, originally catered its all-online buying and selling program to the San Francisco area with a more limited buying scope.
As of Sept. 5, Beepi announced customers could now sell their vehicles in the Los Angeles area, where they previously had only been able to buy vehicles that the company had sourced from the Bay Area. With the additional investment funding, the company’s chief executive officer and co-founder, Ale Resnik, has the company’s aim on taking its buying and selling range to the national level.
“This investment will help us to continue to make significant strides to change how Americans are buying and selling cars, the most expensive purchase many people are making,” Resnik said. “The past six months have shown us that there is a real demand to buy and sell cars 100 percent online and we’re excited for the next stage of growth for the company.”
Investors in the company’s expansion include Foundation Capital and SherpaVentures, joining the existing investors Redpoint Ventures, SherpaFoundry CEO Tina Sharkey, OLX founder Fabrice Grinda, IG Expansion co-founder Jose Marin, Homeaway co-founder Brian Sharples, former Loopnet CEO Rich Boyle, and Silicon Valley Bank.
Foundation Capital’s general partner and new Beepi board member, Steve Vassallo, believes Beepi is reinventing various aspects of the traditional automotive purchasing process.
According to the company, Beepi currently receives over 1,000 requests per week to sell cars for residents in the San Francisco Bay Area alone. Beepi’s service guarantees that customers vehicles up for sale will sell within 30 days for at least $1,000 more than what a dealership has offered them, a guarantee they back up by buying the vehicle themselves if a customer does not within the time limit.
“I would like to buy a car with bitcoin.”
The majority of dealers and their sales staff likely have not heard those words from a customer. At least, not yet. The global emergence of cryptocurrencies in the last five years has brought to question one serious issue: what can be accepted as money?
Is it an item the government declares has value? Is it backed by a finite resource?
Arguably, the answer to that question, boiled down, is that currency is anything that someone believes is valuable. And some people, around the world, have expressed that belief and invested their faith in bitcoin.
The reality is, at the time of this writing in mid-September, bitcoin is trading at a value of roughly $475 per unit, according to CoinDesk’s Bitcoin Price Index. After years of exchange, the value has fluctuated violently between $0 and $1,200 per unit, but appears to be stabilizing throughout this year.
Bitcoin has produced millionaires who bought into the cryptocurrency in its infancy — and many of those people want to buy your cars.
BitPay, Atlanta’s own bitcoin merchant processing and services provider, is one of a growing number of institutions that have seen the potential in bitcoin and have decided to facilitate merchant transactions for those businesses opening their doors (and their computers) to sell goods in exchange for bitcoin.
In short, BitPay converts bitcoin to any of nine different currencies requested by the merchant.
Stephanie Wargo, BitPay’s vice president of marketing, took the time to speak with Auto Remarketing about this “cash for the Internet” and explained the current demographic that are out buying cars with bitcoin.
“Right now it is the early adopters into bitcoin, that have now turned into bitcoin millionaires, that are buying the Lamborghinis and the Teslas and the Land Rovers and those,” Wargo said. “But I think as bitcoin continues to become more mainstream, you’re going to kind of get that next level.”
According to Wargo, the bulk of purchases made with bitcoin via her company have been for consumer electronics. BitPay has, however, been processing larger purchases. With millions in sales for houses and a handful of dealers’ car sales under their belt, the company is gaining traction as the bitcoin currency continues to find its own. You can even buy a trip to space for $250,000, or roughly 526 bitcoins, through one of BitPay’s clients, Virgin Galactic.
So how exactly does car purchasing work through a service like BitPay’s? Much like a traditional credit card transaction.
Wargo explained that a customer would walk in and then, “from a dealer standpoint, on a face-to-face purchase, we would set them up really quickly with a point-of-sale system off of an iPad or tablet or phone.”
She added: “They would put in the dollar amount; we would do the transaction in bitcoin. We would show the current rate. The consumer would have 15 minutes to complete that transaction in the dealership and push the money from their bitcoin wallet through.
“The dealer knows right then and there that this is approved; the money’s been sent; the money will show up in their bank account the next day. And we guarantee the transaction once we confirm.”
The risk taken on working with bitcoin, at least with BitPay, is only as big as the dealer wants it to be. With BitPay’s free service, a dealer can have 100 percent of the bitcoin from the sales transaction converted into their native fiat currency. Or they can choose to receive it all in bitcoin. Or any percentage in between.
For those concerned with the legality of dealing with bitcoin, rest assured that, although it is not our nation’s official currency, it is still legal. As of March 25, the IRS ruled that bitcoin will be taxed as property and subject to capital gains tax. For more information on what you need to do to prepare yourself for handling your own bitcoin funds, follow us online for an update to this story.
KAR Auction Services’ business unit ADESA announced this week the new fee structure for open sales on DealerBlock. Those using the company’s 24/7 online marketplace for bid-now events or buy-now inventory should expect to find the fees, in effect for the fourth quarter, to be simpler to calculate and, in some cases, lower.
Stephane St-Hilaire, ADESA’s president and chief executive officer, believes dealers will be pleasantly greeted by the program’s new fee system.
“We are always looking for ways to make working with us simpler and more profitable for our customers,” St-Hilaire said. “In almost all cases, dealers will be paying less with the fee structure.”
The temporary pricing structure went into effect Wednesday and will remain in place until the end of the year on Dec. 31. The same price will be paid by all buyers based simply on the purchase prices alone.
Auction Edge announced that it has added several new auctions to its national network and says it has also increased participation across all of its product lines.
The company has also expanded its suite of product offerings.
In addition to Edge ASI, Auction Pipeline and Edge Simulcast, the company now offers Edge Multi-List, Edge Lookout and Edge Floor Plan Manager.
Edge Multi-List — developed in conjunction with Liquid Motors — is designed to allow auctions to simultaneously post vehicles to multiple online sites.
Edge Lookout provides website development and reporting services for independent auctions, and Edge Floor Plan Manager gives independent auctions a new floor planning tool to choose from.
The company’s online auction tool, Auction Pipeline, recently added several locations in key markets across the country, the company reports, with more slated for integration in the fourth quarter.
Edge ASI and Edge Simulcast have experienced similar growth, company officials said.
Recently added or expanded markets include Phoenix, Chicago, Las Vegas, Tulsa, Okla., Richmond, Va., and Indianapolis.
“Auction Pipeline’s national buyer base has contributed thousands of incremental bids and purchases to auctions where online participation had previously been minimal,” said Scott Finkle, president of Auction Edge. “When auctions see the immediate increase in online activity, they often decide to offer more vehicles online in conjunction with their traditional sales — a natural fit for our Edge Simulcast product.”
A new Web application is available for dealers finding they've missed sales opportunities by passing over potential customers while they’re on the lot due to too much foot traffic or visiting after hours.
Cell My Ride, a lead generating tool, can be incorporated as a window decal on vehicles that customers can either scan with their phones via a QR code or call a toll free number along with an ID number to get more information about the vehicle.
Once the ID is entered, the buyer will receive a text message with the asking price, year, make, model, engine specifications and a link to view the vehicle on the dealer’s website. The information provided will also include an email address, name and contact number for a salesperson. On the dealer end, the specified sales staff member will receive an email and text message alert with the buyer’s contact information to facilitate a follow-up.
Dorsey West, the creator of Cell My Ride, says the idea spawned from its application in home sales.
“What started as a great lead generation system for real estate brokers is now proving to be even more effective in the automotive industry,” West said. “Cell My Ride allows dealers to connect with after-hours car buyers and secure a sale without even being on the lot. Car buyers can do their shopping on their own time and dealers can reach them on their mobile phones the moment they’re ready for a test drive.”
Cell My Ride automatically uploads the dealer’s entire vehicle inventory into its system, where dealers can also update or add vehicle information at any time through an online management portal. The company provides window decals to dealers every month to display on every vehicle on their lots. The decals peal easily and leave no residue on windows while also complying with federal CAN-SPAM regulations.
More information about Cell My Ride can be found on its website or at (888) 869-3489.
