The Canadian auto dealer team walked the vast show floor at the 2016 NADA Convention & Expo and interviewed dozens of suppliers. Here’s a look at some of the latest products being offered to Canadian dealers.
KeyVault Systems
Robert Ford, Managing Partner
“We want to make dealers aware that asset management is critical to dealership operations — as everybody knows — but what they may not consider is that key management should be a strong consideration. On the average Canadian dealership there are about 300 to 350 units on the lot, new and used. Each remote fob is approximately $300. So at any one time, they could have $100,000 worth of assets floating around the dealership, plus an associated $100,000 more, with spare keys. You’ve got a quarter million dollars in assets that should be protected. With KeyVault, we do the obvious, which is control that inventory in the dealership, but more so, there is also the ability to track the selling cycle and manage the selling cycle. Say I want to take a look at a car and I’ve got 40 minutes, and the guy can’t find a key. This way, he’ll always know where the key is. It time and date stamps who took what key when, and tracks what happened to that unit. And you can run reports. Some managers extend the benefit, allowing the pre-owned manager to take a look at the activity of a used piece that’s been on the lot for over sixty days.”
PBS Systems
Lynn McNeill, Senior Vice-President
“We’re launching a new version of our product called v10. It’s our next generation — we’ve done three in the last 10 years. People are excited about it. It’s basically taking today’s technology and smoothing it out, making it more contemporary. The back end is the same, but we’re adding a lot of functionality into the software that’s going to make it easier for them to be profitable. One of the ways we do that is through vendor reduction. We’ve got more functionality in the software — they don’t need to go to another third party to accomplish their business goals. It’s very slick; it’s got a contemporary look and feel and lots of good features. And, with the PBS culture, they’re excited about being customers of ours. The utilization component is extremely important, both for the dealer as well as for us over the long haul. Because the retention in any market dictates how your business is going to succeed. The better they utilize the software, the more training we provide — we have PBS university that they can log onto at any time. We provide training at any time the customer needs down the road. But more importantly, when they convert, we provide a lot of training and we do a lot of homework upfront.”
Fusion Retail (DealerCheck)
Monte Weis, President Weis & Associates
“We’re targeting dealer groups that might not have their own internal network development. If we take all the skills that we bring to the table — business management, buy/sell brokerages, facility, training and strategic thinking — we can add a lot of value to groups that might not have the resources inside on an ongoing basis. DealerCheck is really exciting to us. It’s something that we use in all of our dealer construction visits and our dealer compliance visits and we realize it’s a product that many people are looking for, not just for ourselves. We’ve had some success licensing it to organizations like J.D. Power. It can be almost like an automatic checklist to make sure their facilities, their processes, everything is inline with what the dealer group’s intent is when it comes to facilities.”
Naked Lime
Chris Walsh, Vice-President of Sales
“If you’re going to spend x amount of dollars, we can pretty much get real scientific about how many eyeballs or how many impressions that money is going to reach as far as your customers. Once you understand the reach part of it, then we can help to understand how you move from reach to engagement, and getting customers to take action — meaning either submitting a lead or coming into the showroom to actually test drive or buy a car. The key to marketing is to have a database. You have to have a marketing database that’s effective, so you can understand who you’re going to talk to. The first thing we’re talking about is really how ineffective or inaccurate a DMS database can be. Typically, what we see is 50 per cent of customers in a DMS name file — we don’t have an email address for them. If you don’t have an email address for them, how are you talking to them? You have to figure out different ways to connect with those customers. We know that about 70 per cent in a customer name file are service customers that are dormant — they haven’t been here for two years. How do you get those people to come back in? It’s really solid data — we break it down by make so we can tell a dealership for a Ford customer, that this is what a typical Ford database really looks like; here’s really the opportunity you have to grow your business; and these are the numbers we use to do it. That’s the strategy piece. Now let’s talk about what we can go do to help you take the next step to fix it.”
Quorum
Maury Marks, President and CEO
“What we are showing this year — the new piece — is how we’ve gone mobile on sales CRM, vehicle inspection processes and our Communicator tool. It’s a whole mobility strategy this year. We’re redeveloping areas of our software so that they will work on the desktop, work on the web and work as a mobile product. If I’m a user and I’m working away on my desktop, and then I go and start using my phone, everything reacts the same. I don’t have to get retrained to use my phone app, versus my tablet, versus the desktop. And it’s a nice, consistent experience across everything. Our dealer reaction has been fantastic. We’ve shown it off to a lot of prospects, existing customers and some large customers out there. The big question everyone asks is ‘when can i get it? Can I get it tomorrow?’ That’s a positive comment.”
DealerTrack
Mark O’Brien, Senior Director, Dealer Solutions
“From a Canadian perspective, it’s actually two products that we’re showcasing. The first one is a product that has been in the U.S. for a couple of years, and it’s a digital retailing suite. Digital marketing connects consumers to inventory. Digital retailing gets the consumer to transact, and actually converts consumers to buyers. In the summer of this year, we’re going to be launching a suite of digital retailing products. What that’s going to allow a consumer to do is to do more of the vehicle transaction online. They’re going to be able to get accurate monthly payment calculations on a website, apply for credit online, which to a degree exists today — but also to get a comprehensive trade evaluation on a vehicle, so you can take that into the monthly payment as well. It’s really trying to drive more of the processes that exist in-store today online. And what’s driving that are some of the web experiences that are out there today — the Airbnbs and the Amazons of the world. Those have all created experiences — particularly for millennials — that we have to try to replicate in the automotive industry. The second product is news that we’ve struck an agreement with a company called DealerCorp, and DealerTrack will have the exclusive rights to resell this product in Canada. It’s really a very comprehensive desking tool . It’s cloud-based, device-agnostic, and it really creates a very professional presentation format in-store.”
CDK Global
Dean Anton, Vice-President and General Manager
“How does a dealer get a customer into the store knowing full well that they’re going to do a lot of work well in advance of coming to the store? Statistics today are talking of a person who will make one visit to a dealership before they buy…We’re having to look at giving them tools, by taking a lead, managing a lead on the Internet — putting a deal together — so when they walk in, they’re very much engaged and they’re very knowledgeable. Our focus around that is really on connecting the dealer to the consumer well before they come into the store, using technology as an enabler. That’s the focus around where we’re going with our strategy, the workflows that drive that — really to make an experience that’s no longer spending long, long times in the store working with various departments. When somebody comes in, they’re ready, able and willing and they want to get in and get out. Payworks is a great addition to our offering… With a partner like Payworks, we’be been able to secure a first class payroll/HR partner that our dealers will benefit from. They’re up-to-date on all the compliance points — legislation and regulatory are very, very important in today’s world. CASL is a critical area on privacy. You can’t be everything to everybody, but you can put them together with proper integration, which we excel at.”
NCM Associates
Trevor D. Robinson, Director of Retail Solutions
“NCM has been around in the automotive space for just over 70 years. We’re the pioneer of the 20 Group concept and have more recently morphed into an all-encompassing provider for dealers. We have training classes, both online and instructor-led. We have software solutions around performance management. We have in-dealership consulting. But most notably, we’re one of the the largest providers of 20 Groups in North America. We’re actively working with a couple of OEMs to create North American focus groups that are a blend of both Canadians and Americans. Pick any aspect of our industry right now — whether it’s product changing, the customer changing, OEM demands changing — there’s always change in our industry. Do we need to learn and continue to grow? And what better way to grow than learning from our peers that have already done it, or may be in the process of doing it? Hence why the peer group, or the 20 Group, is the most popular aspect typically to learn as a dealer.”
DOD Tech
Carlos Guevera, Marketing Strategist
“DOD Tech is a dashcam manufacturer. We specialize only in dash camera technology and the manufacturing of our entire lineup, which is pretty diverse, depending on the driving background you have. We make dash cameras for fleet managers, fleets, race car drivers and just everyday drivers like you and me. DOD Tech gives dealers an opportunity to make more money during the sale of a vehicle and even as a POS item. We work exclusively with dealers with a particular model that is only available to the dealers so they don’t have to worry about competing with a same model that their customer can go out to Walmart or Costco or Staples to buy. We give them something that is catered just to them, where they can sell it to their customers — and with an emphasis on safety and better driving. Our dealer-exclusive dash camera requires to be hard-wired, so that allows your mechanic section or your bay to have more of an opportunity to interact with the customers after the sale has been done and retain more share of wallet for the people walking in and buying brand new models.”
Contact at Once
John Hanger, Senior Vice-President and General Manager
“We provide a capability that allows consumers visiting a dealer’s website to initiate a messaging-based conversation from their mobile device. We have solutions for both sales and service departments. In our experience at the dealerships, it’s 40-50-year-olds — anybody who’s in business basically — who are going to prefer to message. They’re in a meeting; it’s a lot easier to approve a repair order when they get a message in a meeting as opposed to waiting two hours until they get out and have a chance to call. It works across generations and it’s a really valuable tool for dealerships. In terms of how the product works — there’s no software to install; it’s all a cloud-based application. There is a mobile app, really simple to install off the app store. Price points range, depending on the package, but it’s hundreds of dollars a month Canadian. It’s not a big purchase, but it does have a really big value. … In terms of basic metrics, on the sales side, typically our dealers are seeing a 20 per cent lift in conversion off their website. If the traditional measure was phone calls and form lead submissions, they add our product to their website, they’re going to see an overall increase in terms of number of consumers initiating contact of 20 per cent or better.”
