The sold-out trade show was bustling with activity at the Automotive Conference and Expo (ACE) last week in Niagara Falls, Ont. Canadian auto dealer dropped by dozens of booths to chat with exhibitors. Here are a few excerpts from those conversations:
CADA / CADA 360
CARFAX Canada
CarRX (RGC Automotive Services)
CDK
Dealer by Design
Equifax
Hunter Engineering
Keyloop
Leadbox
PBS Systems
Quorum
QUOTUS
Reynolds & Reynolds
Sym-Tech Dealer Services
TAG Tracking
Universus
CADA / CADA 360
Michael Psotka
We participate in key events like ACE, put on by our provincial dealer associations. CADA operates under three pillars, which are: advocacy, knowledge, and member services. I’m responsible for member services. Many dealers are familiar with our CADA 360 employee benefits programs, and we have significant market share across Canada. But some dealers aren’t as aware of our other programs, so we are promoting those at ACE this year.
There’s a lot of competition, but when CADA 360 operates a program, we like to think that we bring another level of trust to the dealers. We’ve already vetted the program, we’ve built it, we’ve made amendments to it, and we’ve scanned the marketplace to bring the best possible program forward for the dealers. For example, earlier this year we launched the CADA 360 Security Services program, starting with RecovR, a dealership lot management and vehicle recovery platform.
The RecovR product fulfills the needs of the dealer at the garage insurance level, and then there’s a sell through to the end customer through the F&I office with some good margins available to the dealers. We also are promoting CADA 360 Drive HR, which is our HR and compliance platform that has just been rebuilt on a more mobile-friendly platform with new AI and machine learning capabilities.
CARFAX Canada
Bryan Bota
CARFAX has been coming to ACE since its inception. Being Title Sponsor of ACE gives us a chance to make sure we’re connecting with all industry partners and making sure that we’re up to speed on top industry trends as well. We have about 15 people here this year, and it’s a mix of learning about what’s happening and what’s coming.
We’ve just launched a new addition to our valuation suite, which is MarketView. It gives dealers the ability to tailor and do more research into vehicle valuations. As a data company, we have access to tons of industry insights that we can provide to our customers to help them.
Secondly, a huge trend across the industry is fraud. We’re able to use the insights that we have access to and educate all of our customers on how they can view and access our reports to make sure that they’re not stuck in those difficult situations. A large majority of dealers post the CARFAX reports within their listings online. Consumers, because they know the brand, go into the dealership and ask for the CARFAX. With our history reports, they use it as a buying tool, but then they also use it as a selling tool to make sure the customer knows what’s happened to that vehicle along its lifecycle.
CarRX (RGC Automotive Services)
Todd Kendrick
The show’s been incredible this year. It’s been worth every minute of it for us. We’ve had great interaction with dealers, whether that be a single rooftop all the way up to the big groups. We are a new startup in Canada so it’s been wonderful. I was fortunate enough to be one of the lucky draw participants that presented in the Kijiji Demo Theatre. It was amazing after that how many dealers came right to the booth to get more information about the lot management and theft recovery for their vehicle inventory.
We are not focused just on theft recovery. We brought the product to Canada because of its lot management capabilities, service retention, and lastly because of its great theft recovery capabilities. Dealing with the insurance providers is a little bit of a minefield. We’re fortunate we have three different styles of products that can do everything from gas, electric, hybrid, and fully wireless.
The reality is that the OEMs don’t want you cutting into their wiring system at all or pushing any data to their vehicles. Ours is like a plugin. It’s not cutting any wires and it’s only listening and pulling information from the CAN Bus. Even our plugin device is not plugged into the front of the OBD port. It’s a bypass through the back.
CDK
William Tobin
Trying to get people to be away from the dealership is harder and harder, so these kinds of conferences allow people to have the chance to have a casual conversation and maybe learn a little bit more. It’s an interesting mix of dealers that we get to see here. It’s nice to have that one-on-one conversation and bump into people. We seem to be well aligned with some of the subject matter that’s been presented at the conference. AI is obviously a big focus, so having the opportunity to talk about that with dealers and what AI means to them is a valuable part of some of those interactions.
A big part of our conversation at the booth for this show has been around our Dealership Xperience platform. That’s something that we’re now seeing more standardized throughout North America for CDK customers so that you’re having a common platform of tools and solutions. It starts with our Foundation Suite and then we move out from there whether it’s Fixed Ops, our Modern Retail or our Intelligence Suite product. That’s one of the key areas where we’ve had AI developments. It’s a good way for dealerships to spot trends, and to me that’s a valuable part of AI. We relaunched some of our new workflows that we have through the Unify solution, which brings all of our tools into one place, a single sign-on environment. We moved our CDK University and customer care portal to that space as well.
Dealer by Design
Eric Richards
It’s our first show, and it’s been an amazing introduction. We’re basically a supercharged calendar to organize vehicle delivery coordination. Getting a sold vehicle ready for delivery is like death by a thousand paper cuts, with so many inefficiencies and time lost here and there. That’s where our Delivery Hub product comes in. Our software becomes that single source of information for everything like add-ons, tires, accessories, and more. Using our software, we’ve seen one dealership go from prepping 120 cars to 250 a month using the same coordinator.
Our system can even do task management related to specific tasks, like a rust module for example. It seems like a simple thing, but parts have to build it out, service and detailing have to install it, and finance has to register it. When someone ticks off that box in our program, it will automatically create all those tasks. This is all customizable by the dealership, because we know that every dealership’s just a little different. I know first hand, because I built it based on my own experience working in a dealership.
We picked up some new customers at the show and are going to be doing some demos in the next couple of weeks. You can just sign up, go to our website, dealerbydesign.ca and schedule yourself the demo. We charge a monthly subscription fee, but we do a two-month trial because I want to prove the value of the software before I ask for payment.
Equifax
Russell Wicks
The reason we always come here to ACE is just to be more visible. All of these folks in one way, shape, or form use Equifax. We noticed that even though they use our services, they don’t know that we have other services beyond the credit report.
For example, we have fraud tools because that’s a big deal right now. Very soon we’re going to be launching a massive program in the dealer world related to fraud. Next year around this time, new fintech rules are coming into play, and the rules will impact auto lenders. If someone is paying cash for a vehicle, they will have to show where that cash came from. So there will be a lot more compliance for dealers and lenders.
Application fraud is probably the easiest way for organized crime to get into auto fraud. They pretend they are somebody else. They apply for a car loan, get the car loan, get the car, and they drive away. It all looks legitimate until the first payment doesn’t show up. Then the lender knows it’s a fraud case, and they push back on that deal to the dealer. We have ID verification tools that can help dealers combat this. Our process then marries that up with the credit bureau to make sure that that document and the information on that document matches what’s on the credit bureau.
Hunter Engineering
Ross Iacobellis
The focal point for Hunter at this year’s ACE show is productivity and efficiency. We’re featuring our ultimate ADAS technology. It is a dual revenue stream type of product we’re really proud to launch in Canada this year. We originally brought it to market for Honda and Acura dealers in January, and they put it on their equipment program. ADAS calculations are really challenging for technicians to acquire the correct location of targets. The OEMs have given us all the data and our engineering team in St. Louis acquired the vehicles and measured all the points on the vehicles — which a technician typically would go with a plumb bob or a measuring tape.
With this technology, technicians walk up to the car door, they scan the QR code or barcode, and that loads the machine with the OEM specifications for the vehicle. It puts a green laser line on the floor that shows the technician the space requirement for that vehicle. In some cases, this technology can trim down the labour time by 80 per cent on some calibrations. If they do make an error, they don’t get to finish the calibration.
We error-proof the process. Technicians like it because they don’t get to the finish line of a calibration and have to start all over again. This machine also has the capability to do body audits on vehicle alignments and calibration. So it’s a multi-revenue stream product. A lot of shops are having trouble getting technicians. Our equipment typically attracts really high caliber technicians. They want a reliable piece of equipment to work with.
Keyloop
Michael Bacon
It was a great show this year. We saw a lot more traffic, and a lot of engagement with the dealers, so we were very happy. We’re trying to showcase our Experience-First Platform, which basically has an end-to-end solution for the dealers through our DMS management system.
It’s only been a couple of years since Keyloop acquired two leading software providers in the Canadian market. People still refer to our lead management platform as RAPID RTC and the DMS as SERTI. We’ve changed the Rapid branding to Keyloop Leads and Keyloop Chat. So that’s starting to take off.
Keyloop has been the largest software as a service provider in the world for the automotive industry, so we have a lot to leverage there. We have some great integrations with other modules that are available in other markets and we are looking forward to adding them here.
We’ve been talking to dealers about their pain points. They are looking for an integrated system that doesn’t have so many third parties bolted on with duct tape and bubble gum. They really want to have that centralized 360 view of the customer, and 360 view of the vehicle. They want to follow them right from their online searching and purchasing right through to the servicing and to trading in their vehicle for the next one. With our development we are eliminating a lot of third parties and having our service digitization is a really strong point for that. Then with the fully-integrated lead management system, we’ve been very successful in addressing those pain points.
Leadbox
Ian Cruickshank
At ACE this year, I presented a session that was focused on the executive leader, be it the Dealer Principal, the General Manager, the General Sales Manager or the Marketing Department Leader. I wanted to help them better understand all the ways they can use artificial intelligence to help their day improve significantly.
There are so many tools that can help increase the pace of the work that you’re getting done. For us, on a product side, our first foray into AI was vehicle descriptions and automating that process for dealers. We can get them to a spot where every single vehicle comes through has a high quality description written automatically as soon as it hits the inventory management system. So that’s a magical way to save time.
For our AI tools with Leadbox, if you can have consistent data that’s well managed, you can get some really incredible results out. We’ve been finding that by loading more and more data into the system, it is mind blowing. It’s a closed and private environment that we’ve set up to be able to look at sales data, to be able to look at marketing data, and for dealers to be able to analyze OEM data. AI can give dealers the ability to better understand what’s going on with their businesses by simply asking questions as they would to their team. And now their team is a bot that’s helping out and helping to answer all of these pieces as well.
PBS Systems
Wesley Pike
I think this year we can safely say that the ACE show this year is back to pre-COVID in terms of engagement and attendance. At the show we are connecting with existing customers and sharing what we can offer to potential customers as well.
We went through two years of not doing any of this, and I think it really showed us what these kinds of events can do to bring us all together like this. And to have just not only the official kind of conversations and meetings, but just the sidebar conversations, catching up with friends. It’s not just about business, it is about relationships, it’s about friendships, and in some ways it’s a small industry.
For us, we spend a lot of time versioning our software. We take a lot of feedback from dealers to help us move the needle in terms of what they’re looking for. One of the big drivers for us in terms of updates and future software releases is our annual conference. We just were in Nashville, Tenn. in September and had our highest-ever attendance. We want their participation, because they’re the ones that are using the software every day. We want our dealers to be candid. It’s not all about roses and unicorns. We want to know about the challenges they are having at the store or maybe it’s at the enterprise level. But if you don’t get that feedback, you’re not going to be able to make it better.
Quorum
Mike Poelzer
The show has been excellent. We’ve been busy having conversations, we met with a lot of our existing customers, and have had the pleasure of hearing their feedback. On the DMS side, our primary focus right now is our PowerLane tool. We’ve just revamped that and it’s a service lane tool that is effectively automating a lot of the service advisor processes. It’s allowing transparent communication with the consumer.
So what we’re seeing is higher levels of customer satisfaction with it and a lot of OEMs are starting to push in that direction, mandating it or strongly recommending that dealers use this tool. You can send pictures and videos to your customer, and it automates the whole process from your online booking all the way right through to payments. So if a customer wants to, they don’t even really need to interact inside the store, they can do everything digitally, including dropoff.
Our products are well known across all our brands and Quorum is the umbrella. We have our DealerMine product suite, which is BDC service CRM sales. Then we’ve got the Autovance suite, which is a desking tool and digital retail tool, which is very highly regarded. We have F&I Menu selling as well as our Accessible Accessories brand. We just added a Tire Boost feature, which allows dealers to sell accessories on their website and inside their DMS and their desking. We’ve just added the tire feature as well so dealers can now retail tires.
QUOTUS
Alex Churchill
QUOTUS allows groups to standardize their financials across all brands and DMS systems. We allow them to really streamline their month end. We allow them to stay out of the spreadsheets. There’s always somebody in every single group who spends all their time doing nothing but standardizing things and wrapping up the month end. We allow them to get out of that hole and kind of think at a higher level. We take your OEM financials and synthesize everything. It produces really great visuals and really great ways for you to track and pull out insights of over 700 KPIs that we track.
The machine learning based technology behind it has a very slick interface at the front-end of the product. Really what we allow people to do is generate action based stuff and act on the insights rather than spend their time doing them. This allows them to translate those numbers to non-numbers people. It’s front-end visualization and back-end standardization.
We also have a data lake of Canadian only benchmarks with 1,500 rooftops in there. As you probably know, we’re a wholly owned subsidiary of DSMA. So there are a whole bunch of different ways that we used the tool and initially it was developed so we could help the valuation and buy sell side really perform quickly and efficiently. But it’s evolved from then and continues to evolve.
Reynolds & Reynolds
Shannon Brown
So what we’re showcasing right now is our Desking platform, which is all around desking and retailing in store and online. It’s really about that omnichannel approach. We’re also showcasing GoMoto, which are our kiosks that are really starting to take off. Every industry out there has had some sort of kiosk, whether it’s restaurants, whether it’s the airline. Now it’s in the automotive space, and we’re really starting to see more and more dealers and manufacturers take to that. Dealers use it for service, vehicle drop off, and numerous (other things). It’s almost like having a virtual service advisor to get them through the day.
We’re also showcasing our KeyTrak. We are showing a lot of solutions that are not just tied to the Reynolds DMS. We’re all about retail anywhere. That is really our tag. We enable the dealers to work with the consumers, how the consumers want, when they want, where they want and how they want. And so our goal is to be able to provide all the solutions that the dealer needs to do that, whether they’re on our DMS or not. Our goal is to continue to move this industry forward. Some of the things that we’re working on involve AI, which is a hot topic at the conference right now. We have what we call Spark AI, which is a data layer that runs throughout, and that’s what powers our AI solutions now. Our focus is just making sure that we’re creating efficiencies for the dealership personnel.
Sym-Tech Dealer Services
Derek Sloan
Our team loves this conference. We stepped it up this year and became a Platinum Sponsor at ACE. It’s very important to us to commit to the MVRO and show our associates and our dealer partners that this is an important event. We learn new things, we get to promote our business, but we build on relationships with key people that we may not have seen since the last event. Then combine it all with a ton of fun.
We’ve doubled the size of our company in the last four years with the acquisition of SSQ Dealer Services in Québec. At ACE this year, we are promoting our Coaching campaign. For us, we don’t hide the fact that our number one product is performance. That’s what we’re about. We’re about the training, that’s why you see everybody in our booth with a coach hat on. Everyone is coaching F&I performance. So the message to everybody is as simple as this: we are at the forefront of F&I performance training and technology in the industry.
The other part that nobody else does, is we guarantee it. So we guarantee a 20 per cent increase in F&I profits in 30 days, or literally, I’ll pay the difference. That’s how it works. Nobody else does that. That’s because we have a lot of confidence in everything: in our people, in our process, our products, and our technology. So the core message is, if today you’re having a challenge with your F&I performance, you’ve got to at least give us a shot.
TAG Tracking
Richard Cleroux
Last year was our first time exhibiting at ACE. This year, more people knew about us and there was more traffic to our booth. We’re more visible now in Toronto and obviously auto theft is on everyone’s radar. We’ve recently seen some stolen vehicles sent directly to Halifax by train. With our nano tag tracking system we can track stolen vehicles all the way to their destination. More and more dealers are calling us because they have vehicles stolen directly from their lot. So we install our products, and they can resell them to their customers if they want to, but at least they protect their inventory. We don’t just sell a product. We install the product and then when the time comes, if the car is stolen, we find the vehicle. Once we have the vehicle, we give it to the police, and then they can give it back to the customer. Because if you call the police today and say my car is there, by the time police get to that place, the car is gone.
Universus
Sarah Goldie
ACE was a great show for us, and we were happy with the traffic and energy this year. It gave us a great opportunity to showcase our video offerings. Universus is a full-service integrated marketing agency with lots of automotive clients. Video is at the heart of our creative services and we were focusing on that in our booth this year, where we played a demo reel of some of the automotive videos we’ve produced.
Our Canadian auto dealer team was also here talking with clients and dealers. At Universus, we blend creativity, skill, and strategy in our video production, and have created thousands of videos. Our approach is rooted in storytelling, with the belief that a great story forms the foundation of any successful video. We were talking to dealers and suppliers about their video strategies and whether their video plan was working well for them.
We ran a contest and were giving away $5,000 of video production, which got a lot of interest from attendees (Contest ends Friday October 25). We produce a wide range of videos from short-form social, consumer-facing animated videos, training videos, TV commercials, dealership videos for their websites, and digital signage networks and everything in-between. We work directly with OEMs, dealers, auto dealer associations, and a lot of the suppliers in the automotive space. It’s a fun industry and we always enjoy being at the heart of it, connecting with our customers and meeting new ones. I’m already looking forward to next year’s ACE!
