Is your dealership software integrated?

The problem with most software in the automotive industry is the lack of integration between products. Products that if used together, could do very intelligent things.

Dealers purchase what I call “singular” solutions from vendors that only do one thing and doesn't integrate with anything else.

I hear it from managers and salespeople all the time. “We have all these different passwords to get into different systems just so we can sell a car. Don’t get me wrong, we need all of these systems, we just wish it could be easier. We login to the CRM to add a customer, than login to our trade appraisal system, then login to another system to desk a deal, then another to pull credit, it just doesn’t stop.”

Think about your website and CRM for a second. Every dealer wants the pictures of their salespeople and managers on their website. Well, most dealers put those pictures in their CRM to email in the signature of their emails.

Wouldn't it be nice to add salespeople to your CRM and have them instantly show up on your website? What is one of the first things you do when you hire a new salesperson? Give them a login to the CRM so they can start adding customers. Wouldn’t it be nice if they would then show up on the website as soon as you did that? And what is one of the first things you do when a salesperson leaves? Transfer the customer and take them out of the CRM. Wouldn’t it be great if once you did that, they didn’t show up on your website?

Now you could hire and fire people and your website is always up to date. I couldn't tell you how many times I've seen dealer websites with names and phone numbers on them of people who don't work there anymore...

Are you using a separate ILM and CRM system?

What happens when your showroom lead goes home and submits an Internet lead? What happens when your Internet lead decides to drive up to the lot without scheduling an appointment? Are your salespeople always fighting over skating? If you were using one good system, the Internet and showroom salespeople could be guarded from skating each other.

Don't even get me started on how much harder it is to do proper reporting and management across separate ILM/CRM systems.


Let's think about your inventory integration

Do you have all the pictures, vehicle options, and comments for your vehicles in your CRM? Sure would make it easier to sell and email vehicle details to your customers.

If your dealer inventory management system was integrated with your automotive CRM and dealer website, you could know how many leads and website hits you've received on every vehicle in inventory.

OK, so maybe you’re not getting a lot of interest on a specific vehicle?

Well, if the same system had an integrated market pricing tool, you could quickly see how your price compares to vehicles exactly like yours available for sale in your area. You could also book out your vehicle with NADA, KBB, or Black book. You could quickly fix the pricing problem.

Think about that for a second... Instantly you could jump from seeing the vehicle isn't getting any interest to fixing the problem in the same program.

Here are some questions to think about

1. What other unique functionality could you gain by having more integrated solutions?

2. How much easier would your life be if you had fewer vendors to deal with?

3. How much money could you save by having fewer vendors to deal with?



Matt Watson
Chief Technical Officer
VinSolutions

Photo Editing/Graphics Tools

If anyone out there is looking for a very powerful and free graphics program, I would strongly recommend Paint.Net

http://www.getpaint.net/

I'm not a graphics pro or photoshop guru, but I know enough to be dangerous as they say, and Paint.net is powerful enough to do anything I've ever wanted to do...

Perfect for resizing photos, or doing some simple things.

Of course it doesn't do everything photoshop does, but it is also free!

Matt Watson
VinSolutions

Lower your costs, not your standards

Now is the time to lower your costs! Give VinSolutions a call today at 800-980-7488 and we will show you how you can lower your costs, and not your standards!


Dealer Inventory Management

VIN Decoding - So how does it work?

Since 1954, American automobile manufacturers have used a vehicle identification number (V.I.N.) to describe and identify motor vehicles. The early VINs came in a wide array of configurations and variations, depending on the individual manufacturer.

Beginning with model year (MY)1981, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration required that all over-the-road-vehicles sold must contain a 17-character VIN. This standard established a fixed VIN format.

So let's dissect a VIN

The first 3 digits define the manufacturer. The first of these digits is usually the country of origin. For example, all VINs that start with J are producted in Japan and those that stat with W are Germany.

Characters 4 through 8 are specific to that manufacturer's model for a given model year.

The 9th digit is a check digit. VINs can actually be validated through a mathematical formula to ensure they are valid.

The 10th digit is a year. For example, an 8 is for 2008, 7 is for 2007

The 11th digit is for the plant that manufactured the vehicle, in coordination with the manufacturer

The remaining 12th through 17th digits are more or less the serial number of that particular vehicle for the specified make/model as defined by the VIN.


So how does it work?

VIN decoding works based off "VIN prefixes" or "Squish VINs" which are basically the first 11 digits of the VIN less the 9th digit which is a check digit.

VIN Decoding providers have large databases of all the VIN Prefixes available and the vehicle data that links to them, thus providing a "VIN Decoder" or "VIN Exploder". There are about tens of thousands of unique combinations of VIN prefixes from 1981 to today.


So what can be decoded?
The year, make, model, engine, vehicle type and vehicle bodystyle can be decoded about 99% of the time. In some rare instances the year has been half model years or other goofy things. For example, the 2009 Kia Borrego actually has an 8 (2008) for the year digit but it is a 2009 model!

Can you decode the trim level?
Yes, but only about 30% of the time.

Can you decode the Transmission?
Yes, but only about 25% of the time

Can you decode the Drive Line Type? (4WD, AWD, etc)
Yes, about 80% of the time

Can you decode colors?
Nope, unless it is an Econoline van and everyone of them is probably white... :-)

For new cars a lot of dealers input the manufacturers model code and paint/option color codes in the DMS. These codes can be used in combinationo with VIN decoding to decode trim levels more often and lookup the manufacturer color names.

For some reason people always think VinSolutions is a VIN decoding company... we aren't.

See http://vinpower.com/VINInformation.aspx for more information and contact ESP Data Solutions about VINPOWER if you need a VIN Decoder for your automotive software.

At VinSolutions we use two VIN decoders. VINPOWER for basic VIN decoding since they also cover motorcycles, heavy trucks and other vehicles, and AutoData for our extended vehicle data and as a backup to VINPOWER. We actually apply a lot of custom rules to the data to perfect it for our dealers.

VinSolutions Automotive CRM Software

MotoSnap CRM, by VinSolutions has established itself as the benchmark in automotive CRM software solutions because we understand what it takes to run a dealership, and work a car deal. More importantly, we know how to apply technology to get the job done proficiently, effectively, and resourcefully.

MotoSnap CRM is the perfect fit for all dealerships because it was created and designed by experts and professionals from automotive sales. Previous dealership owners, general managers, finance directors and salespeople combined their expertise to create this comprehensive automotive CRM system.

MotoSnap CRM makes it easy to manage your personnel, maximize your lead proficiency, and monopolize your marketplace.