Dealer Groups oftentimes have a number of requirements that once fulfilled by Vital Software, will streamline the number of vendors (and therefore costs) within their business.

These requirements are typically in the areas of:

  • Head-office CRM
  • Data cleansing, validation and supplementation
  • Lead Distribution and Management
  • Data Aggregation and Consolidation
  • Fixed Operations Reporting
  • Dealership CRM

Head Office CRM

Vital Software's solutions for the Dealer Group include a fully featured CRM tool which can be deployed within a Dealer Groups' head office environment and allows for the management of, among other things, consistent communications to all customers of the dealer group, regardless of the dealership they purchased from. The CRM tools include bulk, tracked email with full bounce-back and click-through reporting, bulk direct mail facilities, SMS and/or text messaging, and a free-form report writer tool that allows the head office to segment and analyse their prospect and customer data on demand.  Best of all, the dealer group can encourage brand consistency by standardizing look and feel, and campaign schedules for all customers of the dealer group.
 
Vital Software's CRM solution always begins by integrating data from disparate sources throughout the dealer group environment.  These primary resource in this regard is the Dealer Management System data, but can also include existing marketing databases, 3rd party CRM tools, spreadsheet data, and more.
Vital Software's solutions typically require a once off "load" of data from those databases that the dealer group wishes to retire, and then a periodic (often daily) batch update of data from those sources which continue to be active within the dealer group head office.  This synching ensures a seamless and continuous update of all databases within the environment.
 
Once these steps are achieved, the Vital Software database becomes the one repository for all things "customer".  A typical head office database solution from Vital Software will allow Dealer Group head office associates to view each customer, their vehicle and service history (and the selling/servicing dealer detail), any contact with the Business Development Center within the individual dealerships and/or at head office, as well as each marketing contact made on behalf of the dealer group and/or dealer to each customer.

Data Cleansing, Validation and Supplementation

A robust CRM database requires that the data is periodically cleansed, validated and potentially supplemented from various sources.  Data cleansing, involving address validation and death register suppression, typically occurs prior to the initial data load, and on a periodic basis thereafter. Monthly or quarterly cleansing cycles are recommended, or at least prior to a campaign.

Duplicate detection is performed by Vital Software's data integration tools at the time of adding new customer and vehicle records. All of Vital Software's data cleansing tools, particularly those pertaining to address information, conform to the postal service standards within that country.  E.g. within the United States, the USPS standards are upheld, and that the data is updated from the National Change of Address register.

Fixed Operations Reporting

The fixed operations division within a Dealer Group is usually the most profitable and plays a major role in retaining customers over time in the hopes that they repurchase with the original selling dealership, or at least within the dealer group itself.
Vital Software's Fixed Operations Reporting tool allows dealers within a Dealer Group network to have access to Service and Parts Performance Reports which are standardized for each dealer, independent of the DMS utilized. 

For those Dealer Groups whereby a common DMS is utilized, the tools assist in standardizing the reporting for the entire dealer group and avoid having to run multiple reports from the DMS to have all of the information at hand. Importantly, the reports allow the Dealer Group head office to benchmark and create KPIs across the entire dealer network. 

The metrics available in the Fixed Operations reports include, but are not limited to: 

  • Service Performance Report
  • Parts Performance Report
  • Service Customer Retention Report
  • Service Customer Retention Trend Report

Service Performance Report

The Service Performance Report allows dealers to view key metrics from the service department(s) at the dealership. These metrics include:

  • Total service sales, costs and GP
  • Total labour sales, costs and GP
  • Total parts sales through the workshop, costs and GP
  • Total sublet sales, costs and GP
  • Sales mix - proportion of sales by retail, internal and warranty
  • Labour mix - proportion of labour sales by retail, internal and warranty
  • Parts mix - proportion of parts sales through the workshop by retail, internal and warranty
  • Number of service invoices - by retail, internal and warranty
  • In- and ex-PMA service sales, costs and GP (for retail sales)
  • Average retail service invoice value
  • Average parts sold per retail service invoice
  • Average labour sold per retail service invoice
  • Parts to labour ratio for retail service invoices
  • Scheduled services as a proportion of total retail services (where possible to evaluate)
  • Sublet as a proportion of total labour sales

Parts Performance Report

The Parts Performance Report allows dealers to view key metrics from their parts department(s) at the dealership. These metrics include:

  • Retail parts sales, cost, GP and mix proportion
  • Trade parts sales, cost, GP and mix proportion
  • Internal parts sales, cost, GP and mix proportion
  • Workshop parts sales, cost, GP and mix proportion
  • Parts sales to other dealers, cost, GP and mix proportion
  • Monthly sales and GP per employee
  • Total parts sales, cost and GP
  • Dealer parts inventory
  • Inventory days supply

Service Retention Reporting

Dealer Groups are also able to deliver reports to their dealer network which assists them in identifying their service retention. This includes the current 13-month retention figure and a trend of this figure over time. It is possible to filter the retention reporting by make, by age of vehicle (within age bands) and by date range.
It is possible to view the retention graph by:

  • Proportion of customers retained (those customers that had their vehicles serviced 13 months ago that have returned since)
  • Proportion of customers lost (those customers that had their vehicles serviced 13 months ago that have NOT returned since)
  • Total service invoice value retained (the dollar value of retained customers)
  • Total service invoice value lost (the dollar value of lost customers)
  • Total labour value retained (the dollar value of the labour component of retained customers)
  • Total labour value lost (the dollar value of the labour component of lost customers)

For both retained and lost customers it is possible to produce a list of those customers. This is particularly important for the lost customers as they are candidates for marketing activities - either letter, email or phone contact.

Service Penetration Reporting

Dealer Groups also like to provide dealers with the ability for dealers to report on their service penetration. Service penetration is the proportion of vehicles serviced by a dealer from the total registered vehicles in that dealer's Prime Marketing Area (PMA). This information should be displayed graphically, showing the trend in service penetration over time.
In addition, the following service penetration metrics can be displayed:

  • Proportion of vehicles serviced from vehicles registered in PMA
  • Service revenue ($) per vehicle from vehicles registered in PMA
  • Aggregate Fixed Operations Reporting
  • In conjunction with the reports that are deployed at the dealership, each OEM will most certainly require aggregate versions of the Service Performance Report, the Parts Performance Report and the Service Retention Reports.
  • Aggregate versions of these reports allow corporate users to display performance reports and retention reports across the entire dealer network, or various segments of the dealer network.
  • Most Dealer Groups categorise their dealers by size and by geographic area. As a result, Vital Software's reporting can be segmented in various ways.  Examples included, but are not limited to:
    • By region - this may be by State or by general area "Southern Region", for example
    • By dealer size - typically an identifier representing the relative size of the dealer - this allows dealers of comparative size to be compared
    • By zone - metro, provincial, rural

 
Dealership CRM

Vital Software's fully data-integrated dealership CRM that works (by extracting data on a nightly basis) with the dealers' DMS systems and can also work with the Dealer Groups' lead distribution programs.  As a result, the Vital Software solution provides the dealers customers, vehicle sales, service and parts information - all of which are available for marketing and reporting.

Key elements of Dealership CRM include:

  • Customer record management
  • Customer lists
  • Customer selections (Quick Picks)
  • Marketing operations:
    • Mail-merge
    • Bulk email marketing
    • SMS (text) marketing
    • Reporting, including:
      • Email tracking reports
      • Data quality analysis and reporting

Further details with regards to dealership CRM can be found within the Dealership section of our website, or click here.

Business Development Center

In a typical dealership environment there are multiple touch points that need to be achieved during the Prospect and Customer lifecycle to ensure the highest service levels are delivered.  These touch points can include follow-up phone calls, texts, and marketing communications such as "thank you for your pricing request" at the prospect phase,  "thank you for purchasing" and "welcome to our service center" at the point of sale, and "happy
anniversary" in the post-purchase/retention phase.  Multiply the number of communications by the number of dealerships within a dealer group and you get a substantial amount of
activity to manage! 

Given this fact, many dealer groups consolidate their efforts by creating Business Development Centers (BDC) which manage these processes centrally.  However, more often than not, there are multiple systems in use within the BDC - the DMS application, CRM tools, Lead Management Systems, OEM systems, and even "home grown" solutions created by the Dealer Group.  The more databases that exist, the more fragmented and fractured the process can become.  Vital Software deliver solutions for Business Development Centers that include:

Customer Survey Index Module

Designed to seamlessly improve Customer Satisfaction Index (CSI) results. The Dealer Standards module allows for easy customer follow-up and continuous improvement.

Configurable so that the BDC is able to schedule customer contact points based on their own business processes, as well as measure customer satisfaction against CSI scorecards. Trend Reports allow the BDC to view data-driven graphical reports with drill-down functionality into individual customer problems.

Finally, our Process Improvement Worksheet allows the BDC to report on trends affecting CSI and follow a 4-step process improvement plan from root cause analysis through to success measurement.

Additionally, the BDC can utilize Vital Software's extensive Marketing suite which provides is the ideal solution to Plan, Deliver and Report on marketing efforts across the dealer group. 

Features include:

  • Campaigns
    Create, manage and analyse results from campaigns.
  • Target Marketing
    Select customers according to specific demographics using
    our intuitive "Quick Pick" data filtering wizard.
  • Wizards
    Launch mail, email and SMS wizards at the click of a
    button to send personalised communications.
  • Recurring Letters
    Save time with setting up repetitive letters. Print on
    schedule with ease!
  • Privacy and Security
    Conforms to government regulatory requirements providing
    privacy flags for all communication methods.
  • Familiar interface
    ContactTracker utilises the Microsoft suite of products
    including:Outlook for calendars and eMail; Word for letters and Excel for
    reports.
 

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