Vital Software Pty Ltd

Vital Software is the developer of data driven solutions for the automotive industry.  Vital specializes in solutions for automotive OEMs which assist in driving profitability, reducing marketing waste, preventing prospect leakage, and more.

Vital Software has extensive experience with data integration, in particular Dealer Management System (DMS) data, Head-office databases, and various third-party lead sources.

In addition Vital Software has created custom data integrations with many automotive OEM systems. By their nature, most of these integrations have to be developed on a case-by-case basis, as each OEM has different requirements. Data integrations with OEM systems can be implemented using standards such as the Standards for Technology in Automotive Retail (STAR), or can be implemented as completely custom solutions.

ContactTracker offers functionality in several areas - prospect and lead management and tracking; targeted customer marketing activities using direct mail, email, SMS and telephone; outbound call list management; inbound call, case and concern management; parts and service data analysis; and over all these functions, extensive reporting capabilities.

Vital Software has a large amount of experience dealing with electronic lead distribution, tracking and management. In particular, Vital Software understands that lead distribution does not simply mean sending an email to a dealer, but rather gives OEMs full visibility of the lead through all aspects of the dealer's communication with that customer.

Corporate CRM

Vital Software's solutions for the OEM include a fully featured CRM tool which can be deployed within an OEMs' corporate environment and allows for the management of, among other things, communications with consumers in the form of warranty recall, product promotion, and service retention marketing.  Corporate 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 OEM to segment and analyse their prospect and customer data on demand. 

Vital Software's Corporate CRM solution most always begins by integrating data from disparate sources throughout the OEM environment.  These sources may include RDR/RDA databases, existing marketing databases, Co-op databases, spreadsheet data, and more. 

Vital Software's solutions typically require a once off "load" of data from those databases that the OEM wishes to retire, and then a periodic (often daily) batch update of data from those sources which continue to be active within the corporate office.  This synching ensures a seamless and continuous update of all OEM databases within the OEMs' own environment.  

Once these steps are achieved, the Vital Software database becomes the one repository for all things "customer".  A typical Corporate database solution from Vital Software will allow the OEM to view each customer, their vehicle and service history (and the selling/servicing dealer detail), any contact with the Consumer Affairs division within the OEM, and each marketing contact made on behalf of the OEM and/or dealer to each customer.

Data Cleansing, Validation and Supplementation

A robust Corporate 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.

Lead Distribution and Management

Dealers within an OEM network receive leads from their dealership websites, from the corporate website, and from third-parties. Most often, OEMs use a third-party organisation to manage the distribution of all of the leads to the dealer network.  A key objective for OEMs is to not only distribute leads to their dealers, butto be able to see the resultsof the dealer contact with those prospects. 

Currently, this process is very difficult given the vast array of DMS and CRM systems within each dealer network.  Dealers are oftentimes resistant to use an OEM mandated tool to follow up leads, and as a result the feedback on the status of these leads does not always make its way back to the OEM.  This makes the measure of ROI for campaigns exceedingly difficult as the OEM cannot determine which sources are actually deliveringsales, not just lead volume. 

 Vital Software's solutions allow for leads to be collected by the OEM and then be distributed to the relevant dealer (by PMA) by either pushing the lead into the DMS and/or CRM, or utilizing Vital Software's dealer solution.  Further, Vital Software are able to pull out the "milestones" or "road to a sale" from many leading CRM and DMS tools, as well as "close the loop" by pulling the resultant sales data for each lead from either DMS and/or RDR data.  The result is a full circle view of each lead, their journey through the dealership as a prospect, the resultant of purchase history, and then, if required, their full service history. 

Our lead distribution tool allows for:

• Distribution of Head-office leads TO dealership CRM (based on ZIP code/PMA, or customer preference)
• The ability for emails to be sent to dealers identifying new leads from Head-office
• The ability for dealers to identify Head-office generated leads
• The ability for dealers to be able to allocate leads to salespeople within the dealership
• The ability for dealers to check milestones in the "road to a sale" process with each prospect
• The ability for dealers to journal contact with the prospects
• The ability for dealers to perform marketing campaigns to prospects - eg. Thank-you for test-driving, thank-you for visiting our dealership
• The ability for dealers to mark prospective sales opportunities as "won" or "lost"
• The ability for dealers to report on conversion rates of leads - both at dealership level and at salesperson level
• The ability for the OEM to view dealership milestone progress on each Head-office generated lead
• The ability for the OEM to view contact history for each Head-office generated lead
• The ability to generate lead reminder emails to the dealership for leads that have not been actiond within a certain time period
• The ability for the OEM to report on lead distribution effectiveness (leads distributed, lead notification emails sent and received, lead notification emails opened, milestones set on leads, and so on)
• The ability for the OEM to measure and report on conversion rates of leads - at network level, at state or region level, at individual dealership level and possibly at salesperson level

Fixed Operations Reporting

OEMs have a need to report across their dealer network across the areas of parts sales, service transactions, vehicle sales and prospects and leads.  Having access to this data allows for snapshots at the current time and date so that they are able to measure, trend, and benchmark their dealers over time.

Vital Software's Fixed Operations Reporting tool allows dealers within an OEM network to have access to Service and Parts Performance Reports which are standardized for each dealer, independent of the DMS utilized within their dealership.  Specifically these reports include:

• 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 allow 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

OEMs are also able to deliver reports to their dealers which assist 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

OEMs 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.

OEMs all 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

OEM Deployed - Dealership CRM

A considerable number of dealers do not have an existing CRM system, or have poor usage and/or processes for their current CRM tool.  For these dealers, Vital Software have a 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 OEMs' 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.

In addition, of course,ContactTrackerintegrates directly with the lead distribution and tracking system - providing the dealers a powerful tool for managing their leads and prospects.

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