DealerRefresh Welcomes a new sponsor – ClickMotive

ClickMotive delivers the powerful combination of website design, video, and dynamic search – in a single product, on a single platform, for one low cost, using 100% in-house technology. Led by the former owners of Third Coast Media and the former Vice President of RWS, ClickMotive combines powerful tech savvy with years of experience at all levels of the automotive industry.

Their FUSION™  website plateform combines the power of the Web, Search, and Video – together in one product – and exclusively for the automotive industry. At all levels, — dealer, group, regional, and national  – FUSION™ lets you control content, incentives, video, marketing, specials, SEO, SEM, inventory, and more.

To read  more about ClickMotive and their services, click here.

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Many of the conversations we get on the DealerRefresh forums are about dealership CRM choices and practices.  With all the different conversations cycling around this topic, I have to assume that many dealers are changing or signing up with a new CRM company.  I’m very glad to see the industry taking this extremely important technology more seriously, but I wonder if we might overlook some things during a change.

When changing CRM or ILM companies, you have to change your Internet lead address.  It is a seriously major pain in the ass if you have a lot of lead providers (OEM’s, third-party, freebies, classified sites, your own site, etc.).  If you’ve made a change, did you forget a lead provider?  Did you remember to inform CarFax, Vast, Google Base, or one of those other sites that you don’t pay directly for leads?

I have a suggestion that will make this change only take 5 minutes and open up many more opportunities for your leads:

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Happy Thanksgiving !! From my table of turkey to yours.

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Guest Posting By John Quinn

Exactly what are Sales Managers managing these days?

Ahhhh…. the good ‘ol days… Remember the weekends? The Sales Staff gets there nice and early with enough caffeine in their hands to jump-start a rhino, trailed by a cloud of cigarette smoke. The managers hold a quick Pump-Me-Up session, doling-out spiffs like Halloween candy to eager 1st-graders… $25 a spot, $100 for the trifecta. Salespeople line-up at the front door… a couple hide in the inventory out front… and then it arrives: the Up Bus! As sure as geese flying South for the Winter and Salmon running upstream in October, the Wave of Eager Buyers descends on the lot every Saturday morning.

Schedule a delivery for Saturday? Are you nuts? Appointment on a Saturday? “Sure… come-in…. I’ll be waiting for you.” (Yeah, right). You’d do half your month on Saturdays and mop-up the leftovers on Monday. What a life!

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IRVINE, Calif. — Kelley Blue Book is adding a Certified Pre-Owned Value to its Web site next month to educate consumers about the benefits and value of CPO programs.

Basically, KBB calculates a specific model’s CPO value by adding an appropriate certified premium to the vehicle’s Blue Book Suggested Retail Value.

KBB processes recent certified vehicle transactions through a statistical model and analyzes discrete CPO program costs to calculate specific vehicles’ CPO premiums.

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