Autobase CRM VS Higher Gear CRM

64 Comments

• Internet Jeff

  September 16th, 2007

  About a year ago, I interviewed several CRM companies for a large automotive group. Higher Gear was one, and my current group uses Autobase.

  Higher Gear came at us with a newbie Sales Rep that had never sold a car, assisted by a ‘Big Suit’ that was aloof and not a good listener to our needs.

  We were understanding to the newbies lack of knowledge, but the overtalk and attitude of the Big Suit was difficult to look past.

  Since, I have never signed with Higher Gear and actively used the product, but have a few ISM buds that routinely call me with frustrations to Higher Gear’s product; mainly the ability of setting up their processes which have to go through their rep or tech support, even for a simple email template and it usually takes multiple calls and emails to get one of them accurate with punctuaction and timing. Then the excessively long contracts they are bound to… Eww!

  My current dealer has AutoBase as a CRM. I use a different tool for my internet leads for various reasons, but am often in AutoBase checking for dup customers before working the leads.

  ISM’s I know using AutoBase for an ILM seem to get by, but the Owners/Dealer Principles that have them are EXTREMELY LOYAL to their product. Most importantly (aside from ROI), the showroom sales reps do use it religously without complaint and I find it to be an easy to use, powerful and glitch-free CRM tool.

  Autobase would be my first choice based on the above experiences.

• Donny Beckman

  September 17th, 2007

  Jeff,
  Thanks so much for posting this over the weekend!! A couple questions that arose from both products were the desking tools and also, the ILM. From what I can see so far is that neither product is real strong in either of those areas. We are leaning towards Autobase, but are open to any suggestions of other products that the readers may have as well. We run a full BDC dept and I am the Internet Director and BDC back up manager as well. The reason I mention our process is so the readers may have suggestions that are geared to our process.
  Thanks Again!
  Donny Beckman
  Internet Director
  Tom Gill Chevrolet

• RedSearch

  September 17th, 2007

  As an internet marketing firm that has an automotive line of products and services, and provides a number of auto dealers with lead generating website and search engine marketing solutions, we understand the importance of the CRM solution that is in place with our clients. Obviously the value of the leads that our solutions generate for our auto dealer clients is best realized when they have a solid CRM solution in place to work the leads and turn them into sales.

  The clients with a solid CRM and BDC in place make us feel the highest level of confidence that they will have the best conversion rates from lead to sale. We are secure knowing there is a team focused on turning leads into appointments, and appointments into sales.

  That all being said, it has been our experience that the Autobase solution is a very strong solution that we feel confident in suggesting to our auto dealer clients, and dealerships that we consult. The BDC that we have worked with the most is an Autobase based solution, and it simply seems to run like a top. In addition, not one client that we have, that works with Autobase, has ever had a bad thing to say about them to us. All clients seem happy with them.

  Although I cannot speak for the Higher Gear solution, as we have not had first hand experience working with their products, services or employees, I know that a dealership really can’t go wrong working with Autobase.

  Ryan Mull
  IMAVEX Internet Marketing

• Reis

  September 17th, 2007

  Coming from a dealer that uses Higher Gear, and is in one of the frustratingly long contracts I am stuck with it, and have an owner who absolutely loves it. I say that there are quite a few positives in the higher gear group but not really having anything to compare it to I can’t say whether it is better than any other CRM. Managing leads from it works pretty well, but as far as setting up auto-responder’s and templates to take care of a lot of my work it is pretty difficult especially if your not necessarily the most tech savvy. I am pretty internet savvy but when it comes to code and when to put in specific code’s to do things it’s pretty difficult. I didn’t go to college for programming and don’t know much about it. Most of the time there customer service is pretty good but you do have to talk to about 3 people before anything happens. They send out a rep quite a bit. Suppose to be once a month but doesn’t really happen all that often. They definitely need to dumb it down a bit. I don’t know if they keep it the way it is to make their customer’s as reliant on them as they can. Rather than having it easy to use for everyone. I’m interested to hear what other Higher gear user’s think.

• ismconnection.com

  September 18th, 2007

  Jeff,

  I worked at a dealer that used Autobase… Great system for floor traffic for a large dealer with multi franchises. If a customer is a be-back and a different sales associate helps them it sends an email to the first salesman… With that in mind though they were never able to get the Internet leads to properly work with the system. So we ended up having LMCC and Autobase.

  Robert
  Ismconnection.com

• Mitch

  September 18th, 2007

  Can’t remember the last time I used AutoBase, but I do not recommend Higher Gear, for many of the reasons listed above, and also for one other reason: the new wave of business technologies need to be ever-improving, and the vendors need to constantly listen to their customers and make necessary changes to the tools. Up-and-coming web-based CRMs like iMagicLabs’ DealerCRM can and do make that leap… Higher Gear has had the same childish, slow, un-intuitive interface since its inception in ’98 if I remember correctly.

  Just like ADP and Reynolds, Higher Gear is pathetically old school. You want new capabilities? Wait for that magical new version 5 years from now. You want to customize this or integrate that? New version. And if you want to make suggestions for the new version, you’re too late because they’re already done working on it. Your suggestions will be considered for the next new version after this new version. By the way, please stay on the line to tell us those suggestions, and have your ticket number from six months ago handy to remind us of how long we’ve been ignoring your issue.

  It’s 2007 folks… no 8-year tenures for software versions, no long-term contracts, no crappy tech support. Learn something from your Internet customers: how to pit competing companies against eachother and make them perform for you.

• Jake

  September 19th, 2007

  As a auto industry vendor I can’t say a whole lot about either product regarding functionality, but from a customer service perspective I have been in contact with AutoBase on a few occasions to help a client with issues they were having. I will say their customer support was very helpful, prompt, and knowledgeable. On the dealer side I’m not impressed with their user interface, but I guess function is more important than form, and if it works well for the dealers I guess it’s OK. The biggest downside in my opinion is price. Not sure what current rates for Higher Gear are, but I know AutoBase is up there.

• Lao Shi

  September 19th, 2007

  I have not used either of these and I am interested to learn from the comments.

  VinSolutions has been around since about 2004, selling photo and data collection services, combined with suite of integrated inventory management tools and CRM products, provides dealers with Internet marketing process training, CRM installation training and business development.

  They are one of the fastest growing CRM software suite solution providers designed for automobile dealers. They have also just inked a deal with ASI which will make them a viable alternative to established majors like Reynolds and ADP. They are diffidently a solution provider to watch

  Their price is much more affordable than a number of solutions and they are on a month to month so you know they must stay high on the technology curve to maintain their position and they must be confident they can.

  When you look at their solution compared to a BZ type solution there is no comparison as the solution is far superior and at much less the price.

  I have also heard that they have inked an agreement with ASI which will add to their growth if it is true. ASI I have been told is a very affordable DMS which is a month to month solution. I have also been told it is a good solution I have not used it myself so I would be interested in knowing what people think about it and what the monthly fee is.

  I would be sure to include them to give a presentation and quote if I were researching to make a decision on a solution. My business school professor Qui Lin Lum always instructed us to get a minimum of THREE BID PROPOSALS.

• Ian Statler

  September 19th, 2007

  Geesh Lao, reads like a plug for vinsolutions.

  Actually I’ve heard quite the opposite about vinsolutions. Only 1 dedicated tech support rep, major problems with their automatic follow-up just to name a few. But then again, aren’t all the CRM’s buggy?

  Out of respect for other readers trying to educated themselves about Higher Gear and Autobase, I’ll reframe from writing about other CRM vendors.

• Matt Wiener

  September 19th, 2007

  I am an IT Director for a large dealer group and I have worked with both products. They are very similarly matched in what they attempt to accomplish, there is probably no better CRM comparison for the automotive industry.

  I worked with Higher Gear for the last 3 years but have been away from it for 6 months. When I worked with Higher Gear they were local so we had reps in our store. Mostly when we originally signed up. The Group I was working with had Higher gear in one store, although we had about 50 client PC’s running the program. As a server based system they are using Linux based servers now, where they used to be windows based. Since the switch to linux the server is very stable and we did not have many usability issues. We did have printing issues where information would print differently on different printers. This seemed to be due to the fact that some pc’s were windows 2000 and some were XP. Aside from printing issues we had a hard time getting new features implemented and working. Intergation and processes setup took years. That seems to be a support issue with Higher Gear as I see other people are still complaining about that.

  I currently work for a different group that uses Autobase. We were upgraded to the 7.2 version about a month ago. This is supposedly the biggest revision Autobase has ever released. Thats according to the people at Autobase who have been working like dogs to get our system running reliably. The previous version worked reasonably well but the upgrade was and is a complete disaster.

  We have had problems with the email service shutting down that took 3 weeks to fix and ended up being a .net issue. Autobase should really consider Linux servers as it made all the difference with Higher Gear.

  We had problems with Phone tracking, email, SQL database errors, leads not coming into the system, xml parsing and more.

  I have spent most of the last month dealing with Autobase on a daily basis to get the issues resolved. This is our system Group wide and it is the most unreliable CRM I have ever worked with. If you want a custom report created from Autobase they will put you on a six month waiting list.

  We are locked into a contract and have had no choice but to pound everyone we can at Autobase to get the system fixed. There are still some outstanding issues in our stores.

  In my opinion web based systems are far more reliable and make more sense. Dealers can access the systems from any pc, and do not have to have install, maintain, or upgrade software on the inhouse pc’s. You do not have to worry about backups as server based systems are only good until you loose a hard drive. Also employees can stay in contact with hot prospects when they are away from the dealership. Web based systems are also more email friendly. One of the biggest issues we have with Autobase is bouncing emails and getting our dealer network blacklisted because we email from our mail servers. Most of the web based systems avoid these issues all together.

• Jeff Kershner

  September 19th, 2007

  Donny,

  You said “A couple questions that arose from both products were the desking tools and also, the ILM. From what I can see so far is that neither product is real strong in either of those areas.”

  These are 2 very important and often overlook elements of a strong CRM.

  From what I know Higher Gear has had their Desking tool in “beta” since NADA of last year. The last I checked, it was in the same beta status with only a few dealers testing it out. At the time my dealer was using ePencil from Cardone and Higher Gear did export to ePencil. It took 2 additional clicks to export to ePencil, but it did work.

  Lack of ILM features for Higher Gear was one of the main reasons for dropping them. It had basically NO ILM features but again this is something that I heard has changed. What drove me crazy with HG was that each opportunity was based on the vehicle of interest. SO..if you had a customer that filled out more then one form from your website (2 or more leads for the same customer) you would have several opportunities for the same customer. At this point had to be sure to go in and delete any automatic follow-up for each of the additional opportunities. It was a real pain in the A$$.

  As for Autobase, I asked them at the last NADA if they were going to build a Desking solution. The rep told me “They have thought about it but have decided to stay out of the desking business”. BUT this too I heard has changed and they are now working on one. (from my experience, a good desking tool can take some time to build).

  At NADA Autobase was showing off their ILM module. Though I would hardly call it an “ILM”, it was more like a separate module for tracking emails. However, it was a quick demo so there might have been more to it then what I got to see.

  My recommendation is to find several top performing dealers that are using Higher Gear and Autobase. Build a relationship with the BDC and ILM managers and get their honest feedback. Ask if you can visit their dealer to see the CRM in action. Take your time before making a decision, even if it takes 6 months. You really want to try and make the right decision the first time around. If you bounce around from CRM to CRM, it sends a bad message to your sales force and can make it that much harder to get everyones buy-in.

• Donny Beckman

  September 20th, 2007

  Great info and comments and Thanks to all. Over the last year we have looked at 20 different providers and have narrowed it down to these 2 to meet our needs. We now are going to several stores that have the systems and are going to drive them for ourselves. It is always a good idea to take the “test drive” before making the purchase. I encourage anyone who is considering a purchase or is very close, go drive them live! Again, thanks to the group and Jeff as we have a battery of questions that need to be fielded from the comments on this topic
  Good Selling and
  Kindest Regards,
  Donny Beckman
  Internet Director
  Ton Gill Chevrolet

• Alex Snyder

  September 20th, 2007

  If a CRM cannot provide, at least, an ILM solution, a BDC solution, a desking solution, a non-duplicate lead entering solution, push to your DMS, ways to un-blacklist you (if that happens), campaign management including customizable work-flow and follow-up scripts in multiple formats, credit pulling, information export (if you ever have to change vendors) then you should RUN to the next vendor who can handle those things. Mind you, that is an “at least have” list – there may be other requirements your dealership has.

  You should also speak to your manufacturer about their integration programs (now and future). Manufacturers are linking up with CRM providers for many reasons – this will be a hot topic very soon.

  One thing most dealers also look past is process. A CRM will not work if the dealership does not have a clearly defined process. These processes can be very complex, and differ per department. This is a lesson my dealer group is currently learning the hard way. Don’t rely on the CRM to provide you with your processes – that isn’t what a CRM does.

  Another point you should send up the totem poll is to make your CRM tool a democratic decision. Get all of your departments involved. What might work for your sales floor might be the worst thing ever for your Internet department/BDC. You might want to expand into service data-mining in your BDC one day, so your service department should be involved in the decision as well. Do not allow some higher-up in your company to make the decision based on whatever he/she likes because it will be the wrong choice for the people who will actually use the system….and there won’t be buy-in.

• Todd Mathews

  September 21st, 2007

  I have been reading all the comments about Higher gear vs. Autobase. I will be right up front and tell you that I am the VP of Sales for the industries first all-in-one CRM/ILM/Web Sites/Desking/Inventory/Digital Marketing web-based system in the automotive industry created in 1999. My question is why would you want a CRM system that is server based, cost tons of money to install and maintain, doesn’t encompasses your ILM/Desking/Web Sites needs and requires LONG TERM CONTRACTS?. This in turn forces your dealership to deal multiple vendors that produces multiple databases across your dealership platform. Wouldn’t it be nice to have one system that covered all these needs. PS: I will offer a FREE white paper we wrote on “management by expectation” (Revolutionary measuring/monitoring of CRM and Lead management activities) to whom every , Just drop me an email.

• Inet Director

  September 21st, 2007

  Don’t want to get into anyone elses decisions but I used to use Autobase and now I use Higher Gear. The biggest problem with Autobase is that the Salesperson “owns” that customer. What I mean is, they can do what ever they want kill it, schedule follow 20 years out, or choose to follow up.

  With Higher Gear, the management has the power and by enforcing the use of the tool (which we all know is the make or break of CRM) you know every opportunity gets worked the same way every day. This year in one of our strongest stores we smashed our record numbers. Guess what, right about the time we started using Higher Gear everyone noticed how efficently we were operating.

  Don’t get me wrong, their are some things I like about all the different tools we have tried. However, when came down to utilization, Higher Gear just gets used. Enforcing HIgher Gear in our stores was easy because a chimpanzee could use it.

  My two cents…ID

• Rick Gartman

  September 23rd, 2007

  We’ve used Autobase for several years now and from time to time we have looked very closely at other CRMs including Higher Gear. We’ve had demos, visited other dealers for a first hand look and each had some points we liked and shortfalls in other areas but on balance we keep staying with Autobase.

  We are extremely happy with the new version 7.2 it’s definitely one of the biggest releases that we’ve seen from Autobase. We were also one of the early installs of the new version. There were some bumps in the road at first that they worked quickly to correct. The tech support they provide has been extremely good. The new internet lead tool has been greatly enhanced so when you combine it with the rest of the program, it’s hard to beat.

• Jake Wirth

  September 23rd, 2007

  If anyone wants screenshots of These 2 CRM programs, I can provide 20+ of each.

  Just email me and get ‘em so you can see for yourself, without the lame sales guys at Higher Gear hassling you over the demo presentation…..

• Erica Sietsma

  September 25th, 2007

  Ok, I just have to weigh in on this one!! Sorry to the people from Autobase and Higher Gear that read this, but I have had experience with both. I did work for Autobase for about 3 years, then flipped to the Call Measurement industry where I got a great outsider’s view of the different CRMs in the space and how different dealers across the country use them. Now, I am with a 63 franchise dealergroup that uses Autobase in nearly all of our stores, except for our Motorworld location in Pennsylvania.

  First, their is NO, I repeat NO perfect software! Look at darn Microsoft – do you ever count the number of problems you have with microsoft? Yet people still want to eviscerate their CRM for this lock up or that lock up. (Ok, probably because we all have to complain about something right? I do the same thing, so that was part advice to myself) This being said, I do believe in the Autobase vs. Higher Gear fight that Autobase wins.

  A) They were just bought buy Dominion – can we say, “Hellooooo infusion of funds!”
  B) As far as ILM goes, their new version kinda kicks some tail over Higher Gear. Yes, it is so fresh that it has some lil’ bugs, but they have finally mastered the “hot fix” concept and are getting those cleaned up pretty quick.
  C) Customer support is getting better – they are starting to figure out the whole account manager thing and that customers hate not being able to communicate directly with someone who they know will take care of them,
  D) Showroom control is tops. I do not know who earlier was talking about “What I mean is, they can do what ever they want kill it, schedule follow 20 years out, or choose to follow up.” and that HG provides more control – did you use Autobase dude? It’s called Save A Deal, any time a salesperson takes any kind of action with a customer that puts them in an alternative status it flags the manager and they are required at our stores to review these deals and contact these customers. That is been in the system, since, oh 1989!
  E) Opportunity Centric will be coming – at some point. Ok, this is a flaw. A lot of the newer systems are Opp centric vs customer-centric and Autobase is working on a full rebuild to incorporate this. It’s not a huge fly in the ointment, but will be better when this is fixed. Currently, we can live without it fine.
  F) Hideous. I think they should change the H in Higher Gear to Hideous Gear. I am glad that chimpanzees can use it, but we don’t employ chimpanzees – we have homo sapiens, so that’s not super useful for us. Plus, if you are still hiring “Old school” car guy who needs the “Second grader” mentality- good luck! Doesn’t matter what you put in, his days are numbered. The customers are changing and so too should the tools they use.
  G) If this was not just between AB vs. HG, then I would throw in some others for you to look at. A personal fave is DealerSocket and while people complain bc they are expensive, that is because they don’t sell off their paper and they have to cover all of their training/sales expenses up front. The font is small and there is a lot going on the screen and I am so used to Autobase, that I find things a little hard to navigate, BUT if I was starting fresh – this is who I would go with. Plus, they are just really cool people who live in SoCal and when you are calling customer support, these are the people you want to be talking to! And they have a wicked smart team.
  Eleads claims they are on the move, but some friends have the new version and want to blow their brains out, so not sure what is going on there. I do know they have brought in some top level management which will be interesting! Let’s see what Hugh and his team have for us come NADA.

• Int Director

  September 27th, 2007

  That was well thought out post Erica. And you definately have some very good points. However, I think you are way off on your staffing comments and ILM functionality.

  In today’s store a good, seasoned Sales Professional is hard to come by and painful to loose. They are not on there way out and earn well over six figures in our dealerships because they can sell and know what to do! We are not only a volume stores but also trade punches with the big boys for gross. “newbie/generation D” sales people can answer inet leads and get them in but their grosses are traditionally low. I need EVERYONE in the dealership to use the tool not just the Inet Manager.

  Oh yeah, and just in case you miss read me, I did use ABase and your precious “save a deal” just did not get used the right way. By the time the desk managers got to the save a deal it was to late, the customer bought from the competition which will take a bath just to beat us. I would much rather know that xyz is happening everytime, than just hoping the person is taking the right steps. Then I need to pray that someone else checks and then does the right things. You are obviously a little byass since you worked for Abase.

  Finally, in regards to ILM, I have all the same templates and follow up that we had with Abase in Higher Gear

• BW

  September 27th, 2007

  Nice save Higher Gear… good to hear from you!

• Ashley Antonio

  September 27th, 2007

  Erica my love, you are as byass as me! LOL.
  All jokes aside Higher Gear is no longer relevant anymore and neither is Autobase. In my opinion, E-Leads, DealerSocket and IMagicLabs all offer a much better mousetrap no matter how you are looking to use CRM in your store.

• Internet Jeff

  September 27th, 2007

  You’re killing me Jake (W)! That is too funny, couldn’t have said it better. I think we should get 10 of us ‘DealerRefreshers’ and start a CRM company… how bad could it be?! lol

• Erica Sietsma

  September 28th, 2007

  Thanks for the support Ash! Believe me, I am not “byass”ed, I just truly believe HG is inferior to Autobase and some of the most powerful people in the retail industry will back me up on this. However, I did not say AB is the best in the space by any means. Frankly, everyone is waiting for CRM 3.0 and I pray we get some new players in this space.

  Up to a few weeks ago, I was ready to chuck AB out the window. (HG would have been chucked day uno) But, with our new awesome account manager and the ILM piece (bugs and all…no ones perfect, except maybe Kershner), I am as happy as a little girl (doing move from “Sprockets” from SNL). We are so far down the road with AB and are such a large group that the only CRM we would ever switch to would be our own and since we don’t have that…we are with Autobase and not unhappy about it.

  In conclusion, if you have to go with a server based CRM for some odd reason, then I firmly believe AB is the way to go and I can provide you with a plethora of companies unhappy with HG to back me up. However, if you are not married to server based, then I would look at Ashley’s suggestions or the new DealerRefresh CRM suite coming this NADA….no pressure Jeff!

  And on the staffing comment, when the next generation takes the lead as they will in the next 10 years, I will bet money that a majority of their generation and mine will transact fully online. Heck, if I could do the whole deal front to back right now, you wouldn’t find me in a dealership and I work in the biz!

• Jeff Cotton

  September 29th, 2007

  Having been the Number 1 Maybach salesperson for the last few years, and a top producer with Mercedes Benz for 19 years I must tell you that the focus of new leads is missing the target.
  The time has come to look at our own client portfolio, to re contract our own clients into new contracts, just like the mortgage industry has done. We can no longer wait until our client finish their current lease or purchase, we as salespeople need to manage our client automotive portfolio for them and let them know when the time is right to get into a new car. Most of are clients need someone to tell them when it’s the right time for them to buy a new car. BDC software and CRM is not able to do this, there is only one program that does this successfully, that is AutoAlert,.it will tell you which of your current clients can get out of their contract into a new one keeping their payments about the same. Dealerships need to look a head and not stay in the past.

• Jake Wirth

  October 5th, 2007

  I did business with Vin Solutions recently and now I can’t get my money back.

  I was attempting to use the tool for a contact manager for a different industry from the car biz. I am a little discouraged by their internal staffing and processes:

  Aug 07 – I happened to work with an awesome sales rep who got me what I needed and I was happy to sign up for their ILM product.

  Sept 07 – Realized reporting and tool wasn’t up to par, vital features missing.

  Sept 07 – Realized tool was very slow on a cable connection. This indicates the lack of investment in storage solutions offering users quicker responses.

  Sept 07 – I formally cancel my subscription to the product. Was told refund couldn’t be processed back to my card because they canceled their PayPal account. So they idea was to send me a refund check, now if the would just send it!

  Sept 07 – No Check Yet

  Oct 07 – Well, 10 phone calls later, no check. Hopefully this post helps.

  Before signing on the line with Vin Solutions be sure to ask them about their refund process and policy.

  - – - STOP READING HERE, Vin Solutions employees – - -

  The ILM tool that they ripped off of iMagicLab (iCarMagic, iLeadTools, iMagicLabs) actually looks better, but definitely doesn’t perform as well. It is obvious that iML spent more on the Coding and Vin Solutions did a cheap rip off job.

  Click on my name below to email me and get my address to send the check.

• Star Galvez

  October 9th, 2007

  If your dealership is geared toward internet sales I would highly urge you not to use Autobase as the program does a good job with floor sales but lacks full capabilities when it comes to web leads. When we signed up with Auto we were basicly told what we wanted to hear once we started using it it was a totally different story and no one wanted to step up the the plate. We even has the VP fly up to address teh issues we were having we had his word that our top 5 request would take place in the next upgade that never happend so we cut our loss $300,000 later and went to another CM not as good as BZ results but it does the job.

• William Bryant

  October 12th, 2007

  We’re using Higher Gear currently, and the biggest problem with it is the majority of sales people and managers don’t use it anymore. There’s a lot that you have to go through just to enter an up, and when you have someone on the floor you’d just rather not deal with it. Even with the driver’s license scanner. Plus, you can’t easily desk a deal through the system. EZDesk is still far away from being usable daily.

  We’re on the way to switching to ProMax, which, from an ISM point of view, helps out none. I do like having an internet based instead of server based CRM tool, but both leave TONS desired when it comes to an ILM tool.

  Higher Gear does a good job of helping me keep up with my leads. The templates work pretty well, but there’s no opt-in for mass-mailing. And it’s not easy to edit templates. But it does do a good job of keeping track of customers and keeping you on your toes. And the inventory integration isn’t quite as powerful as I’d like it to be.

  Higher Gear’s not bad, I have no experience with Autobase. But being an ISM I’m looking for better lead management.

  As a reccomendation, ProMax has good inventory integration and desking tools. Logging ups even on the floor is quick. But reports generation is way lacking, and ILM is way way lacking.

• Keith Latman

  November 20th, 2007

  Have any of you folks even considered that the old crop of tools you are debating are just no longer relevant anymore? Let’s just chart the facts shall we?

  Autobase has no desking, no online inventory and still thinks ILM is a seperate component to a CRM tool.

  HigherGear is so out of touch it hasn’t done a major upgrade since 2002. In Internet terms and dog years that’s ion’s ago.

  Tools like iMagicLab, DealerSocket, eLead and some little one’s have never heard of are reinventing the space and it will be very hard for these legacy tools to adjust. Dealers will get buried in this battle if they are not careful because remember in lean times we need to be more efficent, not less.

  One tool across every major customer touch point is the requirement all dealers should be looking at. Stop buying purple animals for the roof from guys you’ve known for 20 years, it’s time to change the game. CRM MUST include inventory, desking, showroom, service and internet or you are wasting your time and your owners money.

  Keith Latman
  CEO
  iMagicLab.com

  P.S. Why do you think these old companies all have contracts? Have an idea?

• Alex Moore

  January 2nd, 2008

  To add to the list of comments on Auto base VS Higher gear. Let me start out by saying you need a company that doest have a contract. That would make it performance based. They don’t perform you don’t keep. theirs a concept. as far as Higher gear and Auto base really good stuff 7 or 8 years ago. They don’t seem to be as cutting edge as the market is at this time. And who wants servers in the dealership.I like my CRM being web based so I can get on line any where and work. do your research look at a company that is web based and no contracts. You will see how much lower the cost and better the results will be.

• Jeff Cotton

  January 24th, 2008

  There is only one software product that ‘Moves the iron”
  AutoAlert.

• Joe Pistell

  January 26th, 2008

  Jeff,
  I see you’re an agressive entrepreneur. Congrats! BUT… your self-promotion makes your effort look… “slumish”. (Is that a word?)

  Domain Name: AUTOALERT.COM
  Registrant: Jeff Cotton
  P.O. Box 447
  Herndon, VA. 20172-0447

  Domain Name: MBZSALES.COM
  Registrant: Jeff Cotton
  9 Dry Creek Ln
  Laguna Hills, CA 92653

  Plus, that MBZsales.com needs a makeover… bad.
  For $99 you can step out of the slums and move uptown! Template sites are a dime a dozen http://www.i3dthemes.com/demos/impulse_cars

  Hope this helps,
  Joe

• Jeff Kershner

  January 26th, 2008

  Jeff Cotton, please read the rules. I know it’s exciting to get your name and business profile out there but you will actually get better results and more people visiting your website if you provide valuable feedback for readers. I have tracked the statistics on the site and when someone provides some good feed back..people are curious to who you are and then they usually click on your name. This is where the link to your website is placed when you fill out the URL portion of the Post a Comment form. Just an FYI.

  Jeff Kershner

• Jeff Cotton

  February 7th, 2008

  Jeff

  You are absolutely right, please except my apologies.
  After studying your site I realize being a 20 year sales veteran with Mercedes-Benz and having used every canned CRM available from Act to Goldmine what invaluable information you are providing. FYI we are currently the largest MB dealer in the nation, we use UDC.
  Sincerely
  Jeff Cotton, AutoAlert.

• Matt Fullenwider

  May 1st, 2008

  This is easy. Higher Gear is NOT is viable tool. I cannot think of many…or any upsides. Since coming on board with our small company I have spent countless hours attempting to make Higher Gear work for not just an ILM, but store-wide.

  To date I have 43 open “tickets” with HG. Non have been resolved. Many have been “escalated” just to fall into some programming abyss. Neither have there been “escalated” solutions, but a complete lack of follow through altogether.

  Here are a couple:

  1) No real email broadcast capability. Why? There is NO way to opt out customers from future blasts. And, there is no solution to the problem. Long term email capability is only functional on a ‘one at a time basis’. Nobody at HG cares to do anything about it.

  2) PDA capability is non existent. HG allows users to set up a PDA, but only as an alarm for new leads. The incoming message is however truncated and there is no way to cultivate the inquiry unless you can get to a network PC. Response time suffers immensely.

  3) Templates are a major pain. Lousy HTML editor.

  4) It takes up to 1 minute to “view” unread emails. I’ve clocked it.

  5) When uploading images into email, text explodes all over the place.

  This can go on forever. But, I digress and will stop here. Believe me, I really want this tool to work. It just doesn’t deliver.

• Peter

  May 2nd, 2008

  Back again and a quick comment.

  I can assure that none of the CRM service providers EVER do testing in real time when developing their product or features.

  Sure they have dealer “focus” groups in which to dazzle with the
  sizzle of tech buzz words and use in a perfect enviroment.

  It has been a kind of a force feeding in which the strength of service is more about how binding and long the contract your dealership signed is.

  The question I can only ask is when Microsoft Dynamics CRM or Google’s Salesforce decides to enter the retail automotive playing field, most of these companies will be scrambling to “improve” bad functioning software.

  One big thorn in my side of common sense is why do 99.9% of all backend software tools are on the same ISP connection? I don’t care what they say that xxx bandwith can handle it all because has anyone been on a five lane highway in rush hour?

  But then again for a few hundred dollars to buy a new pc I also see dealers milking out old computers and monitors that should be thrown off a cliff and replaced with wireless laptops.

  The future is the one who can converge CRM and be a LEAD provider. The web 2.5 for the auto industry if you know what I mean.

  Okay sorry for a bit of ramble, they just called me and my coffee is ready….

• Sean Gonzales

  May 7th, 2008

  Nothing is good or great until it is compared to something else. Is it web based product or server based product, is it customizeable or just a bunch of antiquated templates and call guides. Those are huge considerations and what separates the men from the boys in CRMs. Do your homework, dont just take your buddys word for it. Take a look at iMagicLab.

• Alex Snyder

  May 7th, 2008

  Nice plug for iMagicLab Sean. I’m setting us up in it right now!

• Stan Sher

  November 29th, 2008

  In this debate, Higher Gear wins by a bigger landslide then Obama vs. McCain. Higher Gear gives you much more ability to do so much more with emails and graphics. It is much easier to use from a sales person stand point as well as a management standpoint. Also, Higher Gear has a much better support team that works fast with dealerships. Now where they both lose in my opinion is that they are not web based and ridiculously overpriced.

• Former Employee

  February 9th, 2009

  As a previous employee of THGG I can tell you every simple flaw there is with the Higher Gear software as well as the pros. Working in dealerships, daily, I got a chance to become pretty familar with the Autobase software and I have to say that it’s much cleaner and professional than the Higher Gear product. Higher Gear has a LONG way to go before it will be able to compete the way other CRM companies do. There are simply too many bugs to list (as of January ’09) and the timeframe for which it takes to fix them is next to forever. I can say that the interface is very simplistic (1st grade style images, color pattern, layout, etc.) so clients using THGG never had to fumble over learning something completely foreign to them. I can write a book w/ the pros vs cons but if anybody is interested in specific areas of the software (how well it works, layout, etc.) then please leave me a reply here and I’ll get back to you. Best of luck in your choice.

  P.S. DO NOT let the cut and paste PowerPoint presentation win you over. That presentation will run 110% smoother then the actual system will EVER work in your store(s).

• Alex Jefferson

  February 11th, 2009

  Hello “Former Employee” I am looking at different CRM’s/ILM for our Dealership. I like the simplicity of Buzztrak/netrak. I like imagic labs full functionality but am concerned about their reputation. I curious to know what your thoughts are CRM/ILM’s you have seen out there in the market?

• Joe Annonomous

  March 3rd, 2009

  We just went through a major “upgrade” from an older HG system to the newest one. In the process they managed to lose almost all our customer data. When we complained about the data loss in their process they told us that they “knew it was going to happen and it was just something we had to live with” Not only is the system not much of an improvement (if any), but the lost information will have us all scurrying around for months if not years. Their process was terrible, their representatives were unprofessional and uncaring, and their condescending attitude was absolutely intolerable. I would NOT recommend HG.

• Worried about friends at THGG

  March 9th, 2009

  Holy Crap. Be very worried about Higher Gears long term viability. no real direction and just let a ton of people go today. I had a bunch of friends call to say 5-7 year vets who have done a lot for the company were all released today. Something like 30-40 out of 150 employees.
  I hope they’re okay because other friends work there to but dang. Not a good sign. I dodged a bullet going to DS instead I guess

• Kurt Hoppe

  April 7th, 2009

  In response to “Worried about friends at THGG”, and the general input of the thread…

  I came into the auto retail business kicking and screaming from a very good nine year tenure at ADP Claims Services Group, now a long gone entity. After spending four years plus a couple months as a field training consultant with THGG, I’m now out in the world again.

  Now, I’m going to do my best not to make this a litany of “why I hate” or conversely not make this a “rah rah” post. Rather, I feel the need to share my general experiences of being in the software industry for the past 13 years.

  I’ve seen it all, the bad with the good. I’ve used terms in the past like “Vaporware” (software which is touted to do something the client wants but never did), as well as overzealous players making claims that “we were the best and we do it all”. I’ve also seen the successful sales reps underpromising and overdelivering, but the tool being an unqualified failure because the buyer had trouble getting the necessary buy in and everyone involved in the relationship coming out with a horrible taste in their mouths about it.

  I’m sure if there are some readers out there who had Higher Gear in the Northeast, and even met me as a trainer, maybe even accused me personally of being bad because I worked for what they thought was a company developing a reputation for bad service.

  Honestly, folks, the big deal that you should consider, and consider it very carefully, is whether the tool you’re shopping for meets the needs of your company. Will it mesh with your business model? Are you expecting it to work for you or you to put a lot of effort into it? You also need a clear expectation not only of what part of your organization needs to use it, but also whether the system’s expectations will touch people you never intended.

  I personally did not interact with Autobase, and I don’t want my post to be misconstrued as one-sided. I will say that over the course of my experiences with Higher Gear, there were frustrations which were common with my past job at ADP – these are things that any software product must deal with – clients clamoring for all sorts of upgrades or revisions that may or may not coincide with the intended course of development or intended feature set – lack of development direction to meet the needs of the client – it’s all there. And the same could be said for ADP CSG at the time. Everyone on here is very right – the industry needs progress. As business changes so do the needs of the business infrastructure.

  Best of luck in your CRM search – and from a former THGG trainer – please make sure you use your CRM, whatever it may be, and definitely invest your time and effort in training and having the support necessary to make the tool yours and get the most out of it.

• John McGaughn

  May 21st, 2009

  I can tell you one thing: if you are a large dealer, give yourself PLENTY of time to prepare accurate Internet Lead Management reports in AB. Or better yet… just get yourself an Excel Spreadsheet and keep track of whatever you need to keep track of daily: you’ll save yourself a week or so at reporting time.

• josh

  May 26th, 2009

  Its interesting to see how long this discussion has been progressing. I can guess that in the time that this post has been here, many companies in this industry have found both success and failure.

  There have been many valid points and counterpoints here, and I am far from the one to decide which is right and which is wrong.

  In my humble opinion it matters less which tool you choose, and more about whether it meets the needs which will truly bring you success. This is the real key to finding the right software (or lack thereof).

  Beware the glitz and glamor of the newest “thing”. Will it help you sell more cars, set more service appointments, or make your customers raving fans? It might, but it might not. It is important to honestly ask yourself, Does this “thing” fit into my way of communicating/selling? Do I have a need for this “thing” or will it get in the way of the success I already have?

  Regarding the original question of Autobase / Higher Gear I would suggest the same logic. Both tools are fundamentally designed as Showroom control tools, and have features designed to maximize and control the showroom and sales staff. If that is what your dealership needs by all means take a hard look at either. If your dealership is looking for a strong service reminder /scheduling piece, there are strong candidates for that as well.

  The important thing to consider is what is best for YOUR situation not what is best for their situation.

  Not to belabor a point but consider…
  will I need to combine reporting across multiple locations?
  How much volume will I need to manage?
  What kind of Automation do I want? How much do I want to be involved?
  Am I (my coworkers) technologically advanced to utilize all the features of this software?
  Have all the people that are going to be using the software involved in the needs analysis/decision making?

  CRM is not something to be changed often, so it is imperative that you understand your needs and find a tool that will meet those needs well, and commit to making it a priority throughout your dealership.

  “sometimes pencil and paper is the best tool”

• No longer at THGG

  July 1st, 2009

  As one of the 5 year vets to be laid off from THGG I can honestly say that you are all very correct about the support at THGG. No body really cares about all the trouble tickets due to all the bugs and problems with the programming code. The biggest fix was always just a band-aid, never really resolved the issue and would in the end break something else. Losing customer data always happens with a customer import, due to old out dated programs that never work properly. I am not trying to bash THGG, however, when support finds a problem and points it out, programmers give you yeah we will look into when we get a chance, we are too busy working on a new system for NADA that will never make it to production and if it did, it ends up breaking everything else. From a dealership stand point, I would stay away from THGG. They got too big for there own good. They no longer care about the customer just how much money they can make before they quit. THGG is all show and no go. Just my 2 cents from the inside. I am not sure how much longer THGG will be around.

• Silly Rabbit

  July 2nd, 2009

  “I am not trying to bash THGG”? Just look what you said silly. Nothing but bashing THGG.

• Jeff Kershner

  July 3rd, 2009

  “we are too busy working on a new system for NADA that will never make it to production and if it did, it ends up breaking everything else”

  Now that’s funny!!

  Did Higher Gear ever fully release their desking tool they were flaunting at NADA 2 years ago? I never heard much about it after that. I guess it broke everything else.

  Sounds like another Top Self CRM I know of.

• Shawn Morse

  July 9th, 2009

  I heard a rumor that there were more layoffs at THGG this week and that they are discontinuing Reynolds integration. Anyone know if there is truth to these?

• Rumplestilskin

  July 10th, 2009

  It is true

  Reynolds integration is gone (officially) they are attempting to create their own integration but as with all things in perpetual development @ HG it is months away from being anything like it should be.

  As a result they are in breach of contract with all Reynolds dealers…If you are looking for a way to get out of your contract with them, this is it.

  Since HG gets paid for their contracts up-front by selling them to leasing companies they will have to refund the money…As they appear to be broke (where is all the money????) if dealers begin to stop payment for breach of contract (which you have the legal right to do) HG will go under like a fast sinking ship.

  Does anyone know the boneheads who are in charge of this company? How is it possible to be in such a state?

  We have stopped paying the monthly fee for our HG untill they are back to complience with our contract. Along with the Reynolds integration being screwed up they are behind on our training vists we are owed. Another breach of contract.

  Our dealership has begun the search for a new CRM software, I recommend that all dealers on HG begin to search for an alternative…the buzzards are overhead the HG head office.

• TInker Bell

  July 20th, 2009

  Higher Gear installed their Reynolds interface and its AWESOME. Real time service functionality – finally! Screw Reynolds, I want Arkona anyways!

• bobby whitten

  August 10th, 2009

  tinker bell,

  works great today, wait until the release of reynolds next update. hg will be useless until they figure a way around it. what do you do in the meantime? they don’t have the manpower to figure this one out.

• Matt Annonomous

  August 28th, 2009

  I looked at all these software programs but Daily Gameplan just made a CRM $20 per month, per man price. From what the rep at Autobase was telling me, I’m saving over $1,000 a month now. I really like it, although I haven’t tried any other CRM systems for my dealership.

• Former Employee

  September 5th, 2009

  I haven’t been on here since Feb. of this year and I am surprised how many posts have been added since. It looks as though these are the final days of THGG. I wonder how many trainers are actually left at the THGG. As another poster wrote, THGG became WAY too big for their own good and with the lack of motivation and experience it looks as though these may be the final days of a once great company.

• Higher Gear Really Blows

  September 5th, 2009

  Higher Gear, from my simple minded point of view, quite simply does INDEED have boneheads in charge. My husband was employed with THGG for years only to be laid off one week before Christmas. I do not have a degree in finance but I could see quite clearly that they were not headed in a very profitable direction by sending my husband to California (we are from the East coast) while sending someone from Cali to the east coast. Why? Why would they spend all that money for airfaire, hotels and per diem just to flip flop two people across the country needlessly? Also the person in charge of travel was constantly booking ridiculously expensive flights. Or better yet booking flights where my husband couldn’t make his connecting flight causing him to miss valuable time with the dealership he was going to visit. I knew from the get go this company wouldn’t last.
  Not only do they not take care of their employees, but they do not listen to there customers. That is just sad. As a potential customer I wouldn’t want to do business with a company who gets rid of employees with children a week before Christmas with absolutely no warning.

  It’s cool, my honey doesn’t have to travel now and I don’t have to hear anymore stories about how it sucks working for THGG when noone in the dealerships even wants to use the software and it makes him feel useless.

  IMHO go with something other than HG as far as I know they have let go almost everyone, and they won’t be around much longer.

• Getting out of our Higher Gear contract - DealerRefresh Automotive Technology Forums

  October 12th, 2009

  [...] this thread asking me to remove it. That was a fun conversation the first time around about this Autobase CRM VS Higher Gear CRM and this iMagicLab or Higher Gear for our CRM? He seemed like a nice guy just looking to protect [...]

• Rob Ernst

  November 13th, 2009

  So not to hijack the thread but what do people think of Vin Solutions? I gotta tell ya, a month to month contract (even if I don’t get my first month’s money back after I used it for a month) sounds pretty tempting. No user licenses (if we hire 30 people its the same price as the 6 we have now) and my favorite ability (they can tell you when a client is reading an email you sent him) blows me away. I’m working on convincing my boss now to switch from Promax (a special finance desking tool that we don’t use for desking) to VinSolutions ILM

• Kyle

  December 2nd, 2009

  To “HG really blows” We’re talking about CRM here and not your personal issue with HG just because your husband worked there.

  We have HG at our dealership and the new desking software is quite nice! We shopped for Autobase, Vin Solutions, DealerSucket and many other CRM at NADA. Tried out DealerSucket and after three months at four of our stores. We realized how much business we were losing.

  Back to the debate, Autobase did not provide a lot of the functions that we needed for our BDC/Internet department. We shopped them heavily and well, we were promissed the world with DealerSucket. What a disappointment!

  There’s no one single silver bullet of a CRM that does all and have all the bell & whistle… My advice, look deep and hard for what you want out of your CRM. Make sure you get all people to buy in. Even the best CRM in the world is not going to help if you have crappy management and salespeople!!

  Thanks!

• Kyle

  December 2nd, 2009

  Oh and one more on Vin Solutions and why we did not go with them. At NADA we had a set appointment to view their product, with all of our dealer principal at their booth 8:45am – they never showed up. We found out later that the staff got drunk and didn’t maket it.

  So that’s why we decided not to go with Vin. When we need support, will they be there to help us or getting drunk off of their a$$?!

• Dave

  February 12th, 2010

  I am a new sales manager looking at CRM software. IF anyone has screenshots of their CRM software, I would greatly appreciate it. It would be a major help in making this decision.

• Kyle

  February 18th, 2010

  @ Dave,

  I think that having screen-shots posted on here would be a violation with some of the CRM companies. Why don’t you just ask them for a free DEMO and decide?

  Much better than a screen shot! IMHO

• Imran Randhawa

  March 16th, 2010

  Hello Dave,

  I’m a late comer to this conversation. However I wanted to know whether you had the chance to review the different CRM’s yet. I’d like to know what core functionalities are you looking for in a CRM? I’d also like to add SalesEDGE to your list for review.

  Our CRM technology solutions include:
  - Fully-Integrated Loyalty Program
  - Enterprise-Wide Management
  - Executive-Level Dashboard Reporting
  - Robust Marketing ROI Analytics
  - Unified Desking and Menu
  - Feature Rich F&I and Service Integration

  Feel free to contact me anytime for more information. Thanks
  Imran

• Chris Marksman

  April 29th, 2010

  I was wondering if anyone has seen a comparison sheet of the top 5 automotive CRM/ILM companies? Feature/function comparison and pricing would be helpful. I’m in the very early stages of comparison shopping and need a overview of what’s out there.

  Chris

• Imran Randhawa

  April 29th, 2010

  Hello Chris,

  Funny you ask that, I just finished the 2010 Comparison chart. Do you have an email address I can send it to?

  Thanks
  Imran