Dealer.com – Dealer Website Vendor Profile

Dealer.com is what our company uses, there have been a few snafu's but ultimately they're an up & comer company that will give you what you need.

We have been working with Dealer.com for couple of years, Initial contact with Dealer.com was not my decision, I was not working with that dealership at the time. About 4 months ago we renewd termes with Dealer.com which was not again my decision. I am advanced in computer technology and worked for 10 years as information system specialist and tech support so I know my basics. my experience with Dealer.com been one of the worst for the last 5 years working in automotive industry. Just terrible support, unexperienced crew...what else? the never return a call on couple of issues I had with them and where insisting that there is no problem at all. As an experience person in computer field I would recomend try your other options or at least dont invest too much on Dealer.com

James, this falls under the same idea that Jeff recently posted about -- customer service sucks in the industry.

I worked at a other Dealership and had dealer.com and moved to a different state to work as a ISM and It has a different ISM tool as well as a web site provied and with much talking my new dealership has signed with dealer.com I am very excited to be back with a winner like dealer.com

I have set up three different dealerships with Dealer.com websites and have been happy all three times, especially since on average it takes them about two weeks to have me up and running after the contract is signed. I always shop around before making my final decision and Dealer.com always seems to give me the most bang for the buck.(I shopped TK Carsites and Dealerskins last time)

I am not a programmer like James, but the website is easy to update and change and the ILM tool is easy to use and track information in. If I was more advanced I might be able to see the shortcomings mentioned, but then again most of us doing this job don't have computer degrees or have the time to get them, we are just looking for something that is simple to use and update.

As for support, I have a great rep that helps with my lack of programming ablility, if I can describe or show him what I want from another site, we can usually get somthing worked out. I guess I look at it this way, the product wouldn't be rated in the top three by dealers in autodealermonthly if it didn't perform. I have also noticed they constantly improve and update their product and sites, the first site I had a couple of years ago was not even close to what I have on their newest generation of websites.

This is my old take on them: http://dealer.com/success-stories/checkeredflag/index.htm

I've just grown happier since!

James,

I invite you to contact me direct so I can ensure there is no issues with your service moving forward. It has been our mission to be proactive in our customer service approach and to help dealers drive new found success using our internet marketing solutions. You can reach me at [email protected] and I will respond usually within 5 minutes. Once we touch base I will personally see to it that you are back on track like the thousands of other dealers we serve that are raving fans!

This truly is a different company and we will aim to change your opinion and earn your trust in the future.

Very sincerely,

Mark Bonfigli
President, CEO, Founder
Dealer.com, Inc

I've been impressed with their websites and SEM tool, and the tack-on cost of the ILM tool seems awesome. I'd like to try them.

This is an awesome company which just happens to have their headquarters located about 5 minutes away from our dealership. I know their employees personally, I have been inside their building, and I have seen the explosive growth they have achieved.

It is obvious to me that they will be on the leading edge of whatever technology develops...and that much of that development will originate inside the walls of their beautiful new building in Burlington, Vermont.

Great people...great customer service...great products and fair pricing. Plus, you know they are constantly working to upgrade the product.

I heartily endorse this company, and would be more than happy to speak with anyone about it.

John Kimel
Business Development Manager
ACURA-AUDI-VOLKSWAGEN

Question:
New dealer.com platform coming?

Is there a summary of what changes are instore? I am about ready to pull the trigger on a new vendor. All I want to know is it more customizable than whats up now?

Joe Pistell
Marketing Director
UsedCarKing.com

Joe,
V-8 is the new platform they offer. Allows you to embed video and is supposedly more search engine friendly then the older generation platform of my site. Alex could tell you more about the custom work.

Brian & Joe,

I haven't moved over to the V-8 Dealer.com platform yet. It is going to be instituted on the newest rendition of Checkered Flag.com (coming soon). I've been working as closely as a dealer can with Dealer.com's staff to rebuild our current DDC site. They've been fantastic to work with! There are some technologically limiting things any automotive site hosting company will not be able to overcome, and I've experienced a few of those small issues in this rebuild myself.

Joe - I know you're looking for a lot of marriages between a site host and various parts of your daily business loads. I love some of your ideas (one's we've discussed over the phone) and hope they'll be used one day. I'm extremely excited about the future of all the technological marriages happening everywhere. The one I'm really looking forward to is the notion that CRM becomes CMS (Customer Marketing Software) and everything else feeds into it.....think of a DMS system becoming a plug-in to a CRM/CMS system instead of the CRM being secondary to a DMS. I have to thank Keith Latman of iMagicLab for opening my eyes to that realization.

Of all the site hosting companies out there, I have found Dealer.com to be the most open-minded and open-eared to my wishes and needs. There are limitations to how far they can go right now, but a little patience will open doors wider.....and a fat wallet will always open doors faster.

I hope you find the right vendor for your needs Joe. Like I said, I think you've got some amazing ideas, but they're years ahead of where things are today. One of my Navy SEAL buddies says he's the tip of the sword, but Joe - I think you're the first round in the clip that hasn't found a target yet. Yes, that's a compliment!

I would like to make some update on my posting on August 24, 2007 regarding dealer.com. In that posting I complained about dealer.com support but I never criticized their product. I would like to mention that their product is fairly good. I should say that their support line has been improved, it might not be the best but it is very good.

Every Web Provider has it's "pitch" however when I look closely there does not seem to be much of a difference between what you actually get in terms of what these sites can do for you. It seems simple enough to me to use a simple platform, look around at the so called "conversion tools" that these Web Providers have, and ad them to your site. I think support is probably the most important because it would be tough to do this without support.

Alex -

I'm not following you on your statement of "when I look closely there does not seem to be much of a difference between what you actually get in terms of what these sites can do for you."

There are HUGE differences between all the site hosts. Some only offer Flash sites, others have ways to incorporate Flash in a way that doesn't hurt your search engine standings. Some only offer template sites, while many will create something custom for you. Then there are tons of side products a vendor might offer: SEM, SEO, Video, Special Inventory modules, ILM, Inventory control with 3rd party pushing, and more! However, the most important difference is a site host's ability to innovate - this is where you really see some major differences when you look closely.

The big hot button for me is being able to control my own content on any part of the site. Dealer.com just moved to their V8 platform which allows a lot more flexibility in this area. I see you're on a Reynolds and Reynolds site - we used to be on their stuff because they bought AutoMark back in the day. It has gone way down-hill since the AutoMark days. We still have our Scion site with them, and I am pushing hard to migrate that away from Rey-Rey. Then I'd love to get to work on getting VW and MINI to give-up on force-feeding their dealers CoBalt.

If you're happy with your Rey-Rey site, then I understand your statement. But I've found the people who are happy with Rey-Rey or CoBalt sites are happy for two reasons:

1. It is cheap
2. They don't know any better

I will say you've done a much better job with yours than most! I like the colors!

Before posting I read the rules so I'm going to "play nice". They say to add something positive. OK the positive is that I only signed a 2 year contract and only have 20 months remaining of this totally nonexistent customer service.
I have had issue after issue such as Technical specs being invalid, updates not being posted to AutoTrader and VIN decoding not working properly. It appears their solution is always to take off that feature. I can see it now a customer comes in because her A/C isn't working so we just take it out. Sounds like a solution to me.
I have yet to receive a phone call from and an individual I

Gary:

I just saw your post and if you're still having an issue, contact me directly and we'll work any issues out. We certainly don't want anyone to feel that we have non-existent customer service. We have an extraordinarily low attrition rate because of our award winning service and account management team. My direct e-mail is [email protected] and direct phone is 888-807-9119

The saga continues... For the past 3 days I, and all other DEALER.com victims, have been unable to batch upload photos. Rest assured I could go in and upload one photo at a time but I choose not to. I'm sure their solution will be, once again, to just make the feature go away. If it doesn't work trash it.

Has anyone seen what Dealer.com has instore for the new Chrysler Corporation dealer pages that are to be launched in October 2008? I am very curious since 20-30% of my new car business is off this.

Gary, curious if we took care of all of your issues? I looked up your history with us and see over 30 pages of documented service, including tech support calls, issues resolved after hours, special email support, custom changes to our account and so on. I think that customer service can be a challenging thing for the client and the vendor sometimes because much of it relies not only on the service itself but the understanding of the parameters of the service itself. I am here at 11:30pm looking at your account and I see that we have done everything possible to continue to make your dealership happy.

If there are issues, dealers can always contact me and let me know if our team is not taking care of things. Every website marketing company has issues with integrations and inventory data and we pride ourselves on having the very least of them.

This can only be learned if you have had the experience of trying multiple services and experiencing them all. With that said we are always striving for perfection and will continue even if it may be "impossible"

I can be reached at [email protected] with any thoughts regardless of being a large client, small client or potential future client. I am here to help dealers succeed.

ps- Steven, please email me direct and I will make sure we get you all the info on the Chrysler websites as soon as it is available.

Mark Bonfigli
President, CEO
Dealer.com, Inc
[email protected]

Michael Lane, COO of Dealer.com, was the keynote speaker of Champlain College's "BYOBiz" entrepreneur series this evening in Burlington, VT.

Wow, Michael has passion to spare! Listening to his company's plan to innovate and grow while keeping their customers success job one was inspiring.

Thanks for your thoughts and insight Michael!

Are you still looking for a site Jeff?

What more could Dealer.com do? They have already created the worlds greatest dealer website. Before anyone has anything bad to say about Dealer.com you need to go to the Checkered Flag site… Now that is a site that says, “we believe in the Internet!”

But for you regular Joes like me, here are my thoughts..

First off, to the few above who claim to have problems, let me explain something. Every site I have managed from other web site providers has had problems. You know, Dealer.com is continually changing and evolving. You may not see it, but the platform your site sits on is changing daily, improving, helping your site for example, index better... If you prefer to have a stagnant site that does not keep up with current times, call Cobalt, I got their number if you need it…

Seriously, if you are having problems and something is effecting the efficiency of your site -like missing pictures, or something, it will all get worked out. They always figure it out. Have you ever thought of the possibility that what ever is wrong is originating from your inventory manger program? Having pictures of used vehicles missing on my site will not stop me from selling cars. I just put a good description in on each vehicle! I am being serious here. In this business you have to overcome obsticals. No pictures getting to your site? Be proactive and make it work in the interim.

But, if your rep is not handling your request in a manner you do not approve, ask for your issue to be elevated to a higher level, like your reps boss. You can even go around your rep if you want. Dealer.com has never ignored any of my complaints, issues, or requests. Heck, Mike D. is even at your disposal! Issues resolved!

I once had a problem with something (not my rep) and it was immediately dealt with. BTW be careful what you put in a blog, as they (DDC) are watching you! LOL

EVERY time I come up with something new for our site, my Dealer.com rep finds a way to make it happen. I could list 100 things, but no need.

I might also add that in my opinion the Dealer.com back end tool, the "smart site composer," is the best back end tool out there. Honestly, I have not seen them all, but I have worked with quite a few website providers over the years and Dealer.com does it right. And, I have to add again, my rep was excellent as he helped me learn the program. My rep is also continually letting me know about what changes are coming in the near future, and when new tools are available to me in the composer.

As far sales success? Our conversion rate was at 8% last month, not including our instant messages, and leads from Black Book which are both housed on our site. So with those included, I figure we were at more like a 10% conversion ratio. That is unheard of (I think)... Not to mention the phone traffic…. Funny, I had someone from another dealer who has a Dealer.com site say in delaerrefersh.com that my site is weak! Yeah right! Well maybe, sometimes when my spelling is off, but I got to spell pre owned three ways for Google… (If anyone does not know why you have to do that, start on this site from page one…) Anyway…

Our site indexes very well, as it is easily manipulated to move up the ranking with very few tweaks from our geeks (I do it).

Time spent by visitors on our site doubled last month from prior months, and is up to 10 min per visitor this month (must have something to do with video on my site). Yeah, we are getting a lot of traffic, a lot of leads, and a lot of sales!

As far as design goes, well obviously they can do just about anything. Just think about what all the other web site providers are doing, they are not even in the same league. I would say that Dealer.com wants to embrace anythng essential as fast as they can build it. They may not be all the way there yet, but they are years ahead of the competition.

And Jeff, if you are still looking for a site, and want to talk over Dealer.com with me again, I can give you an update from our last conversation. Call me…

Great comments!

The problem with Dealer.com is their lack of flexibility and the carelessness of their reps. They really are incompetent. Upbeat - but really unwilling to go the extra mile to make a client happy. Can't wait for our contract to end!

Dealer.com has been a big problem since our company has signed up for it. I have been an engineer for over 20 years, so its not just some issue with my desktop configuration - they run really clean. Pc's seem to start slowing down the longer my users stay logged in to Dealer.com..to the point that a reboot is the only way to get our machines back to normal. Within a few hours....same issue. Keeping in mind...everyone here uses the same DMS, Same internet connection (for the record its a 4.5mb link) and the same other software (Outlook - Office - Etc). The only difference is Dealer.com on the users desktop. Theres a hole in the code that is eating up resources over time - especially in the Internet Leads and Email applications.....Im tired of asking support what version of IE and add-ons they want. I have even gone so far as to rebuild the entire OS and ONLY have them load outlook and Dealer.com.....Same issue.....

For the record - those who praise it's usefulness...arent actually usint it daily...are you?....

Try it from the internet sales side and see if you still feel the same.

I have even had the same issue at other peoples pc's outside my organization......

Got some great salesmen there at Dealer.com...thats for sure.....how else can you possibly 'sell' a car salesmen.....

I really hate it when people hide behind a fictitious name to complain, Systems Admin. Why can't you "man or woman up" and use your real name? If you've got issues like these with any system, you should talk to them - report the problem. If you're a Systems Administrator your biggest pet peeve should be people not letting you know when there is a problem, so you can fix it.

We don't have the same issues you are stating here. I have 14 people who use Dealer.com's Control Center and 5 of them are constantly logged in. We have not found it to slow our systems down, and some of these folks are on out-dated systems.

Maybe you should look at your own network and your desktops/laptops - if they're having issues with Office and a website that's a sign! Try putting FireFox on one or two machines. Make sure you download it from Mozilla.com and make sure it is version 3.5. If that doesn't work, then you're going to need to take a screen shot of a freshly booted system against a screen shot of the resources of a depleted system showing the difference in browser resources between the two in Task Manager. Of course, you have to make it fair and only have Dealer.com's Control Center going in the browser resource comparison. Send the screen shot to your Dealer.com account rep, and if you're not happy with the answer let me know: [email protected] - I'll get you to another person there.

We have over 10 dealer.com websites mandated through OEMs so we are always using Dealer.com Control Center. Have to say..we/I have never run into issues that "Systems Admin" has described.

I have never used a Dealer.com site and I can honestly say that I have never run into issues that “Systems Admin” has described either.

Just bein' an as*

dealer.com has a killer system overall, and the whole vibe u get from dealing with them is just cool, great people.

when i visited their offices last year i was blown away, it's like a little googles campus... absolutely topnotch, no shortcuts, rick G even bought me my fav peanut butter and banana sandwich (w/a touch of honey)from the dealer dotcom cafe.

in this lightning fast world we live in of online marketing, other companies are bound to meet or exceed DDC's stuff.

I'm a huge fan right now of DealerON's stuff, basically think of a puzzle board and the pieces are widgets, distributable, embeddable, interactive, and trackable. Dealers can easily change up their website in 1 minute and give it a whole different look and feel. Their conversion is incredible too.

I think eCarlist has it going on, those guys are super talented.

For data collection and a rock solid system Autolotmanager is very nice too, exceptional CS too, bad thing is they're only in OH, MI, IN, KY

i'll end with one of my favorite inspirational songs... enjoy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bqxnm6t3QMw&feature=PlayList&p=9AF7045EB2E21830&index=0&playnext=1

-Sayre

Dealer.com is perhaps the worst dealer vendor in the business today.

Against my recommendation (I had only been at this particular dealership two weeks) we renewed dealer.com for one year for websites and their LeadMachine product. 6 months later, we are still trying to get the website to function properly, and support has been nearly non-existent.

As for LeadMachine, it was a horrible application to start, but now they have done an "upgrade" that has made the thing absolutely unusable. For example, you cannot print out customer correspondence unless you cut & past the message in to a Word document, then print from there. Also, you cannot schedule future tasks properly, so for some leads, if a customer sends in something at 11pm, your follow-up is scheduled for 11pm and cannot be changed. As well, you cannot set up any lease retention schedules as there is nothing in the schedule denoting regular mail. On top of that, at least once a day, the whole system crashes and we are out of business for at least 15 minutes.

The combination of poor product planning, poor technology, poor customer service, and arrogant attitudes makes dealer.com one of the worst companies that I have ever had the displeasure of working with. Even Reynolds and Reynolds was better than this, and they are the biggest whores on the planet.

Avoid dealer.com like the plague. I may end up leaving this dealership, owing to dealer.com's poor products.

And by the way, it's amazing that some of the responses on this board are from dealer.com employees. Absolutely shameful.

I had to add this piece of wonderful news regarding LeadMachine...it seems that during the changeover ALL of our future tasks and follow-up was deleted and now we find that you cannot attach a new work cycle to our legacy leads. It's as if they expect you to just forget every customer prior to the changeover, and start with a clean slate.

This is an absolute nightmare. If you value your BDC department, if a Dealer.com rep walks in to your store, throw him out immediately.

I personally dread working with a dealer.com site and try my best to get them dropped whenever the chance arrives.

They aren't horrible, but my standards are too high for what kind of site they ALLOW us to produce.

If you want a mediocre, run-of-the-mill, forgettable site, go with dealer.com, especially if you don't plan on updating it much.

Baron:

Thank you for pointing out your frustration. It's unfortunate to see your experience has been less than perfect in your opinion.

I'll speak for the literally thousands of very satisfied customers including the moderator on this site... The situation you're describing is extraordinarily rare.

This point I do not understand...

"And by the way, it’s amazing that some of the responses on this board are from dealer.com employees. Absolutely shameful." How does calling Dealer.com "whores" on a public forum help anyone?

I'm not quite sure that having a voice on this forum could be considered shameful. In fact, I would postulate that we're probably one of the few vendors that actually take the time to read these boards, listen to the feedback, comment, and take action.

Let me know what dealership you are with and we'll get you straightened out immediately.

If you do not respond, I'll assume that everything has been taken care of and your

e-mail me at [email protected] or call me at 888-807-9119

Patrick:

Thanks for your post. What dealership are you with? Is it a Subaru, Acura, or Chrysler store? Our training department would love to show you how to highly customize your site with our suite of tools.

Our sites are designed to drive maximum traffic and lead conversion which is the primary goal of a website.

Please reach out to me so I can get you set up for training.

[email protected]
888-807-9119

Mike:

I didn't call dealer.com "whores". That was Reynolds and Reynolds.

And by the way, threatening me by e-mail, just because you don't like the fact that I pointed out the horrid nature of your products, is not what I would call "customer service".

The best part is, my General Manager was in on the conference call we had yesterday with your people and he is just as dumb-founded by your poor product. On top of that, he is as disappointed as I in the lies that were fed to us as concerning what your products can do, would do, and how well we would be cared for after-sale.

Keep trying the strong-arm tactics. They have absolutely no effect on me. And I am glad they have been revealed in a public forum, to show just what kind of company you have.

Mike,
I'm with a Toyota dealership. Thanks for the offer for training, but I am very well versed in HTML and web design. That's really the reason why I dread working with dealer.com. It's the Microsoft Frontpage of dealer website generation. Acceptable for beginners, but seriously lacking for those with the expertise and dedication to create a truly unique and comprehensive web presence, not just another cookie-cutter website.

The driving force behind web 2.0 is the desire to stand out from the crowd. It's just not possible to do that with dealer.com, thus I feel my conversion rates would suffer if I ever reverted back to your company's solution.

Many dealers set the bar low for thier Internet department, and dealer.com fits right in with that mentality. Again, it's not horrible, just mediocre, which is fine for most, but not for me.

Thanks for your comments Baron. No strong arm tactics here... Just good client relationships with thousands of dealers and we'd like to help. It's unfortunate you aren't open with working with us. You're not paying for lead machine. We included it for free in your deal. You should feel free to use another system if it does not meet your specific needs.

Thanks Patrick for your positive comments. We do have to build our products and services for the overwhelming majority of dealers that aren't lucky enough to have a skilled HTML person like you.

Patrick - like you, I am also competent in HTML coding. I use Dealer.com by choice because it allows me the flexibility to create content plainly or by coding things. I'm constantly inserting various DIV items in their system and building different HTML variables outside of their editing platform (typically in Apple's TextEdit or Dreamweaver with fine tuning in FireBug). I also embed differing analytics software to make sure we're all on the same page in reporting.

The only thing I can't do in Control Center is put my own JAVA in. I completely understand why Dealer.com would limit this because it could break my website!

I have two Dealer.com websites: one that is very customized (http://www.checkeredflag.com) and another that is simply a template (http://www.driversworld.com). I have found both to be easily editable in Control Center. Sure, there is the occasional table that doesn't format as I'd like it to when I paste it in, but I can still make it work.

Of all the different site providers I've used, I've found Dealer.com to be the most accommodating to my customization needs. That is why I'm commenting here - my experience with them has been a complete 180 from what you're describing.

Thanks Alex... We really appreciate you chiming in. It's great when we hear a guy who everyone respects in our industry speak up. It's better than me going off on capabilities when as a user, you can say it best.

Mike:

You are being disingenuous at best. I have spent hours on the phone in training, with customer service, and speaking with all manner of people at your company.

So let me go over my 4 biggest issues with the new LeadMachine, and if you are honest about it you will see the issues involved.

And remember, this all occurred after we were promised that the solution would be more robust and useful, not less so.

And, to make this very clear, your people knew going in to our contract that we were buying a package deal with improved functionality. We never considered it to be a "throw-in", and it is very disappointing that you would describe your own product in such a fashion. It tells me exactly how much confidence you have in your own solution.

1) You cannot print customer correspondence. You must cut and paste items on to a word document, then from from there. Or, you need to forward the e-mail to a third-party e-mail provider, and print that out later.

2) You have to create a new lead cycle for EVERY lead possibility, which could result in DOZENS of possibilities that can easily get confused as one lead receives multiple inputs. As a BDC Manager, there is almost NO control of the response schedules.

3) Did you know that your system does not allow for prioritize scheduled tasks? To your system, a follow-up phone call set for 60 days after the contact creation has just as much importance as a follow-up phone call set as the first follow-up phone call for a new opportunity.

I can list a half dozen more, right now. It's not that difficult.

By the way, the fact that you would try and connect approval of your product with being worthy of respect is a ridiculous notion.

A person that isn't worthy of respect is someone who attempts to intimidate and threaten people when they don't like the fact that someone exercises their right to inform others of major issues and problems with one of your products.

But I will work through these issues on your product because I have no choice. I will make this product function some how, some way. I will construct work-around after work-around until I can cobble back together my BDC department.

I am good enough to succeed DESPITE your product.

And if you want to try and pass off to people that I do not know what I am doing, here is a run-down of my credentials:

16 years in the car business as a sales person, sales manager, F&I Manager, closer, and BDC Manager. 4 years working for a major website and CRM company, where I was contracted out to United Auto Group, Chrysler, and more. At one time, 6 of the dealers with whom I worked were all in the Wards' e-Dealer Top 100, with 5 in the top 50, having climbed a total of 68 spots combined in just one year.

The next time you have lunch with Roger Penske, and he tells you what a great job you are doing, let me know because we will then have something in common.

Baron, you fail to mention how hard our team has been trying to make changes for you and your dealership. You fail to mention how you guys had a hard time even keeping a phone line working at your store in order to have a call with you. You dropped several calls due to "not understanding your new phone system. Seems like you might want to allow us to help you with your needs without bashing our team. Mike D truly cares about every dealer we work with and works tirelessly to help them every week. There is no good that comes from bashing others and stating their weakness if you are not going to recognize the efforts made to improve.
You listed off all of many achievements in the post above, very nice, but what good are they if you cant simply work with a provider that is trying so hard to help you? In this instance all you are doing to trying to upset the very team of people that is trying so hard to help you, this is like ordering food at a diner that you bounce checks at, after a while they want to stop serving you!!
I am sure you will come up with some creative comeback and will have plenty to state in response to this so go right ahead, I don't have time to respond back and this is my one post for you. I simply thought it would be fair for anyone that reads these posts to understand that you are 1 out of a very few that has this narrow view of what Dealer.com is all about. Yes our lead manager will improve, yes it is more robust than before, yes we take feedback from thousands of dealers to build in the features they need most. Does it satisfy every dealer all the time?? NO! We use the feedback to constantly improve the product and we do that faster than any other company by releasing more versions of our software to clients than any other vendor. This represents challenges for clients that liked the "old" software and are not interested in change. Our clients benefit from massive testing and R&D that has taken place over the course of 11 years. We have measured, monitored and developed new systems and software based on this approach so that the vast majority of our dealer clients do not have to on their own. We have developed and fully integrated marketing solution that combines these solutions in a way that saves the avg dealer countless hours and massive expense on a monthly and annual basis. Try to understand that we are simply trying to accommodate your team with the best solution but can only do it if you work with us with the honest intent to come up with valuable solutions. We are not interested in proving who is right or wrong in a blog post. Lets get back to work and make things happen, in the real world and not on a blog. -Mark Bonfigli President, CEO Dealer.com

Mark:

I am currently seeing a TREMENDOUS effort from people your side of the aisle, now that they understand exactly what my issues happen to be, as well as the fact that we are not just going to sit back and accept the idea that these issues cannot be corrected. I also believe that your people now see the problems inherent in what you created, and that has gone a long way to making this work.

Now that you see the problems, you can correct the problems. If you put the same effort in to correcting these issues as you have in actually listening and LEARNING these issues these last two days, then this can be made to work.

I have my work-arounds in place, I will get through the month-end and pound away at the cycles next week, and I will make this work. And I am certainly of the realization that it is time for me to stop whining about all the things that are wrong, and endeavor to find ways to make this work for me.

With some of the imperative items you were given, the ball is now in your court. Keeping the sports metaphors going, I will have no issue letting people on here know that you stepped up to the plate, if you get the job done.

Good Gosh Baron,

You're like a lightning rod. I am all about venting frustration about a platform, but your name-calling carpet bombing rant is filled with "look at me, look at me" rhetoric. Does your ego allow you to play with others? You said:

"...I am good enough to succeed DESPITE your product."

"The next time you have lunch with Roger Penske..."

Gulp.

Baron,
When you live in a glass house, it's not smart to throw stones...


USED CAR SPECIALS:
http://www.planethondanj.com/specials/new.htm
"Sorry, no specials are available at this time. Please check back later!"


SERVICE SPECIALS:
http://www.planethondanj.com/specials/service.htm
"Sorry, no specials are available at this time. Please check back later!"


PARTS SPECIALS:
http://www.planethondanj.com/specials/parts.htm
(Click here to add text)


ACCESSORIES:
http://www.planethondanj.com/accessories.htm
"Coming Soon!"

YouTube Videos
http://www.planethondanj.com/youtube.htm
"Videos are coming Soon!"


MEET TEAM PLANET
http://www.planethondanj.com/staff.htm
No Pics.



USED CARS OVERALL:
What? No options listed? Everything is standard equipment? Not good. Lead count reduction AND profit compression.

http://www.planethondanj.com/used-inventory/2007-Chevrolet-Avalanche+1500/642fda697f00000101d0540cc37fdb35.htm

http://www.planethondanj.com/used-inventory/2009-Dodge-Grand+Caravan/7af302c37f000001011f1d258bf00e34.htm

http://www.planethondanj.com/used-inventory/2007-Ford-Fusion/506cb0a14046381e016c6b0851bfb720.htm


Ahhh.... You're fuming mad about lead automation issues?? What's more important, creating a lead or managing it?

If I were your GM, you're costing me money. I'd have your b*lls on a silver platter for letting these lead generating errors happen.

Better call your pal Roger Penske over this weekend, you've got some catch-up work to do.


p.s. Baron, I feel your pain bro. We all are dealing with less than perfection. Be mad, vent your frustrations, choose strong words, isolate and stress the importance of the problem, but, your MAIN mission is to bring people together to achieve YOUR goals.

"Napalm works... but nothing’s left after you've used it"

Dealer.com is garbage, all the positive posts here are made by their employees. I've used dealer.com for multiple websites in my 15+ years in the automotive industry. Dealer.com is basically the McDonalds of car dealer websites, cheap + low quality but affordable. They say that their SEO is 'top-notch' but by far, their SEO is among the worst my web developer friends have seen. The only thing that dealer.com has is a sales & marketing team that is able to lie & convince you they are good.

Victor:

The tone of your post is unfortunate and doesn't reflect the thousands of very happy dealers we are servicing nationwide. In fact, Dealer.com is the only vendor in our business that opens our customer service up to the scrutiny of the NPS (Net Promoter Score) system. Our outstanding customer service is validated to be excellent by a 3rd party.

All of the positive comments on this site have been posted by our dealerships, not our employees.. Your statement is purely false.

As far as the McDonalds of car dealership websites? We do more custom websites than any other provider and in fact more of the top 125 dealer groups in the country use our services. Over 80% in fact... Those stellar performers who most dealerships aspire to be can't all be wrong. All these top groups certainly did not go the bargain basement route when they did their due diligence to choose a provider to partner with... In fact, they did exhaustive searches, intense interviewing, scrutinized the players'capabilities in the landscape, vetted the leadership teams, and ultimately chose Dealer.com because we had the offering that would deliver them the best solutions to help them continue to grow their businesses.

As far as SEO goes to say that we're the worst in the business when some of the most respected authorities in our space say we're the best is strange... Dealer.com was ranked as the top provider in the 2009 ASMA SEO architecture study put out by the Pasch Consulting Group who is an authority on Automotive SEO practices.

To your last point about our sales and marketing team being liars... It's too bad that you feel that way and choose to set such a tone. In fact, everything Dealer.com does from a marketing standpoint is backed up by a proven track record of measurable success.

We're confident that smart dealerships reading this page in search of a digital marketing partner will overlook the posts that lack substance and understand that Dealer.com is a proven leader in our space. Are we perfect? No, but no company is perfect. All we can do is keep doing the things we know are the right things for the dealers that we are thankful to be partnered with.

Been working with Dealer.com for a little over two years now and out of the many Dealer Website Builders I believe they are hands down the best. The ease of use, reporting at your finger tips, being able to create new and compelling content and have it up instantly is huge. I can build a page myself for a new product or sales event and have it up in a couple of hours. I have worked with many other Providers that all you could update or change was Specials, Staff, Coupons, and that was about it.


As far as SEO they are leagues above the self proclaimed best of the best TKCarsites as well as Dealerskins. For those two vendors I had to constantly work on the sites myself to get us ranked to page one and keep us there.


The other great thing is how fast their support team, which deals with any issue I have had quickly, efficiently, and professionally. They are constantly upgrading and adding to your tools and making it a great platform. By the way I am not a Dealer.com Employee, but I manage Internet Marketing for our Dealer Group Ken Garff Honda in Utah. Nothing but praises, keep up the good work!

David: Thank you so much for your awesome post! We really appreciate the kind words and congratulations on the success of Ken Garff!

I personally think most of the dealer website services are too pricey. We got a bargain I think at $800 a month compared to what's out there, but it's a 3 year contract totaling around $30,000 - so - What we propose on doing next time is hiring an amazing web team, possibly in India, and spend about $3,000 - $5000 for the most killer site imaginable and host it somewhere else. Hosting at most is $100 a month. This way we have no contract, we can mimic the very best site with amazing SEO and all that jazz. I don't think anyone has to be with the big players, when we've sadly discovered we've probably over spent about $20,000 over the contact - regardless of how many sale we were promised. it can be done much cheaper with equally impressive results as anyone can offer, possibly more.

Chris,


Not sure why you wanted to post that on a Dealer.com profile, but I'll assume you're a Dealer.com client. For how I'm going to respond it doesn't matter who you're with.


Any Internet/Marketing Manager worth their salt has considered going outside of the automotive industry for a website solution at one time or another. I can tell you that I weighed that option every time we changed site providers. The problem I always came back to was inventory. I have yet to find an outside web provider who can adequately handle automotive inventory. In fact, most of them ran away when I started to elaborate how vehicle inventory works online. It isn't as simple as having a Sony TV model 998803 where you have an endless supply and one price that fits all. New cars maybe, but used cars - no. And with your inventory being your single greatest marketing asset there really couldn't be a bigger deal.


You also brought up costs. You get what you pay for. Yeah, you might find some Indian to exploit, but how long is that going to last and will it really help you progress over time?


I'm glad to hear you thinking outside of the box, but it isn't worth it to go outside because you'll be coming right back for some plugin solution(s). And then your reporting isn't 100% accurate and you're dealing with multiple vendors instead of just one. By that time you probably haven't saved any money anyway.

I apologize because my post was not poised towards Dealer.com who I have respect for, and I realize it's a big world, competition rocks but if you need to axe this post inside the thread, you have my permission.


What boggles my mind though is why can't the top 10 companies (or their designers) get together to create 1 super amazing website (company) with everything we could ask for in the site - no add-ons - I mean everything, you get it all, and just cap it at $1,000 a month?


Instead we have many companies (all claiming to be better than the next) many plan levels, plug-in this and plug-in that, up-charge here, up-charge there and LONG contracts - when we can all probably agree that WE NEED IT ALL, out of the box, with the flexibility to change and augment when necessary.


Build me one, and I'll be your customer for life. Plus, I will also find you 1,000 more dealers and you will make $1,000,000 a month!


(or is that my destiny)

What you're looking for typically falls under Socialism and/or Communism. Karl would be very proud! History has proven that these forms of government and economy do not work on the whole, and Capitalism is turning into the world ruler of the day.

But I do hear you and agree - that would be nice. It isn't a perfect world and the best innovation comes from competition.

In the meantime, let&#039;s carry this conversation over to the website forums: <a href="http://forum.dealerrefresh.com/f43/" rel="nofollow">http://forum.dealerrefresh.com/f43/</a> - start a thread and I&#039;ll join in.

Hmmm... An automotive website cartel. Sounds interesting.

First, let me state that since I&#039;ve been on board with our dealership for 3 years now, we have hosted our various branded sites with the following companies...


Reynolds Web Solutions

Cobalt

AutoFusion

GS Marketing

Porsche Direct

Audi Direct

HostGator (for other stuff)


and now Dealer.com


That said, Dealer.com is BY FAR the worst experience we&#039;ve had so far. Apparently, we keep getting assigned incompetent account managers who have no idea what it means to communicate with their client. So I complain to Mark B. - who then promises things will get better - and reassigns another account manager.


But the root of the problem is absolutely NO VISIBILTY to project/change requests. It&#039;s like they go into some black hole, and they drag on for weeks.


And Dealer.com, before you start replying to this with 8 paragraphs, please remember I save ALL MY EMAIL to you guys and will time stamp and point out all the issues we&#039;ve had with you to date.


Just know folks, there are better solutions out there. If you like EXACTLY what you see with Dealer.com - fine. But if you want to make some changes - I would look elsewhere (based off of my experience).


Extremely frustrating, but the good new is we really like one vendor on the list above and will start to move all of our sites to them asap.

Hi Darin,


I would like the opportunity to speak with you directly regarding some of the comments in your post. It&#039;s unfortunate that you have found yourself frustrated and this is an issue we take very seriously.


Please call me at 888-422-2006. If I don&#039;t hear from you, I will call you before close of business today.


Matt Murray

Director, Digital Marketing

Dealer.com

Dealer.com is a pathetic excuse for a company. Incompetent account managers are certainly the companies main problem!!


We have now switched to a much more competent company.


Buyer beware...Dealer.com is a NIGHTMARE!!!

Hi Billy,


I would like the opportunity to discuss your comments directly. As you may or may not know, we are the only company in the automotive digital space that allows a third party to rate our customer service and account management against others in the software industry, including names like Adobe Systems (Net Promoter Score system). I see that you have chosen another provider, I hope all is well since the change. Please either call or email:


[email protected]

888.422.2006

I love Dealer.Com. I, too, have had experience with a couple of website providers and Dealer.Com ranks up there with the best of them. For the couple of negative posts I&#039;ve read here all I can say is that my Account Managers (I&#039;ve had 2 as the first one got promoted to management) have been stellar! They are a great company and please remember some of the negative comments (Can anyone say Billy SSSS) can be disgruntled ex-employees or scared competition! Dealer.Com, along with Vin Solutions and Dealeron.com are the best companies I&#039;ve worked with in the 14 years I&#039;ve been doing Automotive eCommerce!

Thanks for the post Mitch!

I have developed the number 2 and number 3 BDC departments in the US at two different dealerships and have worked with mostly all the top web site providers over the years as a dealership employee or consultant.


My current employer entered into a contract with dealer.com which includes the Search Marketing Upgrade Package.


I&#039;ve have seen no value for this package and it&#039;s not worth the cost. I have requested a detail accounting of work done for this and am given all kinds responses, but no proof. In addition, Dealer.com does the web sites for most of our brand competitors and I can&#039;t see how we have an advantage in any of the test searches I have done.


The problems here is that I have brought this matter all the way up to CEO Mark Bonfigli and they refuse to delete these services or to change the contract.


Becareful when signing a contract with them, you will not be able to change anything, even if its not working.


Communication with them is poor and they certainly do not value your business.

Hey Eric,


Matt from Dealer.com here. Please give me a call or email directly, I would like to hear more about what&#039;s going on here.


[email protected]

888.422.2006

Eric, You had sent me an email about an inventory issue which we took care of. When dealers sign contracts and we invest in providing those services many times we do in fact need to stick to the contract. With that said if you can show me how our solution is not working I would be happy to help you. Our search marketing solutions were just awarded the best in the industry last week in Las Vegas and it is surprising to say the least that you don&#039;t see the value. Again, please let us know what the issue is and I will ensure you get maximum value from your investment. Additionally, all you need to do is contact me direct to get a fast response, something many companies have forgotten about in this day. Posting to 3rd party sites does nothing but create more work for both of us.


Thank you,


Mark Bonfigli

Founder &amp; CEO, Dealer.com

I found this site while looking for an alternative to autorevo. I have to say that Mike&#039;s decision to include information about customers&#039; accounts, no matter how minor or mild he thinks it is, is ridiculous.


It doesn&#039;t matter what anyone says, lies or truth, no company has a right to reveal any details of a customer&#039;s account on a public forum, EVER.


I for sure won&#039;t be looking to sign up with dealer.com simply for that reason. That is pathetic practices by you Mike.

Ryan, it&#039;s obvious the client had said those things on the blog and Mike was responding to him.


Either way, good luck with finding a company out there that doesn&#039;t employ humans!

Dealer.Com is a great company and their Account Managers are the best in the business. I have never had an issue they couldn&#039;t solve and solve fast! I have seen steady growth in my SEO positioning since they took over our website so if you&#039;re looking for an alternative to AutoRevo don&#039;t judge them on a response to something negative posted on a blog (since when do businesses not have the right to reply to a complaint) but judge them on their merits. They are many!

I would like to thank Matt Murray for getting involved with our situation with dealer.com and getting everything resolved immediately. I feel we now have one of the best web sites on the internet. <a href="http://www.bennetttoyotapa.com" rel="nofollow">www.bennetttoyotapa.com</a>