Issue Date: Service Manager Apr 15, 2009, Posted On: 4/15/2009
New product round-up GM Approves AutoSoft's Traffic Cop GM just approved AutoSoft's Traffic Cop customer follow-up tool as an optional offering to complement the AutoSoft GM IDMS solution to manage service sales opportunities from any source, AutoSoft COO Charlie Prophet told us recently.
"This puts accountability right in the service department," Charlie says. "Service managers can use this to keep a close track on how effective the service advisors and others are being in areas like following up on declined service requests."
AutoSoft was first endorsed as a provider tool by GM in 2007; it's also gotten the same recognition from Ford, Chrysler and a number of imports, Charlie says.
AutoSoft's Traffic COP is designed to enforce the control and accountability necessary to manage service sales opportunities from any source — the showroom floor, service drive, phone calls, print ads, and/or online ads across all departments of the dealership.
In the service department, it gives service managers complete transparency into every opportunity, including customer by customer, deal by deal, service need by service need, follow up by follow up, or day by day.
At the service writer's desk, the solution lets them "e-pencil" deals quickly and thoroughly, sending them directly and seamlessly to AutoSoft Finance Assistance or Supreme Software's DealerTracker, to complete the sale.
"It gives service managers more opportunities to reconnect with customers" they might otherwise lose, Charlie says.
Editor's Note: We'll check back with some of the service manager beta testers later this summer.
For more information, go to www.autosoft-asi.com
Sales Tool Being Retooled For Service Departments Sometime next month service managers may begin testing a new customer call solution for DealerUps CRM users, company CEO Stan Thomas tells us.
The solution, TrueCall Plus, is an enhanced version of the company's suite of customer call capture tools designed to improve phone lead performance, increase sales force productivity, and help dealers measure the true success of their ad campaigns. The enhanced version features mobile phone integration, pre-recorded message blasts, and click-to-call functionality. It's available as an add-on module for DealerUps, or as a standalone solution.
"We'll be rolling it out to dealers in the next few weeks," Stan told us April 15. In the past, dealers have used it exclusively on the sales side.
TrueCall Plus uses advanced call capture technology to track and record detailed info on all inbound and outbound customer calls. Dealerships can create audio recordings of each outbound call, and can also monitor salesperson performance and improve results. "It makes everyone more accountable," Stan notes.
The solution comes with a built-in auto dialer that means users never have to log out of the system to make a call. Dealerships can generate more than 200 detailed reports to monitor and measure results on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis. New features include:
Mobile phone integration: This allows salespeople — either service or car sales — to manage their tasks and calls from any wireless or cell phone. Each action is automatically recorded and logged in the dealer's CRM as part of the customer's records.
Personal message blasts: These can automatically send pre-recorded calls to dealership customer or prospect targets in a database than can hold 10,000 people. Multiple messages can be stored for repeat use in a digital library. It also includes a special text-to-voice application to create unique messages highlighting a special or anything the dealership wants to communicate to the target.
Instant phone connect: This lets customers request an immediate call back from the dealership with a single click on the dealership's website, or via a code embedded in a lead form. It also automatically connects hot service prospects to the dealership within ten seconds.
