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TAKE POLL Is VinSolutions is not ready for Centralized BDC? Or it's just us?

Alexander Oleynik

Green Pea
Oct 12, 2012
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Since beginning of this year we got 8 stores switched to Vin CRM, and we had too many problems with it. I want to start this topic because it's been way to long that VinSolutions is not doing anything about our problems. And I want to see if anyone else here is using Vin CRM for the BDC and do you guys have the same problems? or it's just us?

Just keep this in mind, all our stores are separate from each other. And we have one centralized BDC, that handles all communication and follow up.

here's few problems:
1. Wish List alert, fires for all stores. but we need it to fire only for that specific store.
And our BDR's have to have a global inventory access other wise BDR's can't work off of Task Page for all dealerships.
example: BDR logged in to Dealer1 and the task is for Dealer2, customer asking to send a price on few different vehicles, so without global inventory we can't pick those vehicles from the inventory because it will only show Dealer1 inventory.
This is also fires a task to a saleperson at the store, that we found matching vehicle, but when salesperson goes to check, the vehicle located in the dealership that is 2000 miles away, that he doesn't even have access to.

2. Past due appointments pop ups, which ones you see once you logged in. It shows only for the dealership BDR is logged in. Now imagine we have 20 dealers in our group, so our BDR would have to switch between 20 different stores to take care of his missed appointments? Again why BDR can't see all of his appointments for all dealers on Task Page?

3. CRM Dashboard is showing information only for the store you are logged in. That's makes it very hard to overview BDC. There's tons of workarounds but again, all those workarounds take extra time, extra reports, if I am a BDC manager I should see Dashboard for the BDC not just for that one store, and if I have 20 stores now I have to switch between each store.

4. When you merge 2 customers there's no option to chose BD agent, so it takes 5 minutes to merge and if you don't get back to that customer and assign proper BD agent to it, when next task fires for BD agent it will round robin BD agent on the customer to someone else who have nothing to do with this customer.

5. Every week, 2 days out of 5, CRM is Super slow, it's to the point where we can't even operate. We can't change anything on the customer(salesperson, BD agent, custom process,lost sale, or mark bad etc) non of that is working, and when you call the support they can replicate the problem, but then they would call me back stating it's something with internet on our end. But your support people replicated the problem on their end. How does it even make sense?
Case#01134499

6. Have you ever try to add new BD agent to the CRM? here's the process:
I add user to the CRM in one store, then I have to EMAIL, you can't even call, it's has to be an email to support asking to give that user global access, then once they done (approximately 4 hours), you have to go back to each store one by one and setup that user with all information. Since I have 8 stores it takes a really long time, when it should be as easy as adding user to one store.

7. Let's say one BDR leaves and now I want to reassign all his customer to New BDR, which is BD agent on the customer, well you can't, you can only reassign saleperson.

8. Missed appointment process still fires even if you lost sale or mark lead as bad. So when you lost sale a lead, it's stops any active process, any unsold, or follow up. But not missed appointment.
Case# 01153205

9. Why Service Agent get's automatically assigned to every sales iLead? the same for BD agent, every time service lead comes in it assign Service Rep but it's also assigned BD agent who have nothing to do with this customer.

10. Permissions is a huge minus in VIN, there's only 3 types of permissions, Saleperson, Manager, Admin.
You can try to give more permissions to a salesperson, like desking deals, lost sale leads, but not the managers. Anyone with Managers permissions pretty much can do anything. And there's no way to restrict that. In ADP CRM I can easily create my own custom profile and assign it to the user. Why I can't do the same?
again because this system is not design for BDC. It's design for Dealership and bunch of band-aids and workarounds for the BDC.

11. Every Credit App iLead creates a Duplicate customer. If name, phone number, address, email is matching it will still create a new customer and won't even trigger a skate alert, so now we have two people working the customer. One from Sales team one from Internet team.

12. Do you guys knew, that phone task will pop up in your tasks page, 12 hours in advance? And email task, 5 minutes in advanced. But no one in Vin even knew that, so all our processes are build based on Vin Trainers telling us that BDR's will not see any tasks until it's due for that task.
case# 01152320

13. You can only merge customers within that store, So if you logged in to Dealer1 you can't merge 2 customers that are in Dealer2. Now you have to change the dealer, do the search again, merge them, then wait 5 minutes for it to merge, then assign BD agent back, because when you merge 2 customers BD agent changes to NONE. Why?

14. If you logged in to Dealer1 you can't unwind deal in Dealer2 or end a showroom visit for Dealer2, you have to change the dealer first.

I can go on and on but this is the most frustrating issues we been having, I want to hear how other BDC's working the system.

Over All IMHO this system is not design to work for BDC. And I'm very tired of workarounds Vin suggesting me.

We got this system and we thought it will be easier to use and navigate, but everything takes extra steps and extra workaround and extra time. And we been told that everything will be working the way we want it. But no, it's not.

Do you guys having the same issues?

I feel like every page is design for saleperson on the customer, but BDC managers needs to see how BD agent is performing and not just for that one dealer, for all of them in one screen. Like the Daily Activity on Dashboard is so worthless because it's not for all stores, so for us to get the number of task BD agent completed we would have to switch between 8 stores and calculated them?

and BD agent's can't find their customers, because search will only show you customers you assigned as a salesperson.

Alright I'm done. Thank you and hope to see some resolution or ideas.
 
I feel your pain. Luckily I am at a stand alone point and not a dealer group. It sounds like your frustrations are coming from people not really knowing how to use the CRM properly. I deal with this every day. VIN inst perfect, I understand the problems you are having. I just work around them.
 
There is no perfect CRM as each one has its strong suits. I have the most experience with ELeads and DealerSocket and can say DealerSocket is plagued with a variety of issues that make it a bad choice for dealerships running full BDC's in my opinion. ELeads on the other hand was great and did a wonderful job of catering to both the salespeople and BDC agents; I never felt that the BDC setup was just an after thought.

You first need to determine what you're needing out of a CRM. Look at your day to day activities and decide on what things are most important to you, or what things are missing that you'd like to have. You need to be able to look past the fluff and ask the right questions when deciding which CRM is best for you.

At the end of the day your CRM is just a tool, but if you feel it is hindering your productivity and day to day operations then you may want to bite the bullet and move to a CRM that is doing it right TODAY and not hold your breath for a CRM company to cater to your needs at some point in the future...maybe, depending on if they deem the changes to be necessary.

If you're contractually bound then try to bring as much attention to the problems as possible. Maybe they'll listen - though I wouldn't hold my breath.
 
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I understand what you are going through I run a Centralized BDC for a rather large automotive group based in Orlando and VIN is not set up for Centralized BDC's but its a great selling tool. I also have dealerships that use Dealersocket and that is more friendly for a Centralized BDC but not a great selling tool. Ive had to adapt my processes to VIN to make it work. As someone indicated earlier there is no perfect CRM it just depends on what you want and how you plan on using it. Majority of dealerships I see lack in the utilization area so you are a cut above the rest. Good luck and God speed.