When the Chapman auto group first decided to leave dealer skins for obvious reasons we considered about 20 website vendors which I personally interviewed and screened. TK was our vendor of choice above all other competitors. TK has a web product that is like no other, their POWER of 5 is totally unique and the elite SEO is second to none. I like to tell people that TK doesn’t just build websites they build comprehensive digital marketing web solutions. One thing that is very different about TK is that they build custom websites unlike dealer.com and all these other guys that say pick one of these 10 layouts and we will have you up in less than 30 days. TK is building you a custom user experience. That no one else will have there is no “cookie cutter” in the production department where they mass produce the same site 100,000 times and put your logo and colors on it.

Transitioning to a new website vendor sounds easy but let me tell you it is not, there are tons of small details to think about to consider and initially we very unhappy with the way things went with “TK” there were bumps throughout our transition we thought we had made a mistake in our vendor choice, during this process we reached out to Jenifer Schrader who put together a conference call with Richard Valenta and all the big wigs over there at TK. The owners of the Chapman auto group and myself had a voiced our concerns, Richard was very helpful and TK made some special arrangements that put us at ease. This was the beginning of getting things back on track.

It has been almost a year now that we have been live with TK and I could not be happier with my website. All of my concerns have been put to rest and I am selling more cars than ever. The support team is great, my dealer advocate Jenifer Schrader is amazing, and the management team at TK is always there when you need them.

I will say this if you choose TK as your website solution you will not be disappointed once your sites are up and running the transition may be a little bumpy but that is to be expected with any vendor, make sure that you communicate don’t assume anything . The most important is that you must have the right staff in place to use these websites but if you don’t you can rest assured that TK will help you every step of the way.

PLEASE CALL ME IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO TALK MORE.

215-674-3600-171

Ron,

Sorry to hear you are having such difficulty with our staff. I just left a message for you with my direct number and cell. Please call me to discuss.

Thank you,

Richard Valenta

CEO

TK Website is the worst website company I have ever had to do buisness with!!!!!!!!!!! I have gone through several department heads to get my site up and running. We signed up nearly four months ago and our site is still not up and running correctly. Their response time on return phone calls is horrible. Simple web page repairs take days to complete. Everyone passes the buck and says someone else will call you back. Buyers Be Ware - You can not get out of your contract!!!!!!!! You are stuck for the next two years!!! Anyone can call me for more details. Ron Barbosa 1-866-473-1692

In today's busy world we sometimes forget to give kudo's to those that we take for granted. The team at TK has gone above and beyond our expectations time and time again. If you want powerful SEO and a clean, easy to navigate website that packs a powerful punch then let me suggest my friends at TK. Richard Valenta and his team have done a fantastic job for us. If you are looking for a "magic wand" or instant results then look elsewhere. But if you want a partner that formulates a plan of attack, does things behind the scenes to make your website better and provides superior customer service then drink the TK Koolaid. You will be glad you did! Thanks Richard!

Ted Heater

CarSmart

Kansas City, MO

Thanks for the advice, I actually learned a lot from the comments.

I have to say vast improvements from the TK Carsites that I used to use. The one I had was drastically outdated as far as SEO and template design. I still see some old school looking sites from them...but much better than what I had to deal with before.

Didn't have a ton that you could do with thier sites before..only coupons, specials, and maybe a few more items. You couldn't build your own pages..which is something that is nice to keep updated info on your sites...and the SEO was horrific. So kudos for taking it to the next level..though some of the comments seem like the old problems I used to run into. Only one suggestion take out the annoying beeping, sound effects, that some of your sites still have when you mouse over items. That is so far dated it isn't funny.

Hi Everyone!

Regarding my previous comments I posted above TK has gone and solved all my issues that I had above and they are now back in our dealer groups good books again after going over and beyond what other vendors have done for us in the past.

I would just like to thank to TKcarsites team for taking the effort to bringing us back to having an exceptional experience with TK like how we originally started.

Brodie

Brodie,

First of all, thanks for the comment. We appreciate the feedback from our customers and hope that we can resolve the situation very quickly. Your dealer advocate will be contacting you today to find out the particulars. I will follow up with her tomorrow to see we are on the right track. If you have further issues, you are welcome to contact me direct.

Richard Valenta

CEO

TK Carsites, Inc.

714.937.1239 x233

Everyone at the company seems pretty friendly and knowledgable so we signed up a couple of our dealerships only to find the design and initial setup process an absolute nightmare. We are currently getting billed by their leasing company for websites that are not live and no one can see or generate leads off of yet. Out of the 3 dealerships we signed up only one is live so far (1 week late so we didn't have a website for a week) only because they kept loosing our faxed documents / information wasn't getting passed to the right people.

Anyways I guess we will see if they are a good company to go with as of now our dealer group is feeling we made the wrong choice just because of the initial development and their leasing company charging us for something we do not have has a pretty strong sting as we feel since they made us sign a lease they get paid upfront and now that their behind schedule we feel they don't care about rushing our project because they already have their money and there is no incentive for them to get our websites live. I spoke with them earlier this week and got a deadline of 2 more weeks for one of our website and 3-4 weeks for the other one that is in cue.

Anyways if it gets any better I will repost if not our recommendation is going to be to go with another company to save yourself the stress and keep what hair you have left.

Ron,

I am very sorry to see you are experiencing such difficulties with our company.

I spoke with Greg today and he agreed there have been issues in the past but he felt it was behind us. I also spoke with Joe Turner and he stated that you both worked this out. Hopefully, that is the case.

Additionally, I provided Greg with my cell number so you can contact me if you or he feels we don't meet your expectations in the future.

Richard Valenta
CEO
TK Carsites, Inc.

Joe thanks for the Tele-conference you setup. I got an email today telling me that my SEO work was complete. I was excited. Then I looked at my websites to see these changes and realized that my Hyundai website was broken... TK quality as usual. See the image of my Hyundai site: http://media.auffenbergcars.com/Hyundai.PNG
See how many times you can find Mazda on my Hyundai site. Also, all the links on my Hyundai site link to my Mazda site.

After calling to report this issue I also asked about what was changed SEO wise, because I didn't see any difference in the Title and Meta-Tags. I was told that my SEO changes were not complete; that only the "More Info" page was modified.

They also used this as a excuse as to why some links on my Finance pages havent been modified yet even though the ticket for modifying these links was opened 2 weeks before the SEO ticket.

TK hasn't changed a bit, still as horrible as the day the contract was signed.

Ron,

I have spoken with several team members that you have recently talked with here at TK and no one has any logged issues.

So I am not quite sure what could be the problem as each said you were satisfied at the time.

It’s obvious that something happened between now and then and I really would like to make this right as quickly as possible.

I have tried to call you several times today to see what the issues are so I can get them resolved.

I think every company that has a large number of clients will have problems from time to time. The question is once a problem is identified how do they respond?

For years TK has taken great pride not in have no issues at all, but rather handling them in a prompt and professional manner as soon as we are aware of them.

I 'd like to think that we consistently do that.

Please call me as soon as possible 502-689-5370.

Joe Turner
Executive VP Online Marketing

For anyone that is looking to use TK's services!
Stop what your doing right now and go SLAM your fingers in your car door as hard as you can. The feeling of smashing your fingers will be a much better feeling than the one you get with a TK powered website; plus you won't be able to sign a contract you WILL regret later.

I've been dealing with TK for 1 1/2 years now and it has been a huge headache from day one. The SEO package we are paying for is a big joke. We are beat out by all of our competitors unless you search by our business name or City + dealership.

The list of issues is a long one and I don't have the time now to post everything.

Do yourself a favor and go elsewhere for your dealerships website.

Ted - Thanks so much! It is greatly appreciated! I enjoy working with you and Jonathan!
Keep up the great work and that positive attitude of yours!

I just wanted to take a small amount of time to let everyone know of some big changes. TK Carsites has fallen back into my good graces. After a short amount of time and a lot of hard work "TK" has delivered. Many thnaks to Richard, Isaac and Jen Schrader for fixing any and all issues I had. Kudos for a job well done.

Ted Heater
CarSmart

Ted,

Sorry to hear about the problems you are currently having with our SEO. I will review the situation and personally contact you tomorrow.

Richard Valenta
CEO
TK Carsites, Inc.

TK has almost broke my spirit. Excuse after excuse. HORRIBLE customer service. Our PREMIUM SEO is a joke. The SEO dept at TK tells me Getcarsmart.com is to similar to Carsmart.com and that is why our site doesn't rank very well in a google site. That's funny...Carsmart in St. Louis and Carsmart in Nashville, TN pop up on the first page of any google search that I do. What gives TK? I know exactly waht "gives'...they OVER PROMISE and UNDER DELIVER. Once our contract is up...we're GONE!

After a day of working with TK, I have to say, they recover better than any group I've seen. Once they got focused they kicked it. Richard went out of his way to get involved and stay involved. He took the time to walk through each issue and surprised me by not defending.

We went back over the stats and I realized, that with multiple domains, I had mis-read the data. Richard was right on the time. It was an average of 248 sec., and not a combined total, as I wrongly read it. On the other issues, all the big stuff was handled by the end of the day. We even had a chance to add a few enhancements. So, by the end of the day, we were not just back on track, we were even a little ahead.

Richard also knew what to do to get a car salesman back on his side. My sales team now has a very high opinion of our new website provider. Car guys are suckers for pizza.

Tom,

I am very concerned that you are having issues. I just left you a message.

I want to discuss with you personally to see what we can do to satisfy you as a customer as well as walk you through the stats as I believe you are mis-reading them.

My review shows the average time on the main site was 4.1 minutes. However,being that this is 5 separate websites, combined stats will show much higher.

We can discuss when we talk.

Richard Valenta
CEO
TK Carsites, Inc.

I have to agree with Scott and Timothy. Our site, which rolled out the last week of March, has been one minor frustration after another. From not being able to get the CarFax link changed to my AutoCheck link (3/23, still not done) to coding errors like linking the new car specials button to a dead page due to a typo.

For April, our average time on the site for 2333 visitors was only 248 seconds. That's less than 11 seconds per visitor. They are seeing the index page and leaving, or they click on the peel down coupon, which is very plain-looking, close it and leave. 77% of our vistors bailed out before ever looking at the inventory or even seeing a price, so I'm pretty sure it wasn't crappy pictures, poor descriptions or inflated prices. They never got to see how crappy or high we were or weren't. That's 1485 vistors that ran off into the woods.

Now here's the kicker, of the 1252 that didn't leave in the first page, 72 found their way to the used car inventory. 28 leads were submitted for used cars. That's a staggering 39% conversion rate. Of the 28, 7 bought a used car, or 25% lead to close. How many could we have sold if only 10% of the 1485 who left, could have found what they came to the site to find? Based on these numbers 148 would have submitted 56 leads and we would have closed 14 of those. If those numbers are too high, cut them in half and it's still 7 car deals or $16,000 in missed used car revenue, before pack. That means my salespeople missed the chance to make an additional $4,000 in commission. I don't know much, but I do know my sales team deserved the chance to make that money. They closed 14% of their total leads last month. All they needed was an at-bat to hit a homerun. It was already there. We didn't need more advertising, comments, photos or anything else.

To their credit TK is working to fix these and the other problems. It has not been the smoothest process. I think I'd have rather had an unneccessary prostate exam. Hopefully, once we are through the growing pains it won't be as frustrating.

I have seen a good amount of TKCarsite websites before and I have a question involving the SEO that I have just never understood. I would say over 80% of TK sites I have seen have a javascript file (usually links.js) that is full of functions that use javascript to change the current page URL. Instead of just using normal SEO friendly anchor (A) tags, every single link has its own uniquely named javascript function.

Although some aspects of SEO are very open to interpretation based on individual results for a company's strategy, it is well known for fact that javascript is not SEO friendly AT ALL.

I was wondering if there is some secret behind using javascript instead of anchor tags before I just don't understand?

Do vendors (not going to name names yet) ever up the price of the contract for service after you've already gotten all of the big wigs in the company to sign it and fax it in?

This seems like bad business to me.

You would think they would just eat the small difference to save the utter embarrassment on all sides.

I for one can speak to Scott's issues. Our initial cutover to tkcarsites was an absolute nightmare. It was particularly frustrating because everyone at tk was extremely nice - they just seemed overwhelmed with new business to the point that they were incapable of delivering on the over promised sizzle of their sales reps outlandish claims. Richard got involved and certainly was a big factor in cutting through the bs and getting results moving more quickly.
It seems to me that they have tried so hard to be able to provide a great product to dealers who have relatively no tech savvy personnel, that when they encounter a store that is on the cutting edge or has key personnel that are VERY tech knowledgeable, that their process gets in the way of their results.

Rather than speaking directly to the people doing the actual work they have what I call glorified message runners. And it seems that they even have message runners for the message runners. What happens is that so much is lost by the time it gets to the tech department that priorities aren't properly set and much gets lost, overlooked, falls through the cracks and ultimately leads to a bad customer experience for the dealer. I've spoken to Richard about this, i hope they are making strides to continue improving in this regard. While we are light-years ahead of where we were, it continues to take far too long to get trouble tickets and requests for work to be completed - one request has been in the works for over a month now.

The single biggest reason we have stayed is their SEO prowess. Now this is a subject which I have a deep understanding of. I won't go into details here, but their chief advisor for SEO is a certifiable genius in this area. They are so effective at using inbound links that they seem to be able to get away with a lot of no-no's in the seo world. Like using iframed inventory (a big pet peeve of mine) Using repeating title tags that are vague.) Some of what they do would also be very much in the grey area of googles webmaster guidelines. My feeling is that - much like myself - they are betting on the reality that dealer websites will continue to fly under google's radar because of the relatively low traffic dealer websites see (when compared with the amazon.com's and ebays of the world) thus, google will never have the time to deal with enforcing these loosely interpreted rules. None of that matters - google "Nissan Dealers" and you'll find Marlboro Nissan in the number 2 or 3 spot on google page one. Now this isn't a particularly important term for us, but that key phrase is extremely competitive and its a NATIONAL term. What this means for those who are less SEO savvy - its real freakin' hard to get on page 1 for a term like that. We were on page 1 for that term by our 2nd week with tk.

To give you an idea of just how effective their TK5 sites are I will give you some info about our sites. Prior to moving to tk our Nissan dealer site already received, on average about 3-4k unique visitors/month. Last month we topped 11k uniques and over 20k total visits. Now the lead conversion is nowhere near tk's 5% claims, but we are certainly busy. In this horrible economy we had a better January than last year and our Feb is going to be right about the same. We sold 69 cars on President's day weekend - 48 were directly sourced from our online marketing efforts.

Now if they could just build in the killer analytics package dealer.com uses - maybe the carflix dealer.com has and ok and the dominator ppc program they have, as well and a more robust back end tool for user customizability they would have the ultimate web solution.

I would warn you of this though. TK is so effective at driving traffic to your website that you better have a good process in place. If you don't you'll end up seeing a ton of bad reviews on dealerrater.com who's web link will be just below your websites location on google page 1.

Hope this helps!

Timothy P Martell
Director of eCommerce & Marketing
Marlboro Nissan
Woburn Jaguar
[email protected]
(888) 251-3813

We built a portal page with TK to be the flagship site for our company to include our four area locations. When TK says that their websites are completely customizable they truly mean it. When we first started building our site, I sent them a rough “blue print” of the site that I had pictured. They were able to work off of my rough layout to help us design a truly one-of-a-kind site. The “power of 5” sites are simple to navigate, and make for an easy shopping experience for the consumer. We have only been live for a few days, yet we have seen a rise in leads. I am definitely looking forward to the new business we will acquire with this site.

Amanda Marsal
Internet Sales Manager
John Jones Automotive Group

Alright so as I said to Richard in his follow up calls to me I want to set the record straight on my new site. First off we love the look and feel! We all know it's about the first impressions.... That said once Richard and I connected things began to move! He does indeed get the process moving and the issues got cleared up for the most part. We still have a couple of minor items but everyone is working to resolve them. I am sure that we're going to be very happy with the site's results. I'm already seeing some changes in the search engine positioning. And we're seeing decent lead traffic. I'm sure as the site gets crawled and the search engines index it traffic will go up. I appreciate Richard's getting involved and inspiring his people. I look forward to a long and prosperous relationship with TK.

Scott Dube