Brian,

My email address is axsnyder @ Checkeredflag dot com - I'm more than happy to discuss Dealer.com with you. How's the young Swope? I had fun hanging out with him at the last smart Car meeting.

By the way, I just got back from two days at Dealer.com headquarters in Vermont - great bunch of people, very cool facility.....I had a great time! Some cool stuff in the works - be on the lookout for a new Checkered Flag.com!

@alex
Just curious who your account manager is over at dealer.com.
I really like your website and I am curious how you went about setting it up. I use dealer.com as well.

Lindsey,
I totally agree, the last thing I wanted was to look like every other competitor. We're 80% done with http://www.breseechevrolet.com/

AND...
I'd like to take a minute to thank all the other web site providers for making it easy for me to dominate our local SEO rankings.

Joe

What I don't understand is why the manufacturer forces us to use vendors for our dealer websites that use Flash and Frames and are not SEO friendly. If we want to make our Flash website SEO friendly, we have to pay extra for this service. I considered going out on my own and not using the manufacturer's vendor, but then we lose our Dealer Website Link on the manufacturer's site. Now, all of the dealers in our market have similar websites. Any advice?

The automotive industry is starting to catch on to the fact that online marketing is the future, but the "recommended" vendors and the vendors so highly praised in the dealer publications are outrageously expensive. The online marketing vendors exclusive to the automotive industry charge 10 times more than other industries. They want to charge thousands of dollars per month to host websites, manage email marketing and SEO. Why would I want to pay my website vendor thousands per month to "optimize" my Flash website. Shouldn't that be included? Why not use a different platform? And I don't even want to go on about the outrageous fees for managing SEM. Even if the manufacturer co-ops 50% of your Google budget, you still have to pay their vendor an outrageous fee to manage the SEM for you. Anyone else relate to this?

Ah yes, The mfg.Crm tool. What always amazes me is when they start to present this tool they always go to the dealer principal with response times. Then the Ism pulls the report , takes it to the Gm and shows the response times are in line. But, they never match the Mfg's clock. I always ask what metrics were used to formulate this clock from a variety of lead sources and really never get an answer back. In fact many times after deep research I have actually found that leads took the longest arriving from many Mfg's programs. They only start the clock, when they forward to you. I would like to see their response time!
Donny

Mitch,

You're probably correct, but I think the Automotive Dealers of today have at least accepted the Internet is not going anywhere. Many more are on their game than ever before, and that increases daily. I believe some of the manufacturers are slowing us down from playing in this competitive world today. Sure, a few years ago their programs were an absolute necessity. They were certainly ahead of the "dealer pack" in coming to the "Internet realization", and some are still. However, the early 2000's policies have not changed while the industry has.

Yes, the top percentages of the automotive Internet industry may be participating on DealerRefresh, but we're still missing quite a few: Koons, Galpin, Longo, etc. Of course, Checkered Flag is here so we're all good

Anyway, I would love to see some of our manufacturers crack the whip a little softer in this area. I would be unbelievably ecstatic if they all developed the same approach Toyota took.

Thanks for the responses so far. Feel free to take this thread deeper - we have not dived into specific manufacturers who do a bad job (other than Nissan).

-Alex

Ahhh... Mitch,
Whointhehell writes your blog? Wow, if it's you, you're in wrong biz! Let's can that and re-sell it!

Kudos,
Joe

Umer stated that he thinks Nissan does a great job as well... I don't agree at all with this statement, and perhaps that has something to do with the manufacturer's mindset: to some dealers, "a great job" from the manufacturer is staying the hell out of the way... to others, a great job means telling them what CRM tool to use, because they don't know anything about CRMs and have no interest in using them other than to satisfy other parties.

To discuss the business models and sales disciplines of "dealers" in one broad stroke is a grossly prejudiced notion. If you're an old school guy and your GM is shoving new technologies and standards down your throat, you can pack your things and walk down the street to a dealer who still sells like it's 1997. How can you refer to that industry in the collective sense?

Given that situation, think about the millions of dollars any manufacturer spends on branding, advertising, market research, and statistics. They've got their identity and strategies running smoothly(well, relatively smoothly)... maybe it's not the smartest thing to cram compliance down a dealer's throat, but when you've shelled out all that cash to run your business a certain way, it's certainly better for your peace of mind to align the dealers with your own approach than to let them run rampant and hope for the best.

Let's also keep in mind that anyone commenting on this artlce is 1) Internet savvy, and 2) probably pretty damn good at their job. If you could drag a few old timers to this post and let them comment, I'd bet the argument would swing the other way, because they'd rather have the manufacturer figure this "Internet" thing out for them. We're more than a bit biased here... most dealers in the country don't have personnel in the same strata as ourselves.

I am recently new to the domestic manufacturer side of things, and have found that I don't really like being told what products and services that I can use. Due to a co-op that my dealership group is financially chained to, we have been tied to a company that in my opinion is antiquated in its technology. On top of that, as the Internet Manager, I am constantly bombarded with calls from reps of this particular company trying to sell me some other seemingly useless product or service that I probably don't really need. They do however always tell me, "Did I mention that this service is 100% co-opable?”I do agree with most of what has been said, the manufacturers tend to treat the dealerships like a small child that can't cross the street without holding an adult's hand. I think that the majority of the people that do make decisions for the dealerships regarding internet products and processes are intelligent enough to be able to navigate through the vendors, and should be allowed to choose the ones that work best for their situation. What works for a high volume city dealership may not work for a small town family dealership, yet the manufacturer wants to treat all of them the same. It is definitely something that manufacturers need to reconsider.

I am in agreement with all of you. A few salesman and I just had a discussion regarding " living the old school way " at other dealerships. There is no telling when they will crack out of the old habits and start getting more involved with the Internet and Website advertising etc for their own dealership.
I get great support from Honda and their Interactive Networking tool. Getting great support for how important it is for Internet / web advertising from my GM's is a great benefit for my Internet Departments & helps a lot!

** You can break the habit of the old school way, only when they're ready to break it **

Nissan also does a good job of this... the SET regional is ahead in Toyota as far as internet and web services goes. I love there snappy nextgen.toyotaweb.org eBrochures web service, new inventory and inventory search... If every OEM implemented inventory search like SET one would not have to lock inventory, as discussed by Jeff in previous post.

However if every OEM went that way it would be bad news for eVox, Chrome, JATO and parts of IzmoProduct new car product line.

So true...

There must be a way for manufacturers to track the internet traffic to the dealerships regardless of what CRM tool is being used.

Out the few main CRM companies, one would think the manufacturers would set up their own utility to accept monthly results from the dealerships CRM tool for tracking, then reward or exclude promo dollars accordingly.

Yes Jeffrey, you are so correct. Toyota does it better than anyone! When I was in the car business and managed one of if not the largest automotive internet sales departments in the Southeast, I had many a meeting with Southeast Toyota (SET). Look at some of the Toyota dealers website here in the southeast. They have that picture that you were talking about the other day for each of their new cars at port in FL.

They don't leave it up to the dealer to decide if they want to put pictures of their new car inventory up...Southeast Toyota does it for them.

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. www.bennetttoyotapa.com

Dealer.Com is a great company and their Account Managers are the best in the business. I have never had an issue they couldn't solve and solve fast! I have seen steady growth in my SEO positioning since they took over our website so if you're looking for an alternative to AutoRevo don'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!

Ryan, it'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't employ humans!

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

It doesn't matter what anyone says, lies or truth, no company has a right to reveal any details of a customer's account on a public forum, EVER.

I for sure won't be looking to sign up with dealer.com simply for that reason. That is pathetic practices by you Mike.

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'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 & CEO, Dealer.com

Hey Eric,

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

[email protected]

888.422.2006

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've have seen no value for this package and it'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'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.

Thanks for the post Mitch!

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've read here all I can say is that my Account Managers (I'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've worked with in the 14 years I've been doing Automotive eCommerce!

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

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!!!