DealerOn is Off

[Ryan Everson]

Looks like Dealer.com isn’t the only automotive website provider with downtime issues, most DealerOn websites have been down for a few hours now on a busy Saturday sales day!

 

[Marc Lavoie]

They won't be the last one either. Nobody is safe from these types of issues, I'm sure they're very aware and the people there are working hard to make it right.

Mark

 

[Alexander Lau]

And each time, they're definitely worth calling out. Lost revenue for dealers. Again, how big do these guys need to get without a backup / fail safe plan!?

 

[Marc Lavoie]

I get it. It's great if you call them out, but every product falls short at one time or the other, I know it happened for us and it will happen again. I mean Facebook shuts down once in a while. Thinking smaller companies won't have downtime issues is straight up delusional :thumbup:

 

[Alexander Lau]

I get it. It's great if you call them out, but every product falls short at one time or the other, I know it happened for us and it will happen again. I mean Facebook shuts down once in a while. Thinking smaller companies won't have downtime issues is straight up delusional :thumbup:

They should have a back up plan (they don't want to spend the money on it), we've already discussed this heavily if you delve into "Dealer.com sites are down" thread. You might find that odd too.

Better yet, ask for your money back. Tell them, "we're quitting unless you refund the down time!"

 

[joe.pistell]

#ChaosHappens

 

[Alex Snyder]

@joe.pistell nobody is immune.

 

[Marc Lavoie]

Precisely!!

 

[Mitch Gallant]

Better yet, ask for your money back. Tell them, "we're quitting unless you refund the down time!"

I get being up front and demanding but DealerOn is a great company to work with, in my experience.

I don't think stamping your feet and demanding a refund is conducive to building a relationship with a partner who holds the keys to such a critical piece of our operations. To that end I think it's massively important to communicate with them over this but if you're willing to flippantly wage a stand off I think there's bigger problems at hand.

I don't think it's as systemic as Dealer.com which is why i'm particularly willing to stick my neck out on this.

 

[Ryan Everson]

I get being up front and demanding but DealerOn is a great company to work with, in my experience.

I don't think stamping your feet and demanding a refund is conducive to building a relationship with a partner who holds the keys to such a critical piece of our operations. To that end I think it's massively important to communicate with them over this but if you're willing to flippantly wage a stand off with I think there's bigger problems at hand.

I don't think it's as systemic as Dealer.com which is why i'm particularly willing to stick my neck out on this.

Agreed.

This seems to be happening more regularly now with a multitude of website vendors which leads me to suggest constructive steps a dealer can take during such outages:

1) Use a tool like Site 24x7 to monitor your website and have it instantly notify you via text and email if it goes down.

2) When it goes down, first reach out to your website provider to make sure they are aware of the issue. It's possible it may not be a widespread system outage and only your website is affected.

3) Contact your paid search and social media ad providers to pause all ad spend. Even better, have a call-only ad campaign created and ready to turn on for instances like this.

4) Let your staff know that the website is down and provide an ETA if available. Also be sure to stress the fact that they can still view the inventory in the CRM, on third party listing sites, etc (some salespeople tend to think of reasons not to work).

5) Post on your dealership Facebook page that your website is down and offer an alternative option. A) Either call / visit us. OR B) Link to a third party listing site, this can be a slightly slippery slope though because then they may end up looking at competitor's inventory and your third party site could use the spike in traffic to try to justify a price increase.

6) If it begins to become a more regular occurrence with your vendor in particular, consider looking for a more reliable website partner if they are unable to provide steps they've taken to reduce the likelihood of it happening again.