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Cobalt LMCC Dealer Letter?

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Shawn Morse

4 Pounder
Apr 15, 2009
76
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First Name
Shawn
#1
I just heard from a GM dealer that was using LMCC for ILM that GM sent him a letter today that said LMCC is no longer an approved vendor and that they will have to change. That sounds odd to me. Has anyone else heard the same thing? I would think that it would be for the new SFE format but that has not officially been launched yet.
 
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#3
I don't know much about the current LMCC but I was a Cobalt customer my first 8 years on the Internet side of things. I actually helped Cobalt develop LMCC from it's very poor beginnings to a tool I had working like a top. Of course this was when Cobalt was actually a good company and made constant improvements and listened to their customers. Has LMCC gotten worse in the last 5 years since I used it? I was a big fan of LMCC. The dealership I was at used Higher Gear and I refused to use it for my Internet Department and continued with LMCC. I hope Cobalt didn't let that go down the tubes as well as their other offerings!
 
#4
I have not been a big CoBalt fan, and they still have a very long way to go before turning me into a fan....BUT....I am forced to use them by MINI, Hyundai, and VW. Even though they still have some of the most antiquated technology on the planet, their people have been very helpful.

Good people still don't overcome a bad product. CoBalt's system still does not fully account for SEO. It's inventory searches are the most difficult of almost all the website providers' solutions, and the site manager piece just isn't intuitive. Dealers who have not seen anything but the CoBalt system, take 30 minutes for a demo of another website platform and you'll see what I'm talking about.

Maybe it is because I'm on OEM-level-bottom-of-the-line CoBalt platforms, but reporting is in a total different area and you have to login way too much to get to too many important things. I have also never been able to get reporting to load for my MINI site. Not that I really care because I trust more in Google Analytics and will soon be able to place Dealer.com analytics code in there too.

This whole thing brings me to another topic that EVERYONE SHOULD THINK ABOUT:
If you have 4 Volkswagen dealerships in the same market all using the same tools then you have a DECREASE in sales, service, and local retail parts sales. Competition and Capitalism cannot flourish when everyone is constrained to the same level. Manufacturers are so caught-up in online image that they forgot what we're all here to do: make money. They force us to use the same website hosting platform in order to maintain the same look/feel and specials updating. Then they choose platforms in a political manner instead of a business manner (someone explain how an OEM would pick CoBalt over some of the other players who kill CoBalt in conversion) - I can't believe that the deal with CoBalt can't be matched by some of these other companies.

If I'm VW, who is trying to be a player on par with Toyota, and need to compete against Ford, Toyota, Honda, etc, and limit my dealers' ability to play a competitive game, then VW cannot get past these other manufacturers. They have to build a better car, create a better ad campaign, and do everything at the OEM level. If they simply allowed dealers more choices in who they could use as a website host, they will allow their dealers to compete more and that will ultimately help VW pick up more market share.
 
#5
Alex Snyder said:
I have not been a big CoBalt fan, and they still have a very long way to go before turning me into a fan....BUT....I am forced to use them by MINI, Hyundai, and VW. Even though they still have some of the most antiquated technology on the planet, their people have been very helpful.

Good people still don't overcome a bad product. CoBalt's system still does not fully account for SEO. It's inventory searches are the most difficult of almost all the website providers' solutions, and the site manager piece just isn't intuitive. Dealers who have not seen anything but the CoBalt system, take 30 minutes for a demo of another website platform and you'll see what I'm talking about.

Maybe it is because I'm on OEM-level-bottom-of-the-line CoBalt platforms, but reporting is in a total different area and you have to login way too much to get to too many important things. I have also never been able to get reporting to load for my MINI site. Not that I really care because I trust more in Google Analytics and will soon be able to place Dealer.com analytics code in there too.

This whole thing brings me to another topic that EVERYONE SHOULD THINK ABOUT:
If you have 4 Volkswagen dealerships in the same market all using the same tools then you have a DECREASE in sales, service, and local retail parts sales. Competition and Capitalism cannot flourish when everyone is constrained to the same level. Manufacturers are so caught-up in online image that they forgot what we're all here to do: make money. They force us to use the same website hosting platform in order to maintain the same look/feel and specials updating. Then they choose platforms in a political manner instead of a business manner (someone explain how an OEM would pick CoBalt over some of the other players who kill CoBalt in conversion) - I can't believe that the deal with CoBalt can't be matched by some of these other companies.

If I'm VW, who is trying to be a player on par with Toyota, and need to compete against Ford, Toyota, Honda, etc, and limit my dealers' ability to play a competitive game, then VW cannot get past these other manufacturers. They have to build a better car, create a better ad campaign, and do everything at the OEM level. If they simply allowed dealers more choices in who they could use as a website host, they will allow their dealers to compete more and that will ultimately help VW pick up more market share.
Click to expand...

Are you talking about being forced to use Cobalt's websites or Cobalt's LMCC? I'm pretty sure VW and Hyundai leads can be sent to other products besides LMCC. I'm not sure about MINI.
 
#6
It has nothing to do with leads Matt - I'm talking about websites. Well....it does have something to do with leads when you're speaking about how well your site converts. But overall I'm talking about being forced to only use one tool for anything - regardless if it is a Cobalt website, a Cobalt Lead Management System, or anything at all. It spits in the face of competition because it forces an even playing field.

I just happened to use CoBalt's website platform as the example because that's what I'm most familiar with.
 
#7
I have heard a little more about this today. It seems that under the new SFE program all certified ILM's have to have a mobile interface and at this point LMCC cant do that. I was surprised to hear that, I thought most of the ILM tools on the market had that ability at his point, at least those that are not server based.
 
#9
it is official this is from the letter that cobalt is sending to dealers today.

[FONT=&quot]GM has published new certification criteria that existing lead management providers are required to comply with by 3/12/2010 to remain a GM certified solution. As part of the transition plan Cobalt has developed with SCI, Cobalt will not be seeking re-certification of the LMCC tool. During the transition, dealers will continue to have leads delivered to LMCC and LMCC lead reporting data will continue to be accepted by the OneSource lead pipe. [/FONT]
 
#10
Alex Snyder said:
..... (someone explain how an OEM would pick CoBalt over some of the other players who kill CoBalt in conversion) - I can't believe that the deal with CoBalt can't be matched by some of these other companies.

I've often asked myself the same question. I've deduced that Cobalt must have a hell of a sales pitch/team when dealing with manufacturers.
In all fairness I think Cobalt has tried to step it up a notch over the last year and CS in my area is pretty good.


Have you guys ever noticed that the cached version of some cobalt sites look like crap? This can't be good for ranking if the the spiders are reading the sites as a jumbled mess. Here's one below.
Click here for a cached version of spadygm.com then look at the site and you'll see the difference. Cobalt says "that's the way it is and it doesn't affect anything"!, I wonder. I do have spadygm placed pretty well for their market though but I can't help to think that it would be better if the spiders read the site right???
Click to expand...
 
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