Cox Auto Trader Makes Strategic Moves to Improve Online Automotive Advertising Business

[Observer (blog)]

This is all terrible news. God bless the employees and their families that have been wronged after years of providing loyal service.

SS it would be wise to learn to read your audience before making your pitch.

 

[Longtime Cox/Traderpub employee]

I have been employed with Trader Publishing, now Cox for 8 years. The beginning of the end was when the company was split in to a couple of years ago. It was a stupid move and its been going downhill ever since. AFter that, they started moving all the private party customer service to call centers which provided bad customer service. Our city always used to earn awards for our customer service. Once we were no longer taking our own calls, it went down hill from there. Every move these upper management people have made had been one wrong move after another. About 2 months ago they completely shut down all private party operations and the only way somebody could place an ad was on autotrader.com. Thats fine but there are lots of folks who do not use the internet.
I used to be a private party manager and my position was eliminated right at a year ago and I was offered to take severance or stay on in a much lower position. I chose to stay on and was later offered a new position in commercial sales running a newly launched service called Carspot. This thing had the potential to make alot of money but they ran it wrong, did not try to sell it. A month ago I was told they were shuting that down and I had 30 days left. Was bad for dealers we had signed up who put all their data feeds and collection with us. Left them in a bind. I think my last week is this week but not sure. Our office is having a meeting Monday about the severance. Such a shame. Maybe somebody will come in a buy it up and do it the right way like before Cox took over.

 

[Employee]

I have to agree, the management is very poor and unprofessional. They were slow to react to economic changes locally and changes throughout the restructure. These managers just kept themselves scarce and acted busy while they were playing around.

My city was still billing a decent weekly amount and it would be a good opportunity for an independent publication to step in and replace us. Some of my clients are very sad to see us go and are looking for a similar replacement.

 

[Cox Employee]

"About to be Jobless" - my top reps were still billing $25k/wk & $12k/wk. Despite the economy we barely skipped a beat. Give me the initials of your 'GED holding regional' - probably the same as mine (BB). I think the public should know how Cox Enterprises, a multi-billion dollar company, has treated this division in the last year, it is just so wrong.

 

[eddie m]

I too was a 12 year management employee at Cox. This is a heck of a way to blow 1.7 Billion. The real reason to close the pubs down is to be able to sell ATC and generate cash. They have NEVER cared about the employees. Even now the VP's for Trade are at Las Vegas and they were all given LARGE suites so that it would help them to "collect themselves" What a way to go!!

 

[about to be jobless]

DP was my regional. Once the local manager left, we had a great temporary fill-in for a short while. After that, they just let it slide. No manager, no support, accounts dropping. The most we saw "management" is when HR was visiting beacause of problems between the employees and mgmt. No surprise, nothing ever changed.

We went from 80k to 20 or 30k billing in no time.

I am curious to see if they are going to deduct any outstanding account balances against our severance. It wouldn't be surprising.

 

[Cox Employee]

To, "about to be jobless," yes know DP pretty well, just had a class w/ him a few wks back. My top two reps are in Atlanta now being swindled into taking this ATC job, offering them only $25k (they were making $250k & $110k!!!) They told them there will be no severance and no unemployment so they HAVE to take this job. They have 90 days to prove themselves, change over some of their accts to ATC and then they'll dump them and again try to sell the company. They will have a small increase in sales while saving $$ by not paying these top producers a severance... when will it end?!?

 

[Jennifer Schrader (blog)]

I am blown away by this. I feel horrible for all that are in this position of losing their jobs and all.
From what I have read they tend to rip the little guys apart and take away as much as they can. If it was not for the staff they would not have been there in the first place. Geeze!

Good luck to all of you you have my support!!

 

[Also about to be jobless]

I''ve been with the company for going on 7 years as a graphic artist for Cox Auto Mart and our last day will be February 6...Waiting to find out what my severance package will be, but I'm not expecting much. I agree with prior posters that the company went downhill after the buyout in 2006. Before that, it was a great company to work for and I truly enjoyed my job. I know that sales management wasn't great, and neither was composing.

"about to be jobless" - I know DP well as he works out of the office beside me, and your description of him is accurate.
Good luck on the job hunt, guys!

 

[Dan Stapleton]

This company went downhill about 2 years after Cox purchased the company. I think the sales manager in San Diego hung himself and their were a ton of human resource problems and sexual harassment issues there. Quotas were inflated and sales mgrs. were rotated in and out. In Atlanta a few years ago top reps started their own company and later sold to another national mag. I think the same happened in San Diego but I can't remember the name of the company that competes against them. Management was horrific and all the top reps would leave. It is sad for all to see this company ruin a once thriving print magazine.