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DMS Vendors - Good, Bad, & Ugly?

aksales

Full Sticker
Apr 9, 2010
15
1
First Name
Jason
Howdy all, first time posting here so first off I would like to thank everyone that contributes. I just recently found the forum and it has already helped a few times. Ok Back on topic we are a GM Dealership that is going through the fun process of selecting a new DMS. We are currently on the ADP DMS@NET/ARG former EDS system. Whew. Anyway I am curious what some of you guys have to say about some of the DMS systems out there. Of course the most of the presentations went good and everyone we looked at seems to be a big improvement.
The systems we are looking at are ADP Drive, Arkona/Dealertrack, AutoMate, AutoSoft, Quorum, and Reynolds POWER. Anyone care to share their good, bad, and ugly's? Thanks in advanced.
 
I'm with Cliff on this, they're all equally behind the times. And if one of them looks futuristic, assume it's incredibly buggy ;)

ADP's support line always answers the phone within 10 minutes (most of the time instantly) and almost always fixes my problem... The only problem is I have to call them a lot. So take that how you may.
 
Hey guys thanks for the response. I am definitely not looking for any bashing. I am just looking at some honest opinions on the users of the DMS systems, good or bad. As I said we went through the presentations and they all look good in a demo environment, I am looking for less 'everything works great' and more real user feedback I guess you would say.
 
I have worked on two systems to date and both are antiquated.

That being the case, I will share with you my perspective on a previous vendor.

mid 90's to 2009 on ERA (Reynolds)

The system was on site so the response time was really fast. (LAN low latency)
All departments software was well tested and very functional. Accounting uses a batch processing approach allowing delay between closing invoices and the true gross being calculated in accounting. Desking software worked well, very few daily annoyances. Software however was limited to green screen terminal emulation. Custom reports easy to generate however data exchange was limited and hard to achieve. Underlying database was an IBM product (Nf2) and was stable however not easily integrated with Microsoft technology. Software is overpriced, however support was excellent. Be carefull about their contracts, very controlling, hard company to have a positive relationship with. Had a rep try to force me into a contract the day before Thanksgiving. Rep drove over two hours to get to my store and did not even call to let me know he was coming, he just showed up and threatened me to attempt to get me to sign a contract. If I did not sign he told me my ability to print invoices would no longer work.

Those are my experiences with ERA. Reynolds has another product known as the Power system. I have never worked on it but those that have say good things. The downside to either is the cost and long term contracts.

For my experiences with Arkona / DealerTrack please find the thread titled 30 days on Arkona.

Hope this helps!