I want to start by thanking Bill for joining the community and for being so open to our concerns. Also, Joe, thank you for stepping up and asking the question!
I have sat on my hands letting emotions cool and thoughts settle. Most of you know that my little Dodge dealer bought the failing Buick/GMC store across the street (well the only other think in the big corn field) in February. The GM world has been a huge learning curve and I'm still on this rollercoaster.
That said, I was pressured from day 1 to "migrate" to the "new Flex platform." I too was told it was the updated site and was just something everyone had to do, that the old site would soon stop functioning and was promised there was no extra cost. Taking on a store full of new cars no one wants (wrong packages), with no allocation, where no one can even seem to figure out the BAC codes (which I won't tirade on the effects) between the old and new ownership.
I also want to echo the idea that the forms on the site need to be simplified with fewer required fields. I know there are a few studies (with a larger sample size) out there about the drop-off of submissions in correlation to the number and types of fields. Would it be possible to allow dealers that want to be involved with their site to change the requirements on a different form they can add to the VDP or elsewhere? Also, we too have had the site's design (before & after Flex) cited as needing improvement where we have no ability to change. Why (again I'm new to this game) do the mystery shopping questions concerning items beyond the dealer's control effect their score? I get that if we haven't paid to get chat on out site or have chosen not to do/pay for 360 videos we control that, and than there are some customization we can do to mess up the intended design. However, it's like we get penalized for things we can't control and those that can aren't listening.
We came into this store, starting taking a good number of pictures where there were none before; brought in vAuto and have been working out of a hole to bring prices inline, brought in a mix of used cars than sell well across the street, and even bought a few cars from other dealers to have a bit more desirable mix of new inventory. Last month with just over a tiny 2000 visitors, we received just 4 -yes just FOUR-leads. There is something very broken and I'm sure there is blame enough to go around. (Anyone know how I can get the BBO ghost code off a site when 4 rounds of 3 week tickets haven't worked?) But with our co-op tied to our nomadic BAC code, SFE something that numerically can't be achieved and searching for more visibility through other parties-I don't see $699 happening. I was told that "as Cobalt just did a new agreement with GM" that the new site was now something that would be charged for as part of a package of a number of other goodies. I know the old site won't help things-but as I was told, there's not much to help.
