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GM Dealers - Share your thoughts on the new CDK Website

Eley Duke

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Nov 30, 2009
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Eley
We are a GM dealer and just moved over from the old CDK site to the new responsive platform. Interested to hear other GM dealers thoughts on this new website and backend.

My thoughts - I don't like it. It is not user friendly, everything is TOO big, it took forever for me to find the mileage on VDP's. I'm on a 22" monitor and can only view 1 vehicle in the SRP pages at a time. WAY TOO much scrolling, and VDP's are painful to scroll. My service scheduler is 4x's the size it should be. And the back end tool is horrible.

Your thoughts?

Thanks,

Eley
 
:iagree: 100% concur with you Eley. Here's some of my main qualms:

  • Homepage - Was told by CDK that it is impossible to move the search bar above the hero image slider so now the search bar is below the fold. My ProCare rep said this was tested to perform better :rofl:
  • Search Results Page - Vehicles take up way too much room, need a more compact or grid view. My ProCare rep said this was tested to perform better :rofl:
  • Vehicle Details Page - There is only one photo at the top of the VDP. Unlike every other website in existence regardless of vertical, consumers will now have to scroll down to the bottom of the page to get the photo gallery. I'm sure a decent percentage of customers will just think we only have one photo of the vehicle. My ProCare rep said this was tested to perform better :rofl:
  • Backend - Nearly impossible to use and I would say we are one of the more tech savvy dealer groups out there so I can't imagine how any other dealer could figure it out. The learning curve was extremely steep and once we taught ourselves it was still difficult. We create landing pages all of the time using a variety of vendors and this is by far the most difficult to use. My ProCare rep said GM wants more dealers to utilize the CDK support team to create content. :rofl:
  • Uniformity - I'm used to GM telling us what carpet, tile grout, and toilet brand to use so every dealership looks 100% identical but at least before with the EDO sites (Enhanced Design Option) every dealer's website could be somewhat unique. However that's not the case anymore and every single Next-gen website looks practically identical. My ProCare rep said this was tested to perform better :rofl:

These new Next-Gen sites further cement my viewpoint that dealers should have a second "non-complaint" site they use as their primary website and bury the CDK one. I honestly was considering reversing my viewpoint because I had high hopes for the Next Gen sites but I should have known better.

GM is basically leveling the digital marketing playing field and pulling the non digital savvy dealers up to being mediocre while dragging the digital savvy dealers down to being mediocre as well. I would much rather control my own destiny which is why I'm a proponent of having a second website as my first primary website.
 
@Eley Duke

With all due respect to your questions/concerns but asking for mine, besides functionality issues does it bother you that:

1. every Chevy dealer around you have the same marketing system, plan?
2. that one company has your data, and everyone's data, and that they can use it to lift up a sinking Chevy store (possible a competitor that you are winning over?)

Truly mean my question, no sarcasm or disrespect intended. How do Chevy dealers see putting everyone in the same box approach. Do you perhaps perceive advantages that balance out the negatives?
 
@Eley Duke

With all due respect to your questions/concerns but asking for mine, besides functionality issues does it bother you that:

1. every Chevy dealer around you have the same marketing system, plan?
2. that one company has your data, and everyone's data, and that they can use it to lift up a sinking Chevy store (possible a competitor that you are winning over?)

Truly mean my question, no sarcasm or disrespect intended. How do Chevy dealers see putting everyone in the same box approach. Do you perhaps perceive advantages that balance out the negatives?

Yeah that's what I alluded to in my post, it's great for the poor performing dealers but generally bad for the top performing ones. It's good for GM though :)

GM is basically leveling the digital marketing playing field and pulling the non digital savvy dealers up to being mediocre while dragging the digital savvy dealers down to being mediocre as well. I would much rather control my own destiny which is why I'm a proponent of having a second website as my first primary website.
 
While it's a pain to adjust, I think it's a great thing. The mobile sites are going to make a big difference. Over 70% of my traffic is mobile so I'm happy they will have the same experience as our desktop visitors.

As for editing it, I've spent the past 2 days getting used to it and it grows on you. I was able to add custom CSS because I didn't like the fact that my sale price and MSRP looked identical. I wanted the sales price to stand out more so I changed that. I also didn't like the gallery being so low on the page so I just drag and dropped until it was right below the vehicle information.
 
While it's a pain to adjust, I think it's a great thing. The mobile sites are going to make a big difference. Over 70% of my traffic is mobile so I'm happy they will have the same experience as our desktop visitors.

As for editing it, I've spent the past 2 days getting used to it and it grows on you. I was able to add custom CSS because I didn't like the fact that my sale price and MSRP looked identical. I wanted the sales price to stand out more so I changed that. I also didn't like the gallery being so low on the page so I just drag and dropped until it was right below the vehicle information.
There's no doubt that the mobile responsiveness is the biggest plus of their new websites (and much anticipated / very late to the game), outside of that though there is a lot left to desire.

Sure all GM dealers will be on the same mediocre playing field but what about the other OEM's that we are competing against that offer better website choices? Our GM stores compete against Toyota, Chrysler, Honda, etc dealers who all have far better website options.

Will GM ever break their monogamous relationship with CDK? Or will we be waiting 3+ years after our competitors get the next must-have feature again like we had to do with responsiveness?
 
@Rdpatrick

Anyone reading DealerRefresh that realizes that. you know your craft and that you are putting the time and effort can simply wait and copy your entire set up. They have exactly the same system, back end, etc. There is NOTHING that you can do that they can't copy to the last letter of the code.

That to me is socialism in business.
 
We are a GM deal it took forever for me to find the mileage on VDP's.

I still haven't found it!

Will GM ever break their monogamous relationship with CDK? Or will we be waiting 3+ years after our competitors get the next must-have feature again like we had to do with responsiveness?

It took Chrysler forever but we finally have some options now. Hopefully, GM will follow suit sooner than later.