Multiple Website Vendors

[terrencegordon]

Ha. I suppose I should do my research. Sorry Jon. This waiter will be sure to talk to the chef for you and find out what the problem is. If it's a video feed issue to 3rd parties, and they are homemade videos - that's not in our repertoire.

I'll talk to your rep and reach out with a solution.

 

[jssimonton]

There is no website provider set up to guess what you want and implement it. Perhaps challenge was too simple a word... there need to be goals and priorities set and a series of steps to get the website to meet your goals. Just in case my POV is confusing, I believe that if you don't ASK for a drink, it's not fair to kick first OR complain that you're thirsty. That logic relates to vendors and restaurants.

 

[BrianEpro]

Our group uses two vendors: Dealer.com and Cobalt (for any OEMs that require Cobalt). Dealer.com has been excellent and I have been honestly surprised by how good Cobalt has been. I was conditioned for years to believe a Cobalt experience would be a bad experience. It simply hasn't been true in our case. Although there are things we wish we could do with our Cobalt sites that we can't, overall, the sites perform well. Further, our Account Advocates have been excellent. They are proactive and actually harass our marketing team if they feel like we're not taking full advantage of their services (which is a good thing!) Yes- Cobalt is forced on us, but the experience of working with them on our web sites has been good enough to make us not so concerned about being required to use their web sites. Just my $.02.

 

[yagoparamo]

[FONT=&quot]All vendors have good things and bad things.

I hear bad things about some to later learn that they change pennies for the service they offer (so great ROI), others have great technologies but hard to adapt for specific needs.

In the end is not whether is a bad or a good vendor but whether what they offer fits your biz needs at this particular time.

Now going back to website vendors, I think it is great that as a dealer group you have the opportunity to work and experience the knowledge and technology from 2 great companies such as DDC and Cobalt at the same time.
[/FONT]

 

[Eley Duke]

I am going to jump in here as being a Chevy, Buick, GMC, Cadillac deal that has the required Cobalt and switched on a dealer.com site in April of 2011. We made the jump after a lot, and I mean a lot of research and a lot of conversation with many providers. In the end I picked dealer.com because I felt like they could deliver. I am not going to knock Cobalt, its a good product, but it was felt we had maxed our potential with the required site.

Our dealer.com site is generating about 45% more visits than our Cobalt site did! In the first month, we doubled sales through our BDC. I took our Cobalt site to bare bones, concentrating on the DC site, and there are still lots of things to be done. I really like how we have more control! Our web site form leads for 2011 decreased by 8%, but our shows increased by 180% over 2010. We got less leads, but we got better quality leads. We did add an additional person to the BDC and put in some tight monitoring and tracking. But I can tell you for sure we saw a significant change in 1 month with making a switch with the quality of leads and the closing ratio!

I hope that helps. As stated; it is what you put into it. I had great reps over at Cobalt, I worked that site weekly. It was a big leap, but it's been worth it so far.

 

[ddavis]

Eley, I had the same experience a few years back when we switched to Dealer.com. We could tell the difference almost instantly. I heard that they are growing and have had lower their personnel standards.

 

[kcar]

I wish Subaru stores didn't have to use Dealer.com, such a pain.. Literally only so much you can customize and do with their sites, it's lame and it doesn't cut it for needs. Now I'm stuck doing custom site, custom site, dealer.com, sucks as I could just run custom for all 3 and it would be much easier.

 

[joe.pistell]

I wish Subaru stores didn't have to use Dealer.com, such a pain.. Literally only so much you can customize and do with their sites, it's lame and it doesn't cut it for needs. Now I'm stuck doing custom site, custom site, dealer.com, sucks as I could just run custom for all 3 and it would be much easier.

Strong critisism from a young lad that can't figure out how to build his own small dealer site. http://forum.dealerrefresh.com/f43/...ler-website-considering-2258-5.html#post20767

Laddy, it ain't too smart to throw stones when you live in a glass house.

 

[ddavis]

Joe, he won't disclose his name or dealership. He is "Building more #1 dealerships one at a time". I promise you, he is a far cry from building the first one.

 

[joe.pistell]

I wish Subaru stores didn't have to use Dealer.com, such a pain.. Literally only so much you can customize and do with their sites, it's lame and it doesn't cut it for needs. Now I'm stuck doing custom site, custom site, dealer.com, sucks as I could just run custom for all 3 and it would be much easier.

kcar,

You move to Phoenix Az and complain about the heat.
You move next to train tracks and complain about the noise.
You work for a FRANCHISE and complain about corporate constraints.

Think about it.