My Rant about DealerInspire.

[Chris Cachor]

Welcome to the world of web development! These are pretty trivial tasks but when you take responsive design and technical content specific to a specific platform it's easy to get frustrated and overwhelmed. I see two ways to solve the problem: 1. Dealer Inspire publishes getting started guides for common short-codes, plugins, and common HTML markup they use. 2. Take some screenshots of what you're looking to accomplish and email them to your account manager.

 

[Alexander Lau]

Welcome to the world of web development! These are pretty trivial tasks but when you take responsive design and technical content specific to a specific platform it's easy to get frustrated and overwhelmed. I see two ways to solve the problem: 1. Dealer Inspire publishes getting started guides for common short-codes, plugins, and common HTML markup they use. 2. Take some screenshots of what you're looking to accomplish and email them to your account manager.

1. I'd be surprised if that doesn't already exist, knowing DI. If not, then WOW!
2. Hate to sound negative, but I've found very few automotive web platform account managers or "success" managers to be very helpful. Now, getting past those first tier schlubs and to the techies, yes then you generally get answers.

 

[craigh]

2. Hate to sound negative, but I've found very few automotive web platform account managers or "success" managers to be very helpful. Now, getting past those first tier schlubs and to the techies, yes then you generally get answers.

1. You don't hate to sound negative
2. Most web account managers I've dealt with would take the screenshot of what you want, upload it onto a page and send you a link
(not referring to DI, they appear to do quite well in this area)

 

[Ben Blanco]

@Dan Sayer, As far as DDC. You need to have access to "Advanced Composer" if you don't already have it. With AC, you can insert JS and custom CSS site wide or on specific pages. The amount of customization widgets thats available with AC basically quadruples. You do have to sign off on a release saying that if you break it, you own it. Basically, they'll revert it back to its original state minus all of your changes. But, it's def worth it. You won't have to be on the phone as much with support for simple generic changes. At least that was my experience.

+1, Advanced Composer Access is legit*

You can make a Dealer.com site look so much better with advanced composer access. Dare I say it, if you have solid front-end dev chops, you can make a Dealer.com site look just as good as [insert your preferred vendor] that's not OEM approved.

*Getting AC access is painful. I've done it twice, and both times it took 3-4 weeks from requesting the waiver for them to upgrade account permissions. There is also a standard $350/mo fee for this access. See vendor for full details.

 

[Ben Blanco]

@Rick Buffkin I'm not questioning your abilities within their system but want to point out the irony here to me is your actually having the ability to customize your site allows for the existence of your frustration. My rant would be the opposite issue with my sites on the DDC platform (Ford and Lincoln made me do it ). I can't do poop (G-Rated is how I roll) on those sites. We do run our main market and group sites internally on WP so I believe in the platform.

I agree, at least we don't have to pay an extra fee for "Advanced Access," or contact support for simple changes. I appreciate that DI is there to support us if we need it, but they also do a great job of getting out of the way.

With the proper permissions, we can change the style of our SRP and VDP pages, troubleshoot inventory issues and remove annoying third-party vendor scripts without asking for help.

Regarding Page Builders:
One of the things I despise about page builders is the resulting code bloat. The importance of semantic code is often lost once platforms start introducing page builders. I'm looking at you Jazel.... Granted, not all page builders are the same. I think if implemented with care a platform can get the best of both worlds to serve all of their customers. Solid conversation here.

 

[Alexander Lau]

1. You don't hate to sound negative
2. Most web account managers I've dealt with would take the screenshot of what you want, upload it onto a page and send you a link
(not referring to DI, they appear to do quite well in this area)

I'm unsure of which specific account managers (too hard to track, because they never give you one dedicated resource) and which companies you're referring to but I couldn't disagree more. DI might do a decent job, but CDK, Dealer.com and a plethora of small fries pretty much SUCK. Truth hurts, I know... I used to watch our account people suck while at WorldDealer, which is now Stream Companies, it was DISASTROUS, to be honest. Good thing that they sold that.

 

[Alexander Lau]

We only have a few clients and they all have us manage basically everything on their websites. The few that do manage their own pages have been happy (so far!). We just try to avoid the use of plugins as much as we can. We want to minimize dependencies, extra fluff, and load times.

I think if we had a client that was gung-ho on building their own pages out, I'd have to do a lot of testing on different builders. Maybe I should start that now.

Do you have any that you recommend?

I've already listed https://codecanyon.net/item/visual-composer-page-builder-for-wordpress/242431 or https://wpbakery.com.

 

[craigh]

I'm unsure of which specific account managers (too hard to track, because they never give you one dedicated resource) and which companies you're referring to but I couldn't disagree more. DI might do a decent job, but CDK, Dealer.com and a plethora of small fries pretty much SUCK. Truth hurts, I know... I used to watch our account people suck while at WorldDealer, which is now Stream Companies, it was DISASTROUS, to be honest. Good thing that they sold that.

I think you may have misread. I’m certainly not saying anything good about account managers I’ve experienced. It’s a big part of why the model we went with focuses on the clients performance, not just checking a box that says “spoke to the client”. If they don’t genuinely care about the success of the client then they’re not much help to me.

 

[Alexander Lau]

I agree, at least we don't have to pay an extra fee for "Advanced Access," or contact support for simple changes. I appreciate that DI is there to support us if we need it, but they also do a great job of getting out of the way.

With the proper permissions, we can change the style of our SRP and VDP pages, troubleshoot inventory issues and remove annoying third-party vendor scripts without asking for help.

Regarding Page Builders:
One of the things I despise about page builders is the resulting code bloat. The importance of semantic code is often lost once platforms start introducing page builders. I'm looking at you Jazel.... Granted, not all page builders are the same. I think if implemented with care a platform can get the best of both worlds to serve all of their customers. Solid conversation here.

I almost spit coffee out if my nose. Jazel has to be the WORST of the WORST and it being approved by Ford as a partner and dedicated web platform provider is a total FUCKING joke! The ONLY reason they have that relationship is because of Galpin Ford, yeah I said it, don't give a fuck.

 

[Ben Blanco]

I almost spit coffee out if my nose. Jazel has to be the WORST of the WORST and it being approved by Ford as a partner and dedicated web platform provider is a total FUCKING joke! The ONLY reason they have that relationship is because of Galpin Ford, yeah I said it, don't give a fuck.

Just so we're all clear. I was inferring it's the WORST. LOL! I tried to work with it for several months on behalf of a client.

Jazel's code bloat is atrocious, and I don't recommend their platform.