- Oct 29, 2009
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My Rant about DealerInspire.
- Thread starter Rick Buffkin
- Start date
- Mar 21, 2012
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We've been live on DI at Ford for about 2 months now, it's well worth any wait to get off DDC!
If you're still active and have the shortcode list, could you message me? I’m currently going through a similar challenge trying to get a copy. While our Dealer Inspire Performance Manager is great, I’ve gotten the sense that they’re not too eager to help out with this. It’s frustrating that DI seems so reluctant to let dealers manage their own sites effectively.
- Apr 29, 2011
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Part of the issue is that I’ve been trying to work patiently with Dealer Inspire support for almost three years now, and it feels like we’re still in the same place when it comes to the customer experience. For example, there was a time I needed help with the Payment Calculator shortcode. After wasting hours on the phone with support, I ended up having to spend even more time coding one myself because no solution was offered in a reasonable amount of time. It’s frustrating when the tools exist but aren’t accessible. I’d prefer to save my patience with support for issues I absolutely cannot address myself.
Worst of all, if an asset is already created on our Dealer Inspire site using a shortcode, like the Payment Calculator, why am I left recreating the work manually? Obviously, that’s rhetorical, but I’m not even sure what other shortcodes are capable of, and there could be some great features I’m missing out on.
I’d also love to use the shortcodes to ensure updates to dealer information are applied dynamically across the site. But again, I’m stuck not knowing the full capabilities or what can and can’t be updated.
Worst of all, if an asset is already created on our Dealer Inspire site using a shortcode, like the Payment Calculator, why am I left recreating the work manually? Obviously, that’s rhetorical, but I’m not even sure what other shortcodes are capable of, and there could be some great features I’m missing out on.
I’d also love to use the shortcodes to ensure updates to dealer information are applied dynamically across the site. But again, I’m stuck not knowing the full capabilities or what can and can’t be updated.
- Apr 29, 2011
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Yea, it's more of an edge case, but part of the problem with DI is shared tenancy. AFAIK, it's not easy for inheritance in Wordpress for something like this (ex: a shortcode in your account supersedes the shared library). So ultimately you'd get your own shortcode for the specific functionality you're looking for. Is it possible to write your own, then DI can import that and place on your VDP page? This is probably something ChatGPT could do for you and even give instructions on how to deploy it.
It’s true that the Payment Calculator example is a bit niche. In that case, I wanted to adjust Dealer Inspire's default APR rate from something unrealistic like 4% to a more reasonable number.
My most recent frustration with shortcodes, however, came earlier this week when I needed the shortcode to display inventory marked as an "Internet Special" via the DI site backend. In my opinion, that really shouldn’t be difficult to access. The shortcode is the same for anyone with a DI site, so there shouldn’t be any reason to withhold it. While the values you can edit in the shortcode (like inventory type, model year, etc.) may vary by dealer, the core remains the same:
[inventory_lightning type="Used, Certified Used" specials_only="true" /].
That said, I understand your point about inheritance and how certain requests could cause complications. I hadn’t considered that before, and to be honest, it’s a bit beyond my technical understanding. Your explanation has at least helped me better wrap my head around the issue.
I also hadn’t thought about Dealer Inspire potentially helping with creating a shortcode if I provided the code. I’ve definitely let my frustrations get the best of me at times when working with support on these issues. I’m still crossing my fingers for a positive reply from our Performance Manager. If not, I’ll start a conversation with the support team about implementing a custom shortcode or inquire about the possibility of global blocks or patterns within the Dealer Inspire Site Builder. I haven’t seen any indication that this feature exists within the DI Site Builder, but since it’s common in other WYSIWYG editors, perhaps it could be an unpublished solution.
