Reynolds closes modem access?

[Qsmith]

If you are unhappy with their service... take it elsewhere. There are always competitors. Sure I might be looking in from the outside, but it happens all the time with companies making "improvements" in their software and it turns out to be a disaster. Either you deal with it, work through it, and get what you need done, or you switch. It's quite a simple concept.

I think if there were less complaining on this thread and more proactive solutions to try and resolve or create work-arounds, it might be more beneficial to you and other people on the board.

 

[Cookie]

You know... I will consider taking my business to the competition... Of course, it would be nice if my current vendor didn't "improve the software" to hold my data hostage to prevent me from doing so. Imagine you spent the last 20 years collecting data in "notepad" and then Microsoft rolls out an "improvement" called "automatic encryption" that encrypts all your documents "for your protection". You can still pull them up in notepad just fine (notepad automatically decrypts them on the fly). Then 6 months from now...they tell you that to continue to use notepad....you must pay some outrageous "subscription" fee every month. You can't take your txt files elsewhere, because nothing else can read them now. So... you have hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of documents that now "locked down". Of course...you could open each document up in notepad...and use "copy and paste" to move the data from notepad to some other text reader. Until they discover this issue...and then "improve the software" so that "copy" will only copy up to 10 lines of any document. Fortunately...it's not quite "that bad" yet...but that's where we're headed. These "improvements" roll out while we are in the middle of a contract term. If I'm obligated to keep paying...they should be obligated to provide the same level of service / access that I contracted for.

 

[Viracocha]

Yeah, again, sounds like the easy pat answer, but in reality it is a huge, expensive undertaking. Conversions are always painful (and usually incomplete) and the cost of retraining, lost productivity is what keeps most dealers with their current vendor. Up front costs for a single point install/conversion are easily into the 6 figure range, and you are often left with similar issues with your new vendor.

 

[Jerry Thibeau]

Qsmith,

I have to agree with Cookie on this one. I wouldn't consider what Cookie or others are doing as complaining. They are simply exercising their rights as customers to share their opinions. If enough people exercise their rights to express how they feel about something, perhaps that company being critiqued will take notice and make improvements or comply with what's asked of them. If not, then hopefully those considering that vendors solutions will think twice before making a poor choice.

I guarantee you there are vendors out there who have improved their products based on what they've read on these forums. When you've become so big that you stop listening to your customers, you're only opening the door for your competition.

In my opinion Rey Rey needs to practice some "peaceful co-existence" strategies with other vendors. But in their greed, they try and lock out the little guys so that they can force their inferior products on dealers. This is bad for dealers. Every dealer I have ever spoken with on this subject has told me that they can't wait for the day when they can tell Reynolds to take a hike. Any predictions on when David slays Goliath in the DMS world?

 

[daybreak]

Can anyone recommend a good vendor for Reynolds data exctraction on the service side? Need help asap.

Thanks

 

[ceinj]

It should not make a difference whether you need sales, service, inventory or any other category of data.

We ended up doing it ourselves because we found the data extraction companies we contacted unresponsive (would not return calls).

If you need connection to just a few dealers you could do it yourself as well. How many locations are you working with and how often do you need data?

 

[CliffC]

Daybreak,

The number of dealers, the amount of data and the transfer frequency have much to do with the direction I would suggest you take on this one. The solutions range from "directly connected" to a utility which transfers on a schedule. Of coarse, each one has it's pros and cons and knowing the above mentioned metrics would be of help.

Thanks,

Cliff

 

[daybreak]

Thanks Ceinj and CliffC. Currently working with one dealer on beta testing. Would like to have the solution in place for NADA. We have specific requirements for integration.

 

[daybreak]

It should not make a difference whether you need sales, service, inventory or any other category of data.

We ended up doing it ourselves because we found the data extraction companies we contacted unresponsive (would not return calls).

If you need connection to just a few dealers you could do it yourself as well. How many locations are you working with and how often do you need data?

@CEINJ

I have VPN access however short of using ERAaccess, how do you recommend I do the integration myself. Any advise to resolve my requirements would be welcomed.

Thanks
Joe

 

[ceinj]

Joe,

You didn't say what your requirements are but I can probably guess at some of them - secure and affordable access to data.

We collect sales and service data from several dealers as part of our product used by them. I improved our previous system and reduced the time to collect data from a day and a half to an hour. We been thinking about releasing a version of the product (process) for general use.

Technically speaking, non-dealers like you and me, are violating R&R's licensing agreement by running ERAccess. R&R's answer to third party access seems to be RCI which I hear is not cheap. I would not bet against R&R clamping down on third party use of ERAccess. I believe our solution addresses those issues and more.

I won't use this forum to promote our business but I see an opportunity here for collaboration. I'd welcome the possibility of using you and your client in beta testing in the next couple weeks (without obligation).

If interested, send me a private message. I'd be glad to share the small list I have of data extraction companies I know and which one blew me off! (You won't believe who).