VinSolutions issues

[Christopher Hawley]

Hello all,

I am not new, but I haven't logged in a few years. Good to see that the DR community has grown! Anyways, I recently implemented Vinsolutions into our dealer group and have had a ton of issues. The people I have dealt with at VS have been pleasant, but it has literally been one issue after another. Installation was in Sept...

1. First off, the only time they could get into to train our dealership was at the end of the month. Nit picking, but it caused a lot of problems for us and the DP was not happy about it.
2. Bought the whole suite which includes websites and I requested a chat program that would pop up on the home page. I ask who they recommend (third party) and tell them to proceed. As of this thread, they still can't get it to work.
3. Buy the Vinsolutions scanners for driver's licenses, and they have worked 20% of the time.
4. They "set themselves apart" with their service module, yet we can't get it to work. They can't pull the ROs from the DMS (either Rey Rey or Dealertrack) and say the data isn't being inputted correctly. Dealertrack came in shortly after VS and pulled the EXACT same data correctly.
5. Because the ROs aren't correct, neither is customer value, because it also isn't pulling over past sales 100% of the time.
6. When they built our website, they had the "contact us" phone number ring to Stephenson Honda (your welcome) for 3 months even after 5 requests to change it.
7. OEM certified used vehicles don't pull over. Again, it supposedly an issue on our end, yet it worked fine with Contact Management and CDM data.

And this last one is more of a difference of opinion. In Vinsolutions, if you run a Internet report, it will tell you how many leads you got from e-mails only. In VS world; "Internet equals e-mail'. While this may not seem like a big deal because you can add sources manually, it is because you can't indicate what "type" of source it is.

Example:

Autotrader sends a ADF/XML lead. VS correctly counts it as a lead for conversion and ROI. A customer calls and says they seen it on Autotrader and come in and buy, that DOES NOT COUNT AS A INTERNET SALE. Most CRMs when adding a source, allow you to indicate it's type and even allow you to condense sources. Instead of having VS Contact us, VS finance application, VS inquiry, VS Quote, you could group them under "Vinsolutions website" and be good to go.


Lastly, I have yet to see or understand their "real time integration" advantage over other CRMs that they preached. Pushing a deal real time is the only thing I have seen it do and most of the CRMs can do that.

Anyone else having these types of issues or have a solution?

 

[NLorenzo]

3. Buy the Vinsolutions scanners for driver's licenses, and they have worked 20% of the time.

We're in the same boat as you on this one. It's unreliable and a little unintuitive to use; part of that is the salesperson, but the bulk of it is the fact we shouldn't have to teach them when it will or won't work.

If they leave midway through a scan, it won't work for anyone else until we exit and re-open the browser running the kiosk (we have just the one scanner by a manager's workstation at each dealer). It will work for me when I test it, then I repeat the steps for a salesperson and it blows up like I'm Wile E Coyote and the scanner is the Roadrunner; always works when nobody's looking.

4. They "set themselves apart" with their service module, yet we can't get it to work. They can't pull the ROs from the DMS (either Rey Rey or Dealertrack) and say the data isn't being inputted correctly. Dealertrack came in shortly after VS and pulled the EXACT same data correctly.

We don't currently utilize VIN for service, but it does pull from our DMS (ADP) for RO's, and while it was a pain to get that put into place and working right, it does seem to be getting the data together. This was a nightmare of talking to Level 2's at VS, getting forms put together for ADP, getting the info back to VS then waiting. A lot of waiting. Past sales get capped at pulling for 5 years of data, to my understanding... at least that was what I was told.

I find that frustrating, because we've got salesmen that have sold history dating back to when I was still in elementary school, with those customers still coming back.

6. When they built our website, they had the "contact us" phone number ring to Stephenson Honda (your welcome) for 3 months even after 5 requests to change it.

We had an issue with the numbers, when requested to be changed, taking some time to get changed.

Our experience has been mixed, despite my frustrations presented above.

As a website provider and for inventory management, for the most part we've been very satisfied. It's not as easy to run a string of specials as it is with say a Cobalt provided site where you can say "$3000 off these stock numbers from MM/DD/YYYY to MM/DD/YYYY, but it is still pretty solid. We had some issues getting our feed in from vAuto (love their appraising tool and pricing tools, which is why we keep them around), but that got resolved in due course.

As a CRM/ILM, we've been... OK, some of my people really despise Motosnap. The Byzantine labyrinth of granular control, for me, is a boon but I also build home theater PC's and bridged wireless networks as a hobby. My salespeople aren't all terrifically tech savvy, and our old workhorses who sell consistently and cleanly get really bothered when it doesn't just work. We had been using Autobase previously, and for as much as we hated it (and believe me; we hated it), introducing VS has created as many problems as it has solved. I've also got to give people way too much control/power if I want them to be able to send a video to their customer.

This isn't even to get started on the recent service outages, the general slowness we enjoy. The problems I run into over and over again are sparked, at least from the errors and the nature of the problems I see, from a DB server that's unhappy, dying or roped behind a network full of gremlins.

Don't get me wrong, I really do like VIN Solutions, but for the cost, it really doesn't feel like you get your money's worth a good deal of the time. I realize good things aren't free, and you've got to pay for quality, but what good is quality when it doesn't work? I'd rather drive a Cobalt that ran every time I turned the key and tracked straight and true than a Corvette that occasionally decided that the trees on the side of the road wanted to play chicken and only started up under the blessing of a full moon.

In short, you're not the only one. It seems from this end like their significant growth in recent times has outpaced their ability to add people to make up the difference.

 

[LadyDealer]

So many issues and not to mention the cost!!! Is there any other CRM tool that is more cost effective without the hassle?

 

[Christopher Hawley]

Update:

I have been contact by the Vice President of sales to hopefully get some of these issues resolved. Nothing has happened yet, but I appreciate the effort and will keep everyone updated as to the progress or lack thereof.

 

[Christopher Hawley]

Quick update. Vinsolutions has diverted a ton of resources and good people to correct our issues. We still have some issues, but are making good progress and it was impressive to see them step up and respond. Very rarely do vendors put forth the kind of effort they have to make things right.

At this point, I would and have recommended Vinsolutions to anyone who is looking for a good All-in-one solution. I would also like to thank the DealerRefresh team for creating a forum like this to help keep everyone honest.

Fell free to contact me with any questions. Happy selling!

 

[jscole86]

Quick update. Vinsolutions has diverted a ton of resources and good people to correct our issues. We still have some issues, but are making good progress and it was impressive to see them step up and respond. Very rarely do vendors put forth the kind of effort they have to make things right.]
Interesting you were contacted around 1/4 and then 6 weeks later was the next post when it was partially fixed

We recently jumped onboard the VinSolutions train and got everything basically-- the CRM/ILM, Inventory, CRS, Website, and Desking. I love the whole product suite and all of the amazing stuff that it can do. I also really love the concept of everything being in one place. BUT we have run into issue after issue after issue with them. (I'm not mentioning any of those here because that would take a long time)

The most frustrating for us, has been the lack of communication with support and the times where their server gets extremely slow or at a stand still (which is on their end of things because other sites work great at the same time).

In my opinion, they are suffering from too much growth, too fast where their servers and support personnel have not kept up. If you have double the amount of dealers, then you need double the amount of support.

My biggest issue with VinSolutions Support is their lack of communication and the way an issue is handled. They take down your "problem", pass it on to the "next department" by way of notes and screenshots. I have never had a support agent "fix" or answer an issue on the spot; instead they have to "pass it on". Often, there is a misunderstanding of what the issue is because of the way the information is passed-- from myself to support, from support to notes/screenshots, then onto the department that works with those problems.. then it is a waiting game (usually at least a week on average) before you even see a change or the famous "we will log this as a feature request". I rarely hear back from anyone there. Also, I have had at least 3 to 4 times when I have been on the phone with support for quite some time describing a problem. Then, a week or so later (which is average) when I haven't heard anything from them, I'll call back in and they will have no record of this "ticket".

For example, I had called in recently about our website asking to get some answers about editing custom pages and just some general information about managing our site.. well I had to submit a "ticket" with support and they said they would have someone call me back. Still waiting…… the phone call would literally have maybe been 5 to 10 minutes max.

This has been disappointing to say the least as we are newly on board with them. I keep hoping that it gets better, but it hasn't yet. It's really only a matter of them resolving issues quicker and communicating with us about how things are coming. I'll say that it is becoming difficult to justify the price when the service is bad.

 

[NLorenzo]

The most frustrating for us, has been the lack of communication with support and the times where their server gets extremely slow or at a stand still (which is on their end of things because other sites work great at the same time).

In my opinion, they are suffering from too much growth, too fast where their servers and support personnel have not kept up. If you have double the amount of dealers, then you need double the amount of support.

This remains our single biggest gripe, and proves to continue to be a serious issue when it comes to the surface. We lose time and money fighting to enter customers during downtime, or experience fascinating issues like being the only people who can't access our own websites because for some reason we get a server error nobody else does.

On the flipside, it automates generic emails, streamlines our response process and in general saves a bunch of time getting in touch with and staying in touch with customers.

We want to love it, but VIN makes this challenging.

 

[Jerry Thibeau]

Any time a company experiences growth too quickly, it brings with it the challenge of supporting the new customer base. When you have a good product that is one of the side affects. What's that saying... "No pain no gain."

Not making excuses for them, but this is reality.

Not sure if Alex mentioned this in his recent CRM series, but when considering a CRM vendor, I would spot check their support lines a few times to see what the response times are like. If you're a big enough fish you could always try and request a dedicated support person with direct dial access.

Matt, what's your cell phone number?

 

[Mitch Gallant]

A main consensus I've found is that VIN has a great product, needs to improve their support and above all (and is a best practice for all of us) need to stop over-selling their product. I think the hype and sizzle they bring is to hard to live up to on the other end and rears itself in complaints and an overall lack of content. As a dealership advisor or dealer making a decision on CRM i think it's important to read the CRM article series on the DR blog and to realize that no CRM is the cat's ass, it's tons of work and user input to get anything out of it... stop getting murdered by the pitch!

 

[Jeff Kershner]

Mitch, there's nothing worse than being oversold. I'm sure VIN is experiencing growing pains (overselling can quickly cause this) and will hopefully catch up soon. I've seen this happen across several other vendors/service over the years.

Yes, be careful with the pitches! There are a select few in this industry that are notorious for overselling.

I encourage every dealer and dealerrefresher to read Alex's How to buy a CRM

I would spot check their support lines a few times to see what the response times are like.

Great advise Jerry!