VinSolutions issues

[Richard Keith Latman]

VIN builds a good product much like most of the companies that are active in this space. The key to any of these systems working is to divorce the technology from the people at the vendor and measure them independently. For iMagicLab the key metric of success is not how fast we deliver the software or how quickly we get the data imported but how well our team matches up with your team. It certainly is easier for us as a boutique player in this space to be very selective in our sales process and insure a match.

Remember CRM is a marriage and good marriages require a meeting of the minds. As in the other thread with Rafi, it doesn't always work on every issue but the time needs to be invested to make it work. I know we have basically lived at some of our dealers, like Longo, to make sure that they are on the right path and our adoption in the stores culture is sticking. The analogy that Tom Harsha and our training team often say is: Without the right trainers and people a CRM is no better than an expensive version of Goldmine (that can be bought for $39)

I couldn't agree more.

 

[mbmotorsports]

We finally went "live" with VinSolutions in the beginning of March, it has not been a smooth transition, we have had many different time consuming issues with this tool, sometimes I wonder if I made the right decision switching over to them. But when it's working right, my sales force is being productive, which is what we wanted! However, lately, we have had a major "slowness" problems with the page loading and when it does load, the page will work fine for a while, then kick us off the site completely, lately, when using the Desking application, it will move at a snails pace, then finally load, we'll be working in it and then it will lock up and kick us off of the page, so we'll reload the tool, finish up loading the deal, then try to print the 4 square, and get completely different numbers than what was loaded, then after a couple of corrections, finally get it to print out the proper information. I could go on and on about a lot of different daily problems I've encountered, but I'm not trying to make this a complaint post, as much as to vent my frustrations with what we were promised with this all in one CRM, website, inventory manager, Desking tool, et al.

Mike, now that you've had more time on Vin how's it been treating you? We're looking into their system because we've been have like issues with our current provider. I just don't want to go from one problem to another. The way how the site flows into the ILM looks awesome!

 

[mikeelmore]

Well Jesse,

When you sent this inquiry on Friday, I was feeling pretty good about the direction we were heading in by using VIN, however, Saturday morning came and it was and has been a complete and utter joke trying to use their tool and services, unfortunately for us, their desking tool stopped working, in fact, I called their support number, was on hold for an hour, all the while being ensured I was "first in line to speak to the next available agent", then after that hour, my call was directed to their voice mail box, I did get a call back earlier today, but it didn't help us to do business on Saturday or Sunday, fortunately for us, we are still able to be "old school" and do our sales process by "hand" then upload the deals in our DMS. At this time, it just so happens to be, we are experiencing another issue, not being able to log into the tool, and while I'm on hold(25 minutes now) I'm able to finally answer your question. NO, I'm not happy at all with VinSolutions, there are many different issues that have not been resolved with their total package we use, I'm really tempted to go back to my old CRM, which is with the Cobalt group and they really suck!! That's how really UNSATISFIED I am with VinSolutions. Don't mean to vent on you, but find a company that actually does have Customer satisfaction as a daily culture, not a tag line!

 

[Jeff Kershner]

ouch - nothing worse than being on hold for an hour then being asked to leave a message. WTF?

I'm sure they will eventually get this taken care of for you.

 

[mattwatson81]

Hey Mike, I apologize that your call didn't get answered promptly this weekend. We will research why your call didn't get answered promptly. I don't show in our logs that you had any desking to DMS integration problems this weekend? I will have someone call you to follow up about your concerns.

 

[mbmotorsports]

Well Jesse,

When you sent this inquiry on Friday, I was feeling pretty good about the direction we were heading in by using VIN, however, Saturday morning came and it was and has been a complete and utter joke trying to use their tool and services, unfortunately for us, their desking tool stopped working, in fact, I called their support number, was on hold for an hour, all the while being ensured I was "first in line to speak to the next available agent", then after that hour, my call was directed to their voice mail box, I did get a call back earlier today, but it didn't help us to do business on Saturday or Sunday, fortunately for us, we are still able to be "old school" and do our sales process by "hand" then upload the deals in our DMS. At this time, it just so happens to be, we are experiencing another issue, not being able to log into the tool, and while I'm on hold(25 minutes now) I'm able to finally answer your question. NO, I'm not happy at all with VinSolutions, there are many different issues that have not been resolved with their total package we use, I'm really tempted to go back to my old CRM, which is with the Cobalt group and they really suck!! That's how really UNSATISFIED I am with VinSolutions. Don't mean to vent on you, but find a company that actually does have Customer satisfaction as a daily culture, not a tag line!

Mike , so your saying you were without your lead management system over the whole weekend? Has the system been down like that other times or is this the first?

Matt, I'm looking into your software not only because it seems to be more advanced than what we have now but also because I need something more streamlined. You guys seem to have what I'm looking for. To be honest what u have looks awesome. But I'm hearing alot of chatter about your system being down quite often & slow,or no, loading on website. I definitely cannot deal with another situation of a vendor who has such a great concept but so many glitches that my salespeople want to set up a picket line at the next NADA conference right next to our vendors spot. I'm tired of hearing about all the stuff that doesn't work!

So far your sales team has been great! Their able to answer all my in depth questions or get me answers quickly, most of the answers being yes. I just cannot afford to be in a yes, yes, yes "sales" situation and then a no, no, no or sorry we can't do that "implementation" situation. Trust me it's happened before.

My questions to you are:

1) What is being done to correct the issues your having with down time? Obviously it's an issue. I'll hope it's all growing pains and you guys are addressing this.

2) Why is Mike having so many issues getting someone on the phone? Just imagine how 1 hour on hold and then getting a voice mail would turn you day. It would ruin mine! Happens with efax to me all the time and i'm ready to flip a lid. Only difference is i'm only paying them 25$ monthly.

 

[NLorenzo]

I thought I would post a follow-up to my "gripes" from some months back.

I'll give VIN credit in that I was contacted by one my reps and we did go over several issues and some things have been addressed since then.

From my end the system itself works pretty well and indeed we do like everything this tool can do for us. We've had more personal involvement from my General Manager which has helped smooth over relations with many of our salespeople and managers and made it very clear they need to get over whatever learning curve and hurdles they can't seem to get by.

Some of my gripes remain largely the same in that many portions of the interface (not the UI itself, just the layout of things) are unintuitive and obviously tacked on. It is rife with spelling errors and grammatical errors, which I realize does not expressly impact performance but it does certainly look less professional than it could. I chalk this one up to the fact I have rarely ever met a developer working for any company who could write their way through their own name without a spelling mistake.

The largest issue still stands; performance and reliability. There have obviously been strides to improve this in recent months and my frustrating explanations to managers have been few and far between since the dawn of 2011, so a kudos is due for those improvements I would say.

Like I said originally, we really do like VIN and what it does. It's getting easier to like it and it needs to make fewer apologies; if you're having problems, stick with it and keep riding your support rep(s).

 

[emilymoore]

We have been having nothing but issue after issue after issue as well. We are so frustrated! (We have had 2 separate launches which has created its own unique set of problems) It seems that we spend more time trying to make the system work and resolving issues than we do helping customers. I have an entire page of common tasks that any dealer would do on a daily basis that I'm told are "feature requests" - com'on guys. They have completely over-sold their product and under-delivered. It seems like every time we get one thing working, two others break.

Some of our ongoing issues (not to mention the regular down time and lockouts) that are still unresolved :

- cant push deals to ADP
- cant merge sales events within a customer record
- customers marked lost are still getting active prospect followup
- service leads dont show on the dashboard as a new lead nor in the "view all leads"
- we are still missing sold/ service data
- service appts are duplicating in VIN
- a sales manager cant flip buyer/cobuyer when desking a deal without being an admin
- and the list goes on...

Any assistance from VIN to help smooth this out would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Emily Moore
Sharrett Automotive
Hagerstown MD

 

[jscole86]

Here is a post a follow-up to the issues we were having some months back also.

The system has been working good lately, and it really is everything you need and more from a complete system (minus a couple basic things that seem to be left out that I've logged as feature requests of course). The Website-to-CRM integration is such a fantastic combo that you can do so much with. And I have to say that their WebSite Support, especially my rep, has been the most helpful from anyone at VinSolutions. She is very quick to respond and keeps me updated!

The issues that remain are basically the same as before and what has been mentioned which is performance and reliability- there are occasional times when the system will run slow or be down including our email through VIN. Like Neal said, There have been big strides to improve this in recent months and these instances aren't as common as they were initially.

I have been much happier lately with the way everything is working overall though!

 

[JoeLittle]

Emily,
Your issues have been sent to the support department here at VinSolutions. I wanted to also extend the invitation to the VinSolutions Community website for dealers using our products. It is very similar to this DealerRefresh forum where dealers can express concerns, appreciations, changes they would like to see to the system and network with other dealers to see if their issues and requests are unique. Our system is built for dealers by dealers and we want to hear every dealer's voice, the VinCommunity make this easier. The VinCommunity not only encourages conversation between dealers and also between dealers and VinSolutions employees including our CEO and CTO who visit the site regularly. Because it is a closed community site for only Vin customers and employees, users won’t be bombarded by vendors. I encourage you to join this site and to be a part of the conversation. I would love for you to check it out. I will email you the web address today.