All posts tagged: Used Car Reconditioning
The hardest part of starting up is starting out
Advantages Of Management Software For Your Used Car Dealership
- Faster Turn Times
- Improved Vehicle Volume
- Better Coordination
For used car dealerships, management software is an excellent way to increase your efficiency both in the back-office and front-end operations. Having a system in place not only reduces your overall cycle time but also increases your throughput– maximizing profit and minimizing overall costs.
Employing a management software solution for your fixed operations and reconditioning emphasizes your commitment to making your dealership run as effectively as possible, that you care about making tasks more streamlined for your employees, prioritize customer service and sales readiness, and you’re willing to adapt to the newest technologies out there for dealerships.
With management software in place, back-office administrative tasks that used to take hours can be cut down to just a few minutes. It allows all of your departments to be connected and work together, while also improving productivity on all fronts. Instead of relying on one employee or vendor at a time during each stage of vehicle processing, the operation becomes a more team-oriented environment. There’s a clear and organized structure that doesn’t rely on a back-office spreadsheet or whiteboard to get done. If a team member updates a vehicle’s status in the software, all relevant team members have access to the information, instantly, on their desktop or mobile devices. This lets the team know what’s in the pipeline, and lets both your technicians and your sales team plan for when work is coming.
You can see what vehicles are being reconditioned, where they are, the stage they’re in, and who’s working on them. You can also track and anticipate bottlenecks or delays during the reconditioning process, and improve resource planning based on vehicle volume and where they are in the recon process. The goal, of course, is high-quality work at optimal speed. Workflow management software can get your cars from acquisition to front line sales-ready in as little as a few days. Dealerships lose an average of $30-$50 per day when cars are stuck in reconditioning, so each day you can shave off your recon equals more profit per vehicle. And that savings adds up!
Workflow management software will make your used car dealership faster and more efficient both in the back and front-end of operations. You can create and refine your processes to make the back-office, reconditioning, and retail side of things work better together.
Automobile Technologies Can Help
AMT offers software solutions designed to make your used car dealership and reconditioning process as efficient as possible. We also provide you with better visibility and get your vehicles frontline ready in the shortest possible time.
ReconMonitor™ is powerful workflow automation for auto recon, dealerships, and auto remarketing companies that integrates with Dealer Management and Accounting Systems to ensure seamless operations across the enterprise.
7 Advantages Of Adding PDR To Your In-house Reconditioning Operation
In the reconditioning business, you’re always looking for a way to add another profit center. Luckily for you, adding Paintless Dent Repair (PDR) as an in-house capability is a great way to increase profit with minimal effort. As someone who’s already performing automotive repairs in your service bays or collision center, adding PDR to your processes will actually be pretty easy. With PDR, you can reduce the time you spend on bodywork during the reconditioning process, but you can also save quite a bit of money as well.
Trained PDR technicians can “massage” out any dents or dings found on a vehicle’s body. PDR typically relies on no damage to the paint in order to be as efficient as possible. Even so, technicians can still perform PDR to reshape the dents, and provide paint touch-ups if need be.
Below are 7 advantages of adding PDR to your reconditioning process.
It (Mostly) Doesn’t Cost Anything In The Long Run
Outside a few initial specialized tool purchases and training, PDR basically pays for itself. Once you have the training and tools, you won’t be paying any incremental costs to perform PDR since none of the tools or parts will require frequent replacement.
It Has a High Potential To Net You Profit
With the right technician, a $100 or $200 job can be done in 10 – 30 minutes with PDR.
You Have The Opportunity To Provide Better Deals To Customers
Most of the average drivers out there today have no idea what PDR is. It’s been around for close to 60 years, and there are still shops that don’t have it as a part of their repair processes. So, if a customer comes in with dents that need fixing, imagine their response when you tell them you can repair them all in a fraction of the time and for a fraction of the price of conventional dent repair. You may already use an outsourced PDR technician, but if you find yourself waiting for them to show up to complete the repairs, that vehicle downtime is costing you even more than just their charges.
Creates An Avenue For New, Potential, Customers
If you already have a stream of customers for other repairs and maintenance, you can offer dent removal as an up-sell in the service drive. In most cases, the dent work can be done during other repairs or services, adding no additional wait time for the customer. In addition to your walk-ins, you have the potential to bring in work from auto auctions, used car dealerships, car rental agencies, car insurance agencies, detail shops, and body shops.
Minimal Effort To Adding It Into Your Shop
PDR isn’t a method that requires a drastic change in your business. As we said above, it only requires a few initial tool purchases. Outside of that, there’s a pretty minimal space required to do the work and can easily be done in the shop or on the road with what you currently have. It only takes a few minutes to do during your detailing or painting phases, and it’ll just take a minute for you to speak with the customer, bring up the dents, and offer to repair them without any impact to the overall repair time.
Relatively Low Start-Up Cost
PDR will basically pay for itself once you’ve trained your technician(s) and purchased the proper equipment. It can be self-taught, but professional training and tools can cost anywhere from $5,000 – $15,000 depending on the level of training, certifications, and the quality of the tools. However, after the initial investment, PDR has high profit potential and costs much less than other typical investments for business line extensions.
It’s Easy To Sell To Customers
No matter what, offering a dent repair option that costs a fraction of conventional dent repair to a customer is a pretty easy sell. Since it only takes a few minutes to repair, the lower costs are drastically made up by the sheer volume of PDR that can be done throughout each week. What takes many shops days to do, you could do in minutes. So, if you provide a quality option that saves customers money and is convenient for them, you’ll ultimately get more business down the road.
AutoMobile Technologies offers Software Solutions That Can Help You Manage Your PDR Process
AMT offers software designed to make your reconditioning business more efficient, provide you with better visibility, and give you peace of mind knowing that your back-office is always up-to-date.
ReconMonitor is a state of the art workflow automation software for auto recon, dealerships, and auto remarketing companies. ReconMonitor dealership software decreases reconditioning cycle time from acquisition to front line and increases your control and profitability.
ReconPro is the industry’s most versatile and powerful software solution purpose-built for auto recon professionals. With essential tools for performing PDR estimates, hail and insurance matrixes, parts management, paint code lookups, integrations with body shop crash systems and accounting systems, too. ReconPro manages the details of running your business so you can focus on growing your business.
Four Tips to Keep Customers Coming Back to Your Dealership
In 2019, dealerships have a lot of competition when it comes to returning buyers, servicing, and simple repairs. However, if you focus on the customer experience first, you’ll keep them coming back for years to come. Nowadays, it’s not just their time at your dealership that counts, but also their convenience when visiting your website or waiting for their vehicle to be serviced.
The auto industry is evolving every day, and the way your customers experience your business is changing, too. Below, we have four tips that will keep customers coming back to your dealership.
Prioritize A Simple, Effective, & Informative Online Experience
Obviously, smartphones are everywhere. We all know it, and because of this fact, the way customers experience your business begins with a Google search. Typically, they’ll see a list of businesses (on Google My Business) in their area that match what they typed in. They’ll go through, read reviews, look at pictures you upload, and then they’ll go to your website.
Customer service begins at first touch– your website. If it’s easy to navigate, provides useful information, and puts simplifying the customer experience first, then you’re much more likely to gain their business– and keep it.
Be Transparent With Customers
First and foremost, this will gain your customer trust. People know when salesmen are just trying to close a deal. It’s also safe to say many dealerships believe front end sales are where all of their money is made. However, in today’s market, it’s not so simple.
If you treat a customer well and prioritize their comfort, they’ll be more likely to come back for business and refer you. Beyond that, when you set expectations, provide exact costs, estimates, rebates, and work with them through every step of the process, you’ll develop a positive relationship.
However, as you’ll probably guess, this transparency doesn’t end with the in-person meetings. The best dealerships have software in place that will calculate everything a customer needs to know, instantly, for their purchase– including all of the things (and more) that we listed above. Whether it’s for service, or simply offering information, you can send out automated text alerts for customers to stay updated, giving them another easy way to connect with you.
Keep In Touch With Customers
Whether it’s through emails, texts, or phone calls, it’s important to check in with customers every now and then. This isn’t to suggest you should pester them on a regular basis (don’t do that), but sending out promotions every now and then is never a bad idea. Beyond that, if you have a social media page, that can be a great way to stay in contact with customers and provide updates on anything you’re doing that they may be interested in.
Have A Management Software System In Place
We touched on it a little bit above, but it’s crucial to have a system in place that helps make the customer experience as easy and informative as possible. In 2019, the majority of the most successful dealerships have a software system in place that not only increases operational efficiency, but also can create custom forms, email templates for promotions, provide customers with text message updates on services, and inform them of pricing and estimates on the fly.
AutoMobile Technologies
AMT offers software solutions designed to make your dealership more efficient, provide your customers with the information they need, offer you better visibility, and give you peace of mind knowing that your back-office is always up-to-date and you’re building a positive relationship with customers.
ReconMonitor is a state of the art workflow automation software for auto recon, dealerships, and auto marketing companies. ReconMonitor dealership software decreases reconditioning cycle time and increases your control and profitability.
What Does ReconMonitor Offer Used Car Dealerships?
ReconMonitor is a software solution from AMT that establishes an early warning system to help your used car dealership control cost and keep vehicle repairs moving towards frontline readiness. With reconditioning software, you can track employee tasks, vendors, and current repairs being done.
It comes standard with automatic alerts that notify you in instances where technicians or vendors fall behind schedule. However, it will also send out detailed visual-alerts if any vehicle misses a milestone. It can get your used car dealerships operating at maximum efficiency– all while making your life easier in the process.
ReconMonitor can help reduce back-office stress by streamlining workflow management, estimations, and overall visibility of your operations. Beyond that, ReconMonitor offers complete operational control at the click of a button.
Your used car dealership should prioritize sales and reconditioning– while stressing less on back-office paperwork.
ReconMonitor’s Features Include:
- Essentials tools, such as VIN scanning and decoding, record management, the ability to upload photos and video inspections, and bulk or line-item approvals.
- Workflow management that tracks vehicles from in-transit to frontline readiness to help you reduce cycle time.
- Mechanical and cosmetic digital inspection checklists enable you to create OEM or NIADA certified pre-owned inspections as well as cosmetic inspections and vehicle condition reports.
- Parts and labor hours management systems that can access OEM parts and numbers, parts ordering, R&I and mechanical labor hours.
- Service requests allow you to schedule a service drive with advisors and the back-office to make sure certain vehicles are prioritized.
- Vehicle ROI estimations help you triage repair costs.
- Capacity management that tells you how many employees and vendors are required to repair the number of vehicles you have.
- CDK approved integration partner.
- DMS integrations pull inventory without needing to key information.
- Real-time reporting that provides you and your team information on vehicle statuses.
- Customization of business, process, and industry-specific forms.
- Real-time event notifications that let you send and receive notifications for status changes on vehicles. You can also notify customers of the current status and condition of their vehicles.
- NHTSA vehicle recall information that is up-to-date and provides information for any vehicle in the reconditioning process.
- Technician worklog that tracks individual employees and vendors in real-time to keep forward progress.
- Vendor payment and management that allows you to track workloads and how much you should pay specific vendors.
AutoMobile Technologies Can Help
AMT offers software solutions designed to make your reconditioning process more efficient, provide you with better visibility, and get your cars frontline in the shortest possible time.
ReconMonitor: Powerful workflow automation for auto recon, dealerships, and auto remarketing companies.
Salesmanship Tips for the Mobile Repair Professional: How to Land More Deals
> Find and Secure New Accounts
> Stand Out From Competitors
> Maintain and Grow Current Customers
Continuing our series of articles focusing on the “year of growth”, today we are turning our attention to sales tips. All businesses need sales in order to survive and grow. Many rightly consider sales the foundation of a company. The truth is, some are born salespeople and some are not. Sometimes even the most seasoned sales pro could use some fresh sales tips now and again (we’ve found that the most successful salespeople are also the most active seekers of new ideas and methods).
Our salesmanship tips presented below are geared towards helping you increase customers or land a new shop or two, depending on your specific business needs. These range from basic sales tips to learning how to find and secure new account leads, standing out from competitors, and maintaining existing clients.
Salesmanship Quick-Tips:
1. Knowledge is Power
One of the best tools mobile repair professionals have in their arsenal is an intimate knowledge of the services they are offering to current and prospective clients. They know what sets them apart from others trying to sell in the same industry. Having this subject matter expertise provides a level of credibility dealerships are looking for when being presented with new opportunities. When a customer realizes you know what you are talking about, it builds a level of trust. They can then put faith in the idea that everyone in your company knows what they are talking about. Look for opportunities to demonstrate your expertise. For the dealership or body shop prospects, consider sending a monthly or quarterly newsletter with information from your industry that could impact their industry. Another effective tactic is to offer a “lunch and learn” where you head out to a prospect’s shop, bring a few pizza’s and do a live demo during lunch. These are minimally invasive to a shop’s day and few people will turn down the opportunity for a free slice of pizza.
2. Know Your Competition And How To Outsell Them
One of the biggest objections salespeople will hear on a call is with a prospect who is happy with a competitor. What can you do in this case? Sometimes, it can be impossible to overcome this. Effective salespeople can still benefit in this situation where lesser folks would just take the “no” and move on. Learn what the prospect likes most about the competitor. What are they providing that makes the prospect loyal? This kind of inquiry can improve the way you sell your own services, and sometimes even expose areas where your prospect might be underserved. Sometimes perseverance pays off. You never know when you might catch your prospect having an issue with your competitor and you reach them at just the right time. Sometimes it can help to offer a service, or multiple services, for free as a test run. This allows prospective clients to see what they can get that is perhaps different from what they currently have with someone else. In some instances, it might be worthwhile to try to hire the technician away from your competitor onto your team in order to get and keep that new business.
3. The More Services, the Better
Mobile repair pros have an opportunity to be better than competitors at selling services if they can offer a wider range. For example, if the primary service a mobile technician is hired for is paintless dent repair, but you have technicians who can also perform wheel repair or paint touch-ups, consider offering package deals. When you can offer a bundle of services, dealerships will be more inclined to hire your business. They do not want to search for different people who do different things with different companies; one vendor who can do it all is more appealing and cost-effective.
4. Listen, Don’t Assume
One of the best qualities a mobile repair salesman can have is great ears. It can be difficult approaching a dealership not knowing what their exact needs might be, but never assume what they do or do not need. Mobile repair professionals need to make themselves available to dealerships in any way they can. When a dealership calls asking for help, a technician should always be sent as soon as possible. While it may feel good to ignore a call from a dealership that initially turned business away, being there in a time of need will only set your business apart from competitors. If a technician can show up and fix a damaged wheel to help close a sale, your business will be represented as reliable and efficient.
5. Tell a Story
According to HubSpot, 60 percent of people find a generic sales pitch irritating. However, telling a story draws prospects in with memorable accounts of similar clients you’ve helped. Humans have a unique ability to empathize with stories they hear about other people. That is why storytelling is so powerful, especially when it comes to landing a sale. During a pitch, a mobile repairer pushing PDR can throw out a plethora of statistics about their success rate. But at the end of the day, 63 percent of people recall stories because of similarities the characters share with their needs and wants. Craft your pitch to include a mini case study about your prior work. Describe how the services you provided to a client ultimately led to their success – higher sale price, faster turn-around, disaster avoidance, etc.
6. Ask for a Referral
Whether you are new to being a mobile repair tech or have been working at it for years, it can be difficult to find more work once you have established yourself with one primary dealership. But don’t be afraid to take on more responsibility. Chances are, if a mobile repair technician has been asked back to the same dealership multiple times because of their skills, that same dealership won’t mind referring them to the shop down the block. Never be afraid to ask for help; knowing your worth and demonstrating confidence in your trade will only help you outperform other mobile repair technicians fighting for the same opportunities.
7. Help Clients, Don’t Sell
Truly connect with your client. While you ultimately engage with a client to help with repairs, you are also selling a connection. No one should be sitting through a cut-and-dry sales pitch they’ve heard a million times. Not only appearing helpful but actually being helpful is the best way to land a sale and maintain a working relationship with the desired customer. Whether it is the first phone call or email, or you are meeting in person, here are a few guidelines to assist you with helping, not selling:
- Personalization – Always reference the specific problem plaguing the dealership in need and provide the correct solution.
- Deliver – If you’re promising the best paintless dent repair in the city, you better deliver the best paintless repair in the city. Stay up-to-date on industry trends and research new ways of upgrading a service.
- Be timely – Always be on time. First impressions are everything, but lasting impressions are made over time. Always answer repair calls as quickly as possible.
- Be Human – Go ahead and wish someone a happy holiday or a nice weekend. Also, commend the customer on their current successes; the more you can connect on a deeper level, the better.
- Customer Service – Start small and work on building great customer service. Call clients once a week to follow up, ask about work, and see how you can improve. Focusing on the quality of your accounts is better than scrambling to service multiple accounts.
- Stay Casual – At the end of the day, a mobile repair provider is having a conversation with a client, so use natural verbal and body language. Being yourself will allow you to connect with your client as a person.
8. Streamline Your Operations for a Quicker Transaction
Of course, we would be remiss if we didn’t mention how a software such as AMT’s ReconPro can help you streamline your operations and make the transaction quicker and easier for your customers. This can be used as a sales tool for your business and you can demonstrate how quickly you can go from estimate to approval, then from repair to invoice. If you can make the case that using your services will be easy and streamlined, it can be a major competitive advantage.
The sales journey for mobile repair professionals doesn’t have to be rough. The best way for these technicians to help the company sell any type of product is simple – be honest. Stay up-to-date on all updates to reconditioning software and industry news to be able to confidently talk about them with clients. Know what your competitors are doing and work with your audience to find out ways to be better. Form lasting connections with dealerships and auto shops that focus on the needs of the clients, not selling the capabilities of your business. Relationships built through natural connections are a surefire way for mobile repairers to become the salespeople they never knew they could be.
Valuable, Versatile, Vehicle Condition Reports
Vehicle Condition Report Forms
Knowledge is power, and you can’t know what you don’t know. These are two undisputed truths, and they are all you need to understand the importance of Vehicle Condition Reports.
Think about your own business. Whether you repair vehicles, sell them, lease them, or all of the above, do you have easy and reliable access to the condition of every vehicle your business has touched? How complete are those reports? How legible are they? How consistent is the quality and completeness of your vehicle condition reports from one to the next? If you didn’t answer “100%” to each of those questions, then you should consider vehicle condition report software included with our mobile software solutions InspectionNotes and ReconMonitor.
How can improved reporting make a difference for your business? A short list includes:
- Perform inspections including photos, videos, and notes to document prior damage and defend against false claims.
- Customizable digital forms can trigger additional steps or activities based on question responses. If the vehicle arrives for one service, but the inspection reveals other issues, you can automatically create an estimate for the additional repair to present to the customer.
- Forms can enforce process to ensure all steps are completed in the most efficient order, review data as it’s entered, and trigger next process steps and notifications.
- Updates to vehicle condition are fast and easy. A VIN scan brings up the latest condition report for editing and all changes are logged, so history audits are a breeze.
- Any conditions indicated on an inspection can trigger additional estimates or work orders for on-device or quick-link signature approvals.
- Digital reports are formatted to suit your business, with your brand, and always presentable in digital or printed formats.
- Post the report on your website to assure the buyer of the vehicle condition.
Your business operations and customer satisfaction will benefit from quality vehicle condition reports. Contact us for more information and a free demonstration of our powerful vehicle condition report app.
Press Release: DMS Integration with Frazer Computing
AutoMobile Technologies Integrates With Frazer Dealer Management Software
ReconMonitor’s certified integration helps dealerships seamlessly manage reconditioning workflows.
NEWPORT BEACH, Calif., May 15, 2018 /PRNewswire/ — AutoMobile Technologies, Inc., the industry leader in auto reconditioning software, today announced that it has partnered with Frazer Computing, Inc. to provide integrated vehicle reconditioning management capabilities to users of Frazer Dealer Management Software.
“Frazer is thrilled to be working with AutoMobile Technologies,” said Michael Frazer, president of Frazer Computing. “Making it simple for our 19,000 dealers to work with the partners that best suit their needs, and making the process easy is an important part of what we do!”
AMT’s ReconMonitor provides end-to-end visibility of the vehicle reconditioning process from acquisition through all phases of the recon process and helps identify, process, or vendor inefficiencies that increase cycle time. The software includes both mobile and back-office modules to ensure everyone in the reconditioning cycle is informed about where and when work is required. This keeps cars moving at optimal speed and results in fewer days to frontline status.
The certified integration of ReconMonitor with the Frazer DMS will allow dealerships better command and control of the recon process with full visibility as each vehicle progresses toward frontline readiness. Other notable dealer benefits of ReconMonitor include:
- Mechanical and Cosmetic Inspections – Multiple inspections per vehicle, including OEM Certified Pre-Owned Inspections, Cosmetic Inspections, and Vehicle Condition Reports.
- Parts and Labor Hours Management – The system provides access to OEM parts & numbers, mechanical labor hours, and parts ordering.
- Vehicle ROI – Know the estimated and actual cost of repairs and keep all vehicles in your targeted ROI.
- Vendor Management and Payment – The system manages all of your vendors and their workloads and shows you how much to pay each vendor per repair.
- Real-time Reporting – You and your team know the status and stage of every vehicle in process, and can quickly identify bottlenecks.
“Frazer Computing understands the needs of its customers and has built its reputation by providing software to help their dealers better understand their own operations. We are proud to enhance that value with ReconMonitor’s efficient workflow management capabilities in vehicle recon,” said Paul Maximov, CEO of AutoMobile Technologies, Inc. He added, “Dealers lose an average of $35-50 per day that cars spend undergoing reconditioning. Our partnership with Frazer will allow dealers to reduce costly delays and make better vehicle recon decisions early in the cycle. That results in better inventory availability and ultimately, increased margins on vehicles sold.”
AutoMobile Technologies joins a diverse group of Frazer integration partners. To date, Frazer works with more than 200 third-party vendors whose services are optimized and integrated with the Frazer DMS.
For more information, please visit https://amt.company/dealership-software-and-operations.
About AutoMobile Technologies
Since 2006, AMT has been building software applications to help companies in the automotive industry replace paperwork, enforce processes, and gain instant visibility to business operations, regardless of team size and geographic distribution. Our mission is to distribute easy to use, affordable solutions to help dealerships, PDR and SMART Repair technicians, detailers, and reconditioning companies improve customer service, make more money, and eliminate back-office inefficiencies.
About Frazer Computing, Inc.
Frazer provides full-featured dealer management software to over 19,000 independent used car dealers. The Frazer DMS includes unlimited contract printing and form customization, a full accounting suite, numerous sales, inventory and customer reports, unlimited technical support, and over 200 integrations with companies that help used car dealers grow their businesses. www.frazer.com
Media Contacts
Ted Gaines, AutoMobile Technologies, Inc.
Phone: 949.614.0799 ext.708
Email: info@automobiletechnologies.com
