Casting your line where the fish are biting means knowing the best patches. Our Lead Management tools streamline the process of tracking and documenting the source of every heavy equipment, commercial truck, or commercial trailer lead. Lead IQ allows you to track and log the source of every incoming phone call, text message, email, website visit, or social media referral—allowing you to make smarter sales decisions.
It's time to give your dealership's inventory management an upgrade! Fortunately, our cloud-based inventory management system was designed to be easy to use—specifically for the heavy equipment, commercial truck, and trailer sales industries.
Fixed ops systems
Vehicle sales are not the only thing that generates revenue for dealerships. In fact, fixed operations contribute to almost half of a dealership’s gross profit. And since the sales of new cars fell almost 14% last year, fixed ops can help dealers keep the lights on. Also called service or body shop, fixed ops include maintenance and repair services that dealerships provide to previous customers and current vehicle owners. These services are critical to customer retention — 74% of respondents who had their car serviced by the dealership of purchase reported that they were likely to buy their next vehicle there.
The Rise of the Engagement Platform Programs
However the new vehicle retail norm will unfold in the different local markets in North America, one has to conclude that Mobility as a Service gravitates around the consumer, and not around the vehicle. Regardless if this is Digital Retailing applications or the existing DealerTech stack to manage the in-store customer experience. Dealers are required to do both, look beyond the traditional sales funnel to map the omnichannel end-to-end customer journey, and to connect the different DealerTech applications to convert consumers traveling in the customer experience loop.
Our dealer poll indicates that Customer Engagement and Digital Retailing systems will become the most critical DealerTech applications in 5 years. As our automotive retail industry is not known for its best practices in data sharing and collaboration, one may conclude that dealers will drift more towards customer engagement platforms. Those tend to offer native data flows among all available modules. Alternatively, following a best-of-breed approach may lack the necessary data integrations with other crucial pieces in the road to sale or service.
What to Know About Dealership Technology
The road to the digital buying experience has been kicked into high-speed as a result of the pandemic, and consumer’s shopping habits continue to evolve. Providing dealers with a seamless route to working with consumers on the platforms and outlets they prefer can make or break your digital initiatives. Some of the key qualities or characteristics that dealers should focus on when it comes to vetting and selecting prospective technology partners.It’s the background and experience that the provider brings to the dealership’s operations: How long have they been in business? What’s their background? What kind of growth are they experiencing if they’re a relatively new technology provider? Growth is really important, but if it’s not managed properly or if they’re seeing a lot of fast growth, that can be an inhibitor in terms of the performance and adoption of the application. What are the backgrounds of the people who are in leadership roles or the people who are supporting or developing the application? Are they technology professionals who are developing for automotive or are they automotive professionals who are developing technology that supports automotive processes? Things like uptime, redundancies, and reliance on a responsive support team are also very important. We see now, especially with the remote aspects of the industry, that there are a lot of new systems that are being leveraged and installed, and there are changes in process that might be taking place. If there are stresses on those systems, whether from a bandwidth or uptime standpoint, and those systems fail, that can really hamper the operations inside and outside the dealership, as well as the experience for the customer.
Beyond that, when you are evaluating a technology partner, you have to question their commitment. Is that provider in business to support you on a month-to-month basis or are they going to ask you for a year-long or three-year-long commitment to leverage their technology? There are a lot of companies in the industry that have recognized, if the system is developed, supported and trained on, and implemented properly, those systems should stand up on their own two legs. Providers shouldn’t have the right to hold the dealer to a multi-year commitment if their services are not reliable and supported properly. That’s an important question for a dealer to ask, as well as about the fees. A company’s structure is also important. Are they developing and supporting their own applications or are they outsourcing any of that development, support, or training? How does that work, and are those services inhouse or are they leveraging third parties as part of that process? All of this affects the dealer’s relationship and experience with the platform. Converting sales as a car dealership goes much further than having valuable deals with quality cars, although this does help attract consumer interest. The experience plays a large role in the overall process as well, which varies greatly from dealership to dealership.
General Motors recently filed a patent application for a dual charge port setup that could help get the most out of Ultium battery system in the automaker's electric pickup trucks.GM has developed a double-layer battery pack that's already being used in the GMC Hummer EV, and is slated for the forthcoming Chevrolet Silverado EV and GMC Sierra EV. The proposed setup could provide more flexibility in how those two layers are charged. Using a series of controllers and switches, as well as the pack's built-in ability to operate as two different packs in series or in parallel, the application describes different charging scenarios for the dual-layer vehicles. For reference, in the GMC Hummer EV 12 battery modules are wired in series to make up one layer, which is functionally a separate battery pack. That layer is connected in parallel to another identical layer with the same number of modules. In the Hummer EV, that adds up to more than 100 kwh of battery capacity, with 800-volt charging to take advantage of speedier 350-kw DC fast-charging hardware.
GM outlines that one charging port could be configured to charge at 800 volts or 400 volts, while the other port would be connected to the second layer of the pack and be limited to 400V. The system could connect them in series, charging both the upper and lower layers simultaneously at 800V using the first port only. Or it could charge both layers at 400 volts by connecting them in parallel. A third configuration would isolate the two layers, charging them one at a time, GM noted. Alternatively, the second port could be used for charging accessories at 400 volt while the vehicle continues to charge at 800 volts. That could allow GM trucks to power tools or other equipment while they charge. Ford has advertised its F-150 Lightning as a mobile power source, but it only has one charge port and thus can't do that.
Goodyear
Goodyear is developing airless tires, but it's unclear when you'll be able to put them on your car. The company recently announced that prototype tires have completed 75,000 miles of testing at speeds up to 100 mph, in temperatures ranging from scorching heat to snow. Some of that testing has been done with a Tesla Model 3 at Goodyear's Luxembourg proving grounds, the company said in a statement. Also called non-pneumatic tires (NPTs), airless tires have lower maintenance requirements than conventional tires, and are better able to handle heavy loads, according to Goodyear. The company also believes airless tires will be a better fit for vehicles beyond passenger cars, specifically autonomous shuttles that might be used by future mobility services to move people and goods around urban centers. Part of the development process will involve testing airless tires on "autonomous vehicles and last-mile delivery robots. Goodyear said it's aiming for United States Department of Transportation approval of its airless tires, but noted that this is "still several years away." And given the company's interest in catering to mobility services, the first applications might not be personal cars.