By: Jennifer Sanford, Director of Strategic Marketing
“Dealer’s Choice” is the buzzword of the day. Every OEM, automotive software vendor and consultant preaches the value of “Dealer’s Choice” when recommending software solutions. However, these businesses tend to complicate the purchase decision. Between OEM requirements and software integration limitations, dealers’ choices actually shrink.
Consider this scenario: Your OEM has recommended a CRM, and your Dealer Principal wants to take advantage of incentive dollars associated with using it. However, the Dealer Management System (DMS) you use does not integrate well with that CRM. You are expected to find a budget neutral solution to this dilemma. The search begins, and suddenly you are considering integration issues not only with your CRM, but also with your inventory management software, reputation management software, equity mining software, and responsive website.
Integration, an important issue, becomes more problematic as additional dealership software options are considered.
A lack of integration causes a fundamental problem; isolated information cannot flow between different dealership applications. When information is stuck in one program, the dealership requires an employee to re-input data from one software program to another. This addition of labor adds cost to the business and increases the chance of errors in both reporting and customer documentation.
When reviewing a DMS and its integration capabilities, make sure that there are predefined points that make it easy to integrate with existing software solutions.
Evaluate your DMS’s Accounting Functionality – Use this Checklist
As a business leader, you should be able to make good choices and decisions based on your auto dealership’s needs. At Dominion, we believe that you don’t have to give up your favorite equity mining, marketing or CRM software when you work with our DMS solutions.
For information on Dominion’s simple Dealer Management Systems that provide inherent integration as a standard feature, call 877.421.1040. For other checklists on DMS evaluation, check out our Parts Checklist and Payroll Checklist.
