Diary of a DMS Guy

It's been a busy old week - all full of integration chat - joining the dots in th.

Anybody who follows my diary,  social media or who has ever spoken to me will know of my drive to remove the alt+tab from the whole dealership team.

The aim is to provide an integrated and consistent journey through dealer processes.

We hear about integration quite a lot and we know it's a good idea...

Why is Integration such as good idea ?

but why .. ?

There are several considerations I make when I look at Integration design.

The first and foremost is to make it easy for the customer (by "customer" I mean the ultimate consumer - the dealer's customers).  Everything should be there to support their journey through the dealership - online, physically or some balance of both!  This isn't as simple as it first seems - dealers have various "systems" eg their Web Site,  their CRM, FCA Compliance their DMS , maybe a Digital Signature and payment solution.      This is just in the Sales Department.  Often, these systems aren't linked, which means that customers have to supply their details to different systems as they go through the process or dealer staff have to re-enter information.

This is not customer or staff friendly and introduces potential for errors and omissions .

Integration at this level means joining the dots in  many ways :-

1. By providing a consistent user journey - online and physical - and provide solutions which allow this by....
2. Providing hand-off from one system to another, so that customer details entered on the Web site are automatically transferred to the CRM system, and then onto order processing in the DMS as well as every point along the way.
3. By centralising information.   For me, the DMS system should be the "bible" when it comes to customer and prospect information - every system should refer to and update this database which then becomes the central point for consistent reporting

It's got to benefit the dealer team as well

I've already hinted, but integration should also be a massive benefit to the dealership team.  This, again, reduces errors, saves time and allows them to focus on the customer and not the computer.  It also generates more sales and profit...

I'll give two Aftersales examples which were highlighted to me over the past couple of weeks.

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The Vehicle Health Check

I was discussing our Vehicle Health Check system with a prospective customer.  They weren't particularly interested.  The reason was that they had one currently and they found the level of upsell very very low.     

I probed a little more as to why and it became obvious.  The Health check system in use was completely standalone - the job details needed copy-typing into it from their DMS, and then any yellow and Amber work authorised needed keying back into the DMS once  approved.    Parts details were entered multiple times - once to price up and check stock, then again to order and book the parts out. 

It was obvious that the Service Administrators just didn't want to use the system - it was a pain and caused them more work!   

A quick demo of our system - where the health check system is tightly integrated - showed how different it can be.   Service appointments just "appear" automatically in the health check. 

Red and Amber items are transferred back into the Navigator Repair Order automatically without rekeying.   Parts do need typing in oer searched to price up but the parts information is retained.... When a customer authorises an item (often by simply clicking an email) then the job line is automatically added to the job card for invoicing and a request made to parts to book the parts out, which is done in a couple of clicks without entering the parts details again..

The process is easy - and in my experience - Service and Parts advisors love to use it and will do.  The result being more upsell, a busier workshop and a better bottom line!

The Pay Later System

This is the same as the health check - In principle, everyone agrees that this will increase upsell...  Except that in unintegrated form, customer and work details need re-entering into the PayLater system online manually by the Service Advisor and then the invoice needs configuring so that the customer receives an invoice showing the PayLater details.  This is admin heavy and Advisors can be retiscent in offering the service because of that.

Navigator integrates with Bumper for example, and PayLater can be requested in a couple of clicks.  The customer completes the process online and when approved, the repair order is automatically updated with the PayLater details.    So much easier for the Advisor who is then happier to offer the service more, again increasing sales and profit.

So, going back to my week! 

I've spent time in several conversations with third party suppliers to discuss integrating their systems and processes into Navigator - to achieve benefits such as the above.     Key areas in process at the moment are the FCA Compliance process (which is becoming more and more important) and interfaces in other parts of the Sales Process - which will announced in the coming weeks.

All in all, the integrations are being added to all the time - removing alt-tabs one by one!