Pain Point 10 - Staff

With multiple systems at work in every dealership and often limited data flow between them, individual employees become experts in a few of them but when they are away from the business or they leave, an issue arises. The last in our series of dealer pain points confronts the problem head on.

Dealer Pain Points – papering over the cracks of disconnected systems

Employees who develop the skills to ensure a certain application works well for a business or who manually connects disparate systems disguise the inefficiency of disconnected applications at work in a dealership.

Not only does it waste time with employees having to step in where systems do not complete a task adequately or to manually input data from one system into another, but it creates an environment where individuals develop niche expertise. When that person is away from the business or moves on, the gap opens once more.

Our systems audit through our Transform Consulting arm of the business provides an overview of the systems at work, the gaps and duplication whilst ViHUB connects systems avoiding the need for double keying and eliminates data flow disruption. Thus, employees are relieved of much of the heavy lifting of hitherto manually intensive tasks.

With an array of apps and systems in operation to meet a variety of dealership tasks, Autofinity’s ViHUB integrates with most major suppliers and automates updates to online marketplaces.

Our CEO Andy Whitehair : “Invariably at the dealerships we visit, we meet individuals who have become experts in one or two systems. They usually undertake manual tasks which allows the day-to-day dealership activity to take place without a hitch. If these employees didn’t bridge the gap between the systems and the dealership requirements, processes would just fall apart yet their time could be much better deployed.”

Autofinity’s ViHUB platform keeps track of a vehicle’s journey from part exchange or auction through the prep process to the forecourt empowering interventions which improve efficiencies. ViHUB also oversees a vehicle’s marketing including flagging vehicles without images, automating consumer-friendly accurate descriptions and feeding online marketplaces.

ViHUB integrates with most of the systems in operation in a dealership eliminating the need for double keying. Make an update in ViHUB and all other applications are fed the same information which ensures no discrepancies appear on online vehicle marketplaces. It also highlights issues which reduces a vehicle’s desirability to potential buyers such as images or price.

Autofinity’s goal is to create a system that enables all dealership insights to be actioned from its dashboard.

“To consolidate vehicle inventory, dealership operations and marketing around one system has always been considered as unobtainable due to the sheer volume of systems needed for the day-to-day running of a dealership and the fact that data is collected in silos for each individual vehicle thereby not providing oversight of either a single vehicle or group stock. We are working steadily towards the goal of one hub for all dealership operations and that end is definitely in sight.

“Those dealerships which have deployed technology to successfully collate vehicle information and offer a one-dashboard update for all integrated systems can free up the time of their staff to undertake more strategic tasks or deal with more complex issues or, quite simply, sell more cars.”