Blame TrueCar Or Learn From Them; Your Call.
I haven't taken a position on TrueCar prior to this post because I believe that the value of their business model will be determined by the marketplace and their future will be decided in the courts. Frankly, I would rather focus on winning in the marketplace and stay out of the courts so I have decided to observe from the sidelines and make this a learning experience.
Given the volumes of online comments for and against TrueCar I will reduce my learnings to a list sourced from the shared wisdoms already posted by my friends on dealerelite, in no particular order:
Always focus on the positive aspects of your products/services vs. the shortfalls of competing solutions.
Perhaps if Scott had limited his interviews to his contributions to the marketplace vs. the shortfalls in the retail auto industry he would not have fueled as many fires by auto dealers trying to defend themselves.
Online opinions will surface contrary positions so phrase yours to make you more friends than enemies.
Many influential friends have invested in TrueCar and constructive comments as to how they can address dealer concerns over protecting their data, margins and marketshare with suggestions that they adjust their business model to be in compliance with regulations would have been more productive.
Technology is powered by human nature and today's educated consumers demand transparency.
Internet empowered consumers are already in charge of the sales process and any attempts to limit access to relevant information will simply drive them to a different exit on the Internet Super Highway.
There are two constants in the auto industry - change and human nature.
TrueCar took an accepted fact that price sells cars and applied technology to prioritise that over other relevant buying decisions; they didn't eliminate them. The changes brought about by technology based solutions are inevitable - as are the elements of human nature that they must be built on. Accept the changes and apply your understanding of human nature and the rest is already history.
I could continue, but I would prefer to listen and learn as well as presume to teach from my observations surrounding the TrueCar Wars so perhaps you could add some applicable positive observations to mine.
After all, what are friends - and dealerelite - for!
PS: Please only post positive comments and shared wisdoms regarding TrueCar. There are plenty of other posts where you can vent one way or the other.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Stan Sher on
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I got a great idea. TrueCar needs to stop going into the DMS and figure out a better way to track who purchased. Also, TrueCar should allow dealers to add prep, destination, equipment, etc... fees. Let the dealer profit $1000-2,000 per unit and everyone is happy :)
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Permalink Reply by Philip Zelinger on
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Hey Stan,
I always love and appreciate your input, but frankly I don't think that regulations concerning price disclosures would be satisfied by your idea and the market and the customers online shopping criteria sets the dealer's profit - not TrueCar.
As far as the DMS access, I am concerned that the animated dialogue may have opened Pandoras box on this issue. Many of my vendor partners rely on DMS data for the marketing solutions they have developed. DrivingLoyalty, for example, sources the dealers DMS to determine when a customer is inequity and they deliver alerts via email, SMS or mail with OTD price and payments for similar vehicles in the dealer's inventory. Their secret sauce lies in the automated nature of their platform and their algorithms require direct DMS access to compute offers in an efficient scalable manner.
Similarly, SiSTeR Technologies sources their automated vin specific video productions from the dealers DMS which they then post on the dealer's website and linked marketing platforms and IntellaCar needs to pull inventory information from the DMS to power their iPad based sales presentation platform.
The limited specialized use and secured nature of their DMS integration differentiates them from the TrueCar business model which claims to rely on DMS matching to verify commissionable sales and possibly coroborate transaction prices - according to Scott. However, my concern is that the Attorneys General and dealers may throw the baby out with the bath water on this subject by eliminating third party access to their DMS and everyone loses - including the dealer and their customers who have come to rely on the efficiencies and information provided by these technology based solutions.
That said, I anticipate that TrueCar will respond to the dealer's and AGs concerns, win or lose their argument and adjust their business model accordingly; or not. Either way, your suggestion as well as my observations would have created the same result without all of the passionate confrontations.
Just some additional insights regarding positive reinforcement for friends along with my appreciation for your comments now and in the future.
SEE YOU IN VEGAS TO KEEP THE CONVERSATION GOING!
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Trust me. I have had a chance to experience TrueCar for a full week. They are taking over a whole market. A dealership that gets 600 normal leads from their sources (that are not out to hurt them) now gets 1600. 1000 comes from TrueCar and they sell 30-40 cars per month out of it. That is a 3-4% closing ratio when we should be at 10%. I found out calling these leads that the customers are being steered in that direction. TrueCar has done a great job getting in front of the consumers with their commercials and marketing. But when 70% of your leads are 80-120 miles away and they do not want to make the drive no matter what value you give them or how good of a closer you really are you start to really see what a horrible company TrueCar is. If you want to clutter your CRM with garbage and let your DMS be used to extract data that will be used against you then TrueCar is your solution.
TrueCar is not a friend to the industry. TrueCar is worse then cancer.
I spoke to a BDC manager from a NY Chrysler Jeep Dodge dealership. He called me because he was looking to contact his TrueCar rep and when he googled to get contact information he stumbled on my blogs. He actually defended TrueCar saying that he does well with them and they are good. When asking him how he feels about getting the runaround from leads that are 80 miles away he simply responded that he does not waste time on internet leads at all. He follows up with them for 7 days and if nothing happens he just gives up. He did not believe that a lead needs to be managed for 90-120 days. I wonder what training he got. That is not a good BDC Manager at all. I cannot believe that dealers allow that to happen.
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Permalink Reply by Michael Timmons on
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@ Philip..it appears to me that few on this site are interested in providing insight or constructive guidance but would rather be combative and destructive. That is unfortunate, because there are members of this group that could absolutely have a positive impact not only on TRUECar but the industry as it relates to business practices and data protection. Stan, if your "recommendation" would be to cut down the radius of lead distribution, I agree and we will evaluate and adjust in most geographical areas.
If anyone has POSITIVE input or questions, for me personally, I am happy to respond in an honest and professional manner. To be clear...I am currently an executive at TRUECar, was an executive officer at AutoNation, owned one of the largest independent wholesale/retail operations on the West Coast and yes I have sold many new and used cars on the line.
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Permalink Reply by Philip Zelinger on
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Hi Michael,
I appreciate your recognition of my intent to surface the good news vs. the bad when issues surface that allow a discussion on both. I assure you that the audience at large on DealerElite - including our mutual friend Stan - would prefer to focus on shared opportunities sourced from discovered common problems. Sometimes it only takes a gentle rreminder that we are all in this together and the competitive nature of the car business is merely a reflection of the same trait in human nature.
After all, what are friends - and DealerElite - for!
Hopefully we can all meet over drinks at NADA to figure out next steps that allow us all to move on to sell more cars by developing a more relevant and transparent sales process for our customers; perhaps built on the TrueCar 2.0 business model that wil surely mature out of this process.
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Philip,
I would be happy to share thoughts and happier to grab a drink!
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Permalink Reply by David T. Gould on
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Phil, I word this carefully to stay positive... you and your insights are missed on Jim's http://www.dealerelite.net/profiles/blogs/true-car-and-zag-cyber-ba... thread. With well past 26,000 views and 133 pages of comments I think readers can see where the industry stands on these issues. It is not positive. Your request for positive feedback and suggestions on how TrueCar can fix their mess is ill timed in my opinion.
TrueCar, Mr. Painter, did open this "pandoras box"... Companies that have benefited quietly from DMS access can thank him for bringing this very important issue into the light, there by knocking them off their gravy train.
As for suggestions to help TrueCar. They are the ones with the millions of dollars and seem to know it all about how the car business should be run. I leave it for them to fester in their own puss.
My positive input: Reputable companies that utilize DMS access should not be sitting on the sidelines with a wait and watch approach. They should be disclosing exactly what information is being accessed and for what purpose as well as providing dealers with hold harmless contracts for any misuse of the data that they are acquiring.
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Permalink Reply by Philip Zelinger on
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David, your comments were positive wether you knew or meant it or not. Anytime or anything that we can learn from someone else's mistake eliminates our likliehood to make the same one(s).
For example, as you pointed out other vendors that access DMS data have been served notice that they must avoid the TrueCar mistakes; real or imagined. My/our friend Jim's post took a hard line negative stance which frankly was warranted based on his concerns about TrueCar's impact on his dealer clients, online marketing and the retail auto industry as a whole. The purpose of my post was to surface the learnings that his post forced into the dialogue and turn lemons into lemonade for the survivors.
After all, what are friends and DealerElite for!
See you in Vegas! (On that note, you should call me to coordinate our agendas. I have a number of new tools that I would value your opinion on and of course anything I can do to share some of your visions with me and mine would be mutually beneficial.)
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@ Phil, I meant for it to be positive for the survivors. No sarcasm intended. Good Selling! dtg
Philip Zelinger said:David, your comments were positive wether you knew or meant it or not. Anytime or anything that we can learn from someone else's mistake eliminates our likliehood to make the same one(s).
For example, as you pointed out other vendors that access DMS data have been served notice that they must avoid the TrueCar mistakes; real or imagined. My/our friend Jim's post took a hard line negative stance which frankly was warranted based on his concerns about TrueCar's impact on his dealer clients, online marketing and the retail auto industry as a whole. The purpose of my post was to surface the learnings that his post forced into the dialogue and turn lemons into lemonade for the survivors.
After all, what are friends and DealerElite for!
See you in Vegas! (On that note, you should call me to coordinate our agendas. I have a number of new tools that I would value your opinion on and of course anything I can do to share some of your visions with me and mine would be mutually beneficial.)
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Permalink Reply by Philip Zelinger on
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Thanks for the input David. I never fealt any sarcasm in your contribution to my post. Just some shared insights from someone I trust to also see the glass half full. We are all here to listen and learn so we can continue to presume to teach and TueCar has a lot of shared lessons to learn from.
They have already agreed to adjust their business model to be in compliance in Colrado after a brief voulantary suspension of services which was forced on them by posts like Jim's on DealerElite. We are all responsible to point out problems so the market can force the inevitable solutions.
After all, what are friends - and DealerElite - for!
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Permalink Reply by Mark Hilger on
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Not sure as a vendor to the Automotive space I would take such a confrontational approach but hey that's me. I have zero and I mean Zero idea why any dealer would sign up with True Car or many of the other lead providers instead of engage in SEO and PPC. Having your pipeline depend on someone else, and in True Car's case someone that is essentially pricing your product for you seems like a bad idea.
Michael Timmons said:@ Philip..it appears to me that few on this site are interested in providing insight or constructive guidance but would rather be combative and destructive. That is unfortunate, because there are members of this group that could absolutely have a positive impact not only on TRUECar but the industry as it relates to business practices and data protection. Stan, if your "recommendation" would be to cut down the radius of lead distribution, I agree and we will evaluate and adjust in most geographical areas.
If anyone has POSITIVE input or questions, for me personally, I am happy to respond in an honest and professional manner. To be clear...I am currently an executive at TRUECar, was an executive officer at AutoNation, owned one of the largest independent wholesale/retail operations on the West Coast and yes I have sold many new and used cars on the line.
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Permalink Reply by Philip Zelinger on
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Mark,
Your comment trumps all other TrueCar and other third party lead providers issues. Companies like TrueCar only exist because auto dealers were slow out of the gate to properly position themselves on the WWW and to provide relevant transparent information for the true boss - the customer! TrueCar has capitalized on this opportunity and in my humble opinion has unnecesarily thrown the baby out with the bathwater when developing their solution without considering the value that the auto dealer represents to all parties - both vendors and consumers.
As you correctly pointed out, our own investments in SEO and PPC driving traffic to our online and real world showrooms would provide superior results than turning our customers over to third party aggregators. Unfortunately, until and unless we then provide them an experience that meets their newly empowered expectations their visits will not result in a sale.
I should also take this opportunity to restate that my intentions on this post are not necessarily to fix TrueCar but rather to recognize that today's consumers demand more for less. The solution to "fixing" TrueCar" would be to replace them with our own consumer centric solutions with the expectation that for TrueCar and other third party lead providers to survive they would have to provide added value beyond ours. If they can - then they deserve a role in the sales process. If they can't - or if they presume to bite the dealer hands that feed them - then the market will determine their fate; as it appears to be doing even as I write this reply.
Mark Hilger said:Not sure as a vendor to the Automotive space I would take such a confrontational approach but hey that's me. I have zero and I mean Zero idea why any dealer would sign up with True Car or many of the other lead providers instead of engage in SEO and PPC. Having your pipeline depend on someone else, and in True Car's case someone that is essentially pricing your product for you seems like a bad idea.
Michael Timmons said:@ Philip..it appears to me that few on this site are interested in providing insight or constructive guidance but would rather be combative and destructive. That is unfortunate, because there are members of this group that could absolutely have a positive impact not only on TRUECar but the industry as it relates to business practices and data protection. Stan, if your "recommendation" would be to cut down the radius of lead distribution, I agree and we will evaluate and adjust in most geographical areas.
If anyone has POSITIVE input or questions, for me personally, I am happy to respond in an honest and professional manner. To be clear...I am currently an executive at TRUECar, was an executive officer at AutoNation, owned one of the largest independent wholesale/retail operations on the West Coast and yes I have sold many new and used cars on the line.
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