TRUE CAR and ZAG Cyber Bandits, Parasites or Good for the Car Business?
Jim Ziegler asks...
I am hearing a lot of discussion about True Car and ZAG. I continually scratch my head and wonder if desperate dealers are doing the marketing limbo "How Low Can You Go?"
Are we so bad at what we do that we have to line up and pay vendors to lose money? AND, who is giving these people access to your data that is used against you?
Who owns these companies and what might be their ulterior motive? Sometimes I ask questions to which I already know the answer.
Am I wrong?
What do you think... JIM
Jim Ziegler's Guidance and Recommended Action Plan:
Ten Areas We Need to Concentrate on to Bring This Monster to It's Knees...
- Government investigation of ALL Data Aggregators taking consumer information from dealers' DMS. Sadly enough, dealers who do business with TrueCar are exposed to liability charges. Cut off all access to unecessary data, no matter who takes it from the dealers DMS and make it illegal to "resell identifiable consumer data" and "transactional data".
- Educate Your Fellow Dealers; If anyone takes financial transactional data, they expose the dealer that allowed it to violations, especially if it is passed on to other vendors or shared.
- Educate Consumers to what they're doing with their information...
a. You buy a car from a dealer, do you really want your personal information, and maybe even your financial information, passed along and sold and shared by "God knows who?"
b. These People Charge the Dealer $300 which the dealers have to build into the deal
c. Your Privacy and the Security of your Information could theoretically compromise your identity if you do business a company that takes data from the dealership. - Educate Investors and potential investors they could possibly be mislead if anyone is telling them this is a safe investment because of all of the dealers pushing back, associations pushing back, and government regulators in many states coming after TrueCar's business model as NOT compliant, in some cases they're saying it is Not Legal.
- AMEX, USAA and all of their affiliates do not want the bad consumer relations this push back is creating with their members and customers.
- Cancel your dealership's Affilation with TrueCar. Tell people with TrueCar certificates that YOU don't honor TrueCar and you feel the company is NOT reputable. Educate consumers as to perceived data exposure if they buy from a TrueCar dealer. Make sure that each consumer knows that using TrueCar actually increases their vehicle cost by $300 to $400.
- Make the dealers selling at huge losses take all of those deals. Big problem right now is too many Nissan Dealers and others are taking huge losers to get the factory money. The TrueCar reverse-auction business model will continually push those numbers down until the factory money is non-existent. Consumers need to hear from many dealers, "We don't do TrueCar"
- Keep calling your National and State Dealer Associations demanding they get involved and stay involved... No excuses.
- Get the Manufacturers into the game. If GM, Ford, Toyota, and other majors change the rules about how we advertise and do business to protect the dealers, we can cut off their ability to set pricing. So keep it up at every dealer meeting. Call your Dealer Council Members and protest to your factory reps. Tell the manufacturers, if they want showroom and facility improvements, we need the ability to make fair profits.
- Tell everyone you know. Educate other dealers and industry people. Watch the Painter interviews... I believe this is the first time a vendor has publicly announced they intend to bring down the dealers and hijack our business, taking our profits and starving us out with our own data. Painter has said manufacturers and dealers should go bankrupt and he, in his God-like way "will control distribution..."
When the TrueCar-Yahoo Deal kicks in we need to stand firm and "Just Say No" we don't honor TrueCar deals.
Read this article as a reference: http://www.autonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=%2F20110831%2FFIN...
AND, if you doubt the mission... read this... http://www.zag.com/websiteASSETS/whitepapers/ZAG-WhitePaper3.pdf
Comment
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Comment by Erik J. Nelson on December 9, 2011 at 4:53pm
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The True Car concept is not new to the industry. Until our industry decides to collectively create tranparent processes and discard the archaic way that cars are sold, we subject ourselves to companies like True Car. Information based selling is, and will continue to be the way to sell vehicles if we understand that one way or another, consumers will get the information that they seek. The only way to "Kill the Beast" is to eliminate their customer, The Dealer.
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Comment by Stanley Esposito on December 9, 2011 at 4:27pm
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I am looking forward to seeing a big dealer group opt out of true car.
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Comment by James Easter on December 9, 2011 at 4:20pm
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@Mike & all: True Mike...dealers definitely should not be paying any TrueCar/Zag invoices if they have been in contact with that customer via another source, including visits to your showrooms. Hopefully there are not a lot of dealers that have been paying for those.
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Comment by Mike Warwick on December 9, 2011 at 4:12pm
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All dealers who have or are planning to cancel Truecar, please make sure that you are thoroughly checking each Truecar invoice against your CRM. If a customer contacted you prior to submitting a Truecar lead, you do not have to pay Truecar for that deal. Take a screen shot of the contact screen from your CRM and send it in to Truecar with the invoice attached. There seems to be confusion about this point but if you had contact with the customer prior to their submitting a Truecar price request, you do not have to pay Truecar.
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Comment by Keith Shetterly on December 9, 2011 at 3:33pm -
@MARK AND ALL: Think about this--exactly WHAT does the part I put in bold mean??????
“We get information from dealers and consumer systems; we also buy data from DMS providers. And we’re now seeing it come in from lenders and insurers. It’s also available at state registration tax and title office. Anyone who buys or sells a car leaves a data trail, and understanding this data can be key. This data includes make, model, trim condition, configuration of cars, all down to the ZIP code,” Painter told Auto Remarketing.
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Comment by Jim Kristoff on December 9, 2011 at 3:31pm
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@Mark....shut them out of your DMS...........
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Comment by Mark Elliott on December 9, 2011 at 3:26pm
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True car's response...
Hello all,
I'm sorry to see the departure of the group, but I hear your passion for the subject. In lieu of trying to comment on each item, I would like to leave you with the below, these are FAQ's we share when there is misunderstanding. Also, keep in mind we have a 90-day window that we will bill for a sale, so if you got a lead yesterday and they buy in the next 90 days, that's a billable sale. The leads will be turn off ASAP.
TrueCar takes data use and security very seriously. We are transparent on how we create TrueCar Price Reports and how we use and secure DMS data from TrueCar Certified Dealers.
1. Where do you get the data for TrueCar Price Reports?
We license anonymized pricing data from many sources who legally capture pricing data. We have an insatiable appetite for data, and to ensure that we present the most accurate pricing information available, we obtain and process data directly from dealers and well-known data aggregators within the automotive space. We also acquire vehicle configuration data, customer and dealer incentives data, financing and loan data, vehicle registration and insurance data and much more.
2. Is our DMS data used to populate TrueCar Price Reports?
Your DMS data is not being used to populate TrueCar Price Reports. Data used for TrueCar Price Reports comes from negotiated partnerships with various data providers that specify "use in TrueCar price curves" as the primary use of the data in the agreement. On an aggregated basis, your DMS sales data is used for validation purposes to help ensure the accuracy of these TrueCar Price Reports data sources.
3. Why do you need our DMS?
The primary purpose of accessing your DMS sales data is to accurately match your sales to the customers who contacted you by using our service. This allows us to operate our performance-based billing model. Any privacy concerns you may have are addressed in Sections 3 and 5 of the Dealer Terms and Conditions available on the Dealer Portal.
DMS sales data also serves as a vital link between you and us. This data helps determine if quality customers are contacting you through our powered websites and whether our service is effective. Without that feedback loop we can't monitor how we are doing and are limited in what we can do to improve the quality of future services to you.
Additionally, DMS sales data is a key component in determining how you are presented to customers. Determining which Certified Dealers show up and in what order is based on many factors, including a Certified Dealer's historic performance and local area new vehicle close rate. If we are unable to determine your historic performance and close rate, we are forced to use an average placeholder instead, meaning that your store may be ranked lower than it should be. This could result in fewer sales to your dealership.
4. What do you do with all the data you get from our DMS?
The primary purpose of accessing your DMS sales data is to accurately match your sales to the customers that contacted you by using our service. This allows us to operate our performance-based billing model. We are also able to analyze your anonymized sales data to determine which areas of your market you are most effective at selling to, improving the quality of our service to your dealership based on historic performance. Sales transaction data is also analyzed to understand pricing trends. This allows us to make future product enhancements and pricing recommendations to your dealership. On an aggregated basis, your sales data is also used for validation purposes to help ensure the accuracy of TrueCar pricing data sources.
Thanks and let's get selling.....
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@Mike and all: I just reached out to my entire SET (Southeast Toyota) chain/heirarchy to see how closely, if at all, they are monitoring the whole TrueCar matter. Reach out everyone!
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We just pulled Subaru,VW,Jag,and Audi...KILL THE BEAST!
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Great job Mark. Not surprisingly, Acura has been pulled from Truecar. We need Nissan or Toyota to step up. These two manufacturers are the backbone of Truecar and a huge source of their sales volume. If one pulls out, I firmly believe that all of the other manufacturers will follow.
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