* More Clarity and Control on How Dealers Provide DMS Sales Data to TrueCar: Section 2c. Clarifies that a Dealer can control how it wants to provide access to DMS Sales Data, including that the Dealer can "push" sales data to TrueCar.
* Confirmation That DMS Sales Data is Not Used To Create TrueCar Price Reports: Section 3.
* Overall: We believe TrueCar's revised dealer agreement sets the bar in the industry for dealer control, including how we treat data.
5. More Clarity On How We Use DMS Data
Limiting The Data Fields We Receive From DMS Systems
TrueCar does not directly access dealer DMS systems; we obtain our data through third party aggregators who have the ability to extract and/or process data from a variety of dealer DMS systems. TrueCar only requires customer contact information (name, address, phone, email for buyer and co-buyer) and basic vehicle information (VIN, make/model/trim, year, new/used, stock number, sale date) in order to perform the sales matching, billing (in states that allow performance-based billing), and dealer scoring aspects of our business. TrueCar does not require or utilize vehicle accessory, financing, social security numbers or insurance related information from dealer DMS data. TrueCar is proactively working with our DMS aggregation partners to reduce the number of fields they send to only those required for these functions. We expect our partners to implement the restricted data feeds in the very near future.
Protecting DMS Data
TrueCar takes strong measures to protect sensitive data of all types, including confidential dealer DMS data. We encrypt DMS data using AES encryption and store it on servers located in highly secure data centers. Access to the servers requires multiple levels of keycard and biometric (fingerprint) authentication. The network architecture is designed to protect dealer data from both external threats (hackers) and unauthorized internal access. Dealer data is only accessible by systems that perform sales matching and dealer scoring functions.
What DMS Data is Used For
* Accurately match dealer sales to customer introductions for performance tracking (in all states) or billing purposes (in states that allow performance-based billing)
* Calculate dealer close rates and identify geographic regions that historically perform well for each dealer
* Assess the quality of TrueCar introductions and measure the performance of various TrueCar-powered sites. TrueCar believes that calculating dealer performance metrics is a crucial part of maintaining and improving the quality of our service. We seek to measure the quality of our introductions on a per-dealer basis across our many TrueCar-powered sites so that we can understand how well each site is performing and to identify problems. Without this critical feedback loop the quality of future introductions can suffer.
What DMS Data is NOT Used For
* TrueCar does not use dealer DMS data to populate the pricing curves.
* TrueCar does not use dealer DMS data to contact or otherwise market to customers.
* TrueCar never sells or shares dealer DMS data.
TrueCar, Inc., 225 Broadway, 12th Floor, Santa Monica, CA 90401
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 Keith Shetterly on February 2, 2012 at 5:04pm -
They're not on the exhibitor list. Says a lot imho.
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Comment by Thomas A. Kelly on February 2, 2012 at 5:04pm
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Nope...not seeing GRP on the roster either....hmmmm
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That blows me away...no presence at NADA????
Too much mouth and not enough spine..... TruelyGutless
GRP?
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Comment by Keith Shetterly on February 2, 2012 at 4:49pm
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I would've liked to ask about that, Thomas, if they had a booth at NADA. They want access to your DMS and want to "help" you sell thin deals. Why wouldn't they have a booth? Don't they want to meet the dealers??
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Flat Fee = no need for DMS EVER
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Comment by Keith Shetterly on February 2, 2012 at 4:35pm
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I guess they won't have a TrueCar booth at NADA, either? http://www.nadaconventionandexpo.org/mynadaplanner2012/public/nz_AL...
Can you be dealer-centric as a vendor at all and not attend NADA and have a booth? Just askin'.
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Comment by Keith Shetterly on February 2, 2012 at 4:25pm
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Huh. You know, there is value in this "Bill of Rights" http://www.dealerelite.net/profiles/blogs/dealerelite-exclusive-pre... from CarWoo. I wonder if TrueCar would make such a statement or press release? It's pretty dealer-centric AND customer-centric http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2505386101?profi....
So, how about it, TrueCar? Are you up to this challenge? If you don't like this approach, you are always welcome to be MORE dealer-centric. Come on, show off, TrueCar. This isn't that hard, right?
Or is it?
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Thanks David...Good thinking.
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Comment by David T. Gould on February 1, 2012 at 3:11pm
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Tuesday, January 31, 2012
guaranteed savings website experience that maintains the upfront guaranteed savings that TrueCar Dealers and their customers want, and includes other changes that reflect dealer feedback and address potential advertising issues in some states. TrueCar dealer partners have told us how important upfront guaranteed savings are because customers prefer upfront guaranteed savings, which increases dealer discoverability, earns customer trust and reduces dealership costs. For these reasons, upfront guaranteed savings remains at the core of the TrueCar service and we will switch back to an upfront guaranteed savings approach in your state as quickly as we can.
2. FAQs on Target Price
Q: Are we required to honor the Target Price?
A: No. As a TrueCar Dealer you set your own pricing and are expected to communicate your price to the customer, along with providing a professional buying experience
Q: Why do we still need to input a price in the Dealer Portal if you're showing a Target Price?
A: You only have to maintain current vehicle pricing in the Dealer Portal if you utilize the TrueCar pricing tools. However, because the Target Price is based on current market conditions, if you don't input a price in the Dealer Portal, the Target Price may not be as accurate. In addition, the Dealer Portal contains helpful market pricing data so that you can see how competitive your pricing is. Further, TrueCar will be introducing new product features that will allow you to easily communicate the price you inputted into the Dealer Portal directly to the consumer, resulting in a more efficient sale.
Q: How will dealers be displayed given the Target Price website experience?
A: Determining which TrueCar Dealers are presented to customers, and in what order, is based on a proprietary and periodically changing formula that considers many factors. Example factors include the driving time to the dealership, radius restriction, close rate history, and customer satisfaction.
Q: How do I manage my leads and give prices to customers? A: You can look up customer leads and your dealer price in the Dealer Portal. You should call the customer back as soon as possible, and let them know what your dealer price quote is for the vehicle in stock that best meets their needs.
Q: What happens if a customer brings in a Price Protection Certificate that was generated prior to the switch to Target Pricing? A: All dealers must honor their price quotes on the Price Protection Certificates that were generated prior to the switch to Target Pricing.
3. Manufacturer Brand Compliance
Many manufacturers have brand guidelines and enforce those guidelines with dealer marketing allowances. Based on OEM feedback, TrueCar will introduce a new consumer membership program on TrueCar.coma href="http://truecar.com/">http://TrueCar.com> in the near future, which TrueCar believes will eliminate brand compliance / marketing funds issues with dealers using TrueCar
4. Revised "Dealer-Friendly" Dealer Agreement
In response to the feedback we've received, we made significant changes to our dealer agreement for participating dealers in order to provide clarity and balance, including:
* Removed Indemnification Provision: In the previous agreement, Dealers indemnified TrueCar. We heard that a one-sided indemnification was not in the spirit of partnership, so going forward, we have removed the indemnification section altogether.
* Dealers Can Cancel At Any Time For Any or No Reason: Section 9. Previously, Dealers needed to provide a 30 day notice period. TrueCar believes that marketing programs should be accountabl
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