Does your DMS provider enable the free exchange of your dealership’s data?
More and more of your business relies on the accurate exchange of data. As customers shop for cars online, they freely share their information with the dealerships they do business with. This includes sharing personal information like addresses and contact information, as well as more sensitive financial information contained on credit applications. Customers exchange this information for a more convenient and seamless car buying experience, but with the caveat that your dealership will keep it protected. And according to our study, 86% of thriving dealers agree that having accurate and complete customer data is a top priority.
If the technology driving your operations doesn’t deliver the data you need to connect people, cars, and services in a fast, secure, and accurate capacity—you need to take a serious look at the risk you’re facing
Your Right to Your Data
Under the guise of protecting customer privacy, some DMS providers believe that dealerships don’t have the right to share information between their own systems. Simply put, the debate between data security and data access isn’t an either/or scenario. Your dealership doesn’t have to choose one or the other. It can have both. Especially as the industry shifts to incorporate more digital technology (in an effort to enable a more seamless online buying experience for your customers), sharing dealership data between dealership systems is critical to business continuity.
When your DMS provider gives you free and unfettered access to your data, you can work with both customers and vendors to facilitate shared data processing, storage, and analysis, without having to navigate multiple systems just to complete a simple task. It boosts efficiency for you and saves time for your customers during the car buying process. It also allows your dealership to advance into a new age of automotive retail with data that will become increasingly important to your business’ success.
Your Right to Cost Transparency
Now that you know you shouldn’t have to choose between your data and your customers’ security, you should also know that enabling these two compatible dealership components shouldn’t be a financial burden to you. The costs associated with data integration and data security, storage, and analysis should be fully disclosed upfront by your DMS provider and justified by the value they add to you and your customers.
Your dealership’s access to your own data is self-evident. Knowing how much you’re paying for data integration should be self-evident too. Those costs should never limit or financially encumber your business. Your systems should be easy to work with. They should help you avoid the tedium of inputting customer data into multiple systems. And your tech provider should be able to clearly explain each cost with full transparency.
As your dealership continues to incorporate more digital elements and your customers continue to trust their information with you online, make sure that you have a tech provider that can prioritize both sides of the same customer data coin to give you and your customers a better car buying/sales experience.
TO LEARN MORE ABOUT HOW THE RIGHT DMS TECHNOLOGY AND PARTNER CAN HELP YOUR DEALERSHIP EVOLVE TO MEET THE DIGITAL DEMANDS OF TODAY’S CUSTOMERS, GET YOUR COPY OF THE DEALER’S GUIDE FOR MAXIMIZING PROFITABILITY.
