6/15/10 - 9 Million Reasons to Protect Your Identity
Currently, the Federal Trade Commission estimates that as many as 9 million Americans have their identities stolen each year. With this many occurrences, it’s likely that you already know someone who has had their identity stolen.
I have put together a list of common best practices that will help you protect yourself and your customers from identity theft. Passing this information on to your customers and prospects ultimately benefits your dealership: A prospect who has a stellar 800+ credit score one day, could be surprised to find that score knocked down or flagged for fraud alert when they try to finance an RV, making the sale tougher than it needs to be. In addition, customers will give you kudos just for passing on these helpful tips to secure their identity.
Start by searching for your dealership name and phone number on Google, Bing, and Yahoo! search engines. You might find that someone else has a website with your name on it. Recently, thieves have created fake dealer websites, offering unbelievable prices and convincing customers to wire deposits for securing fake deals. When the customer shows up at your dealership to take delivery of that 2010 diesel pusher they paid $8,000 for, you will have more than a case of mistaken identity on your hands.
When creating usernames and passwords, you should try to use a random password combination to avoid your account being compromised. Case sensitive passwords are best, since they make cracking a password over 26 times harder. According to PCMag.com, the most commonly used password is “password” (that's a tough one), closely followed by “123456” (another toughie), “letmein” (Let Me In), and “monkey.” Anyone using "Monkey" for a password, deserves to have their ID revoked.
Automated hacking programs can try up to 2,000,000 password combinations per second, so don't use words in the dictionary of any language, common names, dates, or social security numbers in your passwords - or the word "Monkey."
It's also said that the higher up the ladder you go, the easier the password is to crack. Presidents and CEOs hate to change their passwords and unfortunately, they out-rank the IT administrator; as such, they just keep typing their little four character password that they've used for the past 10 years.
Another important and preventable way to protect your identity is by locking up your birth certificate, social security card, and passport. You should only be carrying these documents around when you are traveling or absolutely need them. These documents aren't just used for credit fraud, they are also used to create fake work permit papers by illegal aliens. Don't be surprised when you find out your employee John Doe isn't really John Doe. Worse yet, wait until the IRS says you have been working 5 different jobs, in different cities, all at the same time. Many illegal aliens will pass information around so that others can work under the same assumed name.
Dealerships and individuals need to cross shred all discarded documents that contain sensitive information or hire a professional and confidential document shredding company. Regular shredding is still too easy for potential “dumpster divers” to piece back together.
Be sure to review all of your credit card and/or bank statements as soon as they arrive or track them closely online if possible. Most of your cards should be protected from fraud, but many banks are shortening the time you have to report fraudulent charges before they become your responsibility.
When at all possible, do not use a debit card while shopping online or in any other seemingly risky place. Debit cards are linked to your actual bank account, and this could allow a thief to drain your entire bank balance before you even find out something is wrong. Even if your bank reimburses you for the loss, this typically is not immediate and would leave you temporarily without any cash.
Sensitive customer information is lost or stolen every year by banks, healthcare companies, and even government agencies so it is also a good idea to tell your customers to check their credit report at least a couple of times each year.
By sharing your dealership’s existing security policies with your potential customers, it will put them at ease while you handle their personal information. Reviewing the above best practices with your customers will help ensure that their credit is not blemished and will begin to build an ID security awareness in your dealership.
- Carl Sconnely, President of Systems 2000, Inc.
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6/7/10 - Advertising has finally come to Twitter
Twitter, the creator of the 140 characters or less social network, has finally disclosed part of its plan to start paying the bills after its $55 million dollar venture capital is exhausted. This plan will open the door for dealerships to use targeted advertisements similar to other popular social websites.
Much like Facebook and the other social networking websites, advertisements will begin being displayed on Twitter.com based on the keywords included in a user’s incoming and outgoing tweets. By doing this, it should allow Twitter to accurately target paid advertising, based on a user's interests and hobbies - for example, RV, camping, etc.. These advertisements should start appearing as "promoted" tweets throughout the site for users.
The new advertising plan will also allow users to begin bidding on keyword searches, which will display a single advertisement. These advertisements will be displayed based on the ad's performance. Also in the near future, Twitter will expand its advertising from inner site advertising to 3rd party Twitter applications.
By Twitter opening its doors to targeted advertising, it has left social network users no place to hide. It is unclear at this point how an RV dealer will fully utilize this new advertising opportunity, but one thing does seem clear: making sure your dealership isn’t the last to explore one of the last untapped marketing resources of potential RV customers is a necessity in today's social networking environment!
- Carl Sconnely, President of Systems 2000, Inc.
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5/10/10 - Here Today, Gone Tomorrow - Get Found with Google's New Search Tools
Google has added new search tools to help users find the information they are looking for easier than ever. But the real question is - will these features benefit or hurt your dealership’s current online performance.
The most important new Google search feature is the ability to filter results by time. When searching, displayed information can be outdated from years past. To solve this, Google users, with only one click, can search by different timeframes, including; the last 24 hours, week, month, year, or even a designated date range. This means that having regularly updated units and fresh information (content) on your dealership’s website is even more important than ever. In addition to this filter, there is a timeline feature that will actually display search results in a graph for the year that the data is relevant to.
Next is a feature that will limit the Google search results to a users immediate area. Since an RV shopper can narrow their search to only their surrounding areas, this could hurt some RV dealers who obtain prospects from all over the US. On the other hand, this should help dealers keep more of their local business.
Google has also created an interesting tool called the “Wonder Wheel.” This visual search tool displays your search word in the middle of a wheel with other related keyword definitions surrounding it like spokes on a bike. When you click one of the spokes, another wheel appears with the selected keyword in the middle and thus creating a drill down effect of the Google search results.
Overall these new features have a huge potential to change the way all Internet users search and find information. As these new features become popular, it will mean your website will have to change too in order to stay on top of your competition.
These new features are located to the left of the search screen and only after some results have been displayed. If you don't see this feature right away, click the option called "Show search tools".
- Carl Sconnely, President of Systems 2000, Inc.
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5/3/10 - Don’t be Unsociable – “YouTube For Your Dealership's Success”
To continue with my “Don’t be Unsociable” blog series, this week I will be going over how to get your dealership recognized on YouTube.
YouTube is the single largest online video site and provides over 300 million visitors worldwide with over 5 billion video streams monthly. This means that on average, every user that visits YouTube watches over 16 videos a month. YouTube also is the 4th most visited website on the Internet.
YouTube, like all other social networking websites, requires that you to create a free account in order to start posting videos. Once your account is created, you will be presented with your “Channel” page. From the tabs at the top of this page, you can customize the colors, theme, and features to be displayed on your page. Please note that under the settings tab there is a place to enter your channel’s title and tags. These two fields are extremely important for the SEO (search engine optimization) of your channel, and your words and phrases should be selected carefully. If your dealership’s website has already been optimized, refer to the title and keyword tags from your homepage to help decide on a good title and tags. YouTube users are able to follow you from your channel page and receive updates of your new videos and announcements.
Now that your dealership has a Channel page, it’s time to upload your videos. To do this, click on Upload at the top of the screen. Next, click the upload video button and simply select the video you would like to upload. Along with unit videos, your dealership can upload testimonials, RV maintenance tips, sales event footage, and even TV advertisements that you are running. Another benefit of YouTube is the fact that you can embed your video on almost any other website for free. Simply click the embed button and copy and paste the code.
YouTube will then automatically process the video and present you with options to add a title, description, and tags to the video clip. Similar to your Channel page, these fields are almost more important than the video you are uploading. This title and description will help your video be found on the Internet and is also what is shown when your video is listed as a search result. Because of this, if you are uploading a video on a particular unit, be sure to be unique and descriptive with your titles and descriptions. It is always a good idea to use “regional” terms such as city, state, or area in your titles and descriptions as well. Also, don’t forget to include a link to your dealership’s website in the description (http://www.mydealership.com) to help drive traffic to your homepage.
This was just a basic run through of YouTube, but I'm sure you can see that it is a quick, easy, and free way to integrate video into your dealership's marketing strategy. YouTube videos can be created with almost any digital video camera, so there is no need to make a huge investment to test the waters - a basic video camera should be sufficient. Be sure to check back next week for more dealership social networking tips and remember, "Don't be Unsociable!"
- Carl Sconnely, President of Systems 2000, Inc.
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4/12/10 - Don’t be Unsociable – “Keep Your Dealership LinkedIn”
This is the fourth installment of my "Don't be Unsociable" series, and is dedicated to teaching your dealership to leverage the power of the professional networking site LinkedIn.
For those of you not familiar with LinkedIn, it is the worlds largest business professional networking website that is host to over 65 million users. The site allows users to keep in touch with co-workers, network with people in the industry, find new prospects, ask/answer industry questions, and post available job positions.
A successful strategy on LinkedIn differs greatly from Facebook and Twitter because the LinkedIn social environment is far less casual. All communications should be fairly formal and business in nature.
Here are the top 5 uses that every dealership can benefit from by signing up for LinkedIn.
1) Create and maintain online 20 Groups - Find and reach out to other non-competing dealers to share industry thoughts and ideas. This is a great tool for dealers that previously were unable to attend regular 20 group meetings or dealers simply wishing to supplement their existing meetings. Private discussions can be started and participated in by members when time allows.
2) Find quality employees - Everyone knows that quality employees are hard to find. This is due to the fact that many quality employees are rarely seeking new positions. By posting your job on LinkedIn, you make it searchable by over 65 million users. Your job listing may also be shared with your network and by doing this, a user may forward it to a friend that they feel the job is a good fit for.
3) Create a LinkedIn group - By creating a group for your prospects, your dealership can initiate group discussions, easily share upcoming events or sales, and use "People Search" to reach out to your follower's contacts.
4) Become an industry expert - By using the "Answers" section of LinkedIn, you have the ability to brand yourself as an expert. LinkedIn records your contributions and gives you an expertise rating based on your correct answers. On the flip side as well, you have the ability to ask questions to other industry professionals.
5) Your dealership's presence alone on LinkedIn will provide your prospects with a feeling that your dealership is plugged into today's current technology.
As you can see, LinkedIn can provide your dealership with very specialized benefits that other social networks don't provide. Remember, unlike other social networking sites, LinkedIn is focused on business, professional networking, and personal success. Make sure to take advantage of this excellent social networking opportunity and reach out to all RV industry personnel in your area, because you never know when a win-win opportunity can present itself with a quality employee or business opportunity.
Be sure to check back next week as I continue my "Don't be Unsociable" series with information on the user-driven video social network phenomenon known as YouTube.
- Carl Sconnely, President of Systems 2000, Inc.
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4/5/10 - Don’t be Unsociable – “Tweets and Twitters.”
If you have been following my “Don’t be Unsociable” blog series thus far, your dealership has probably already started down the road to Facebook success but don’t forget about Twitter. Twitter is still a hugely popular and efficient way to spread the word on just about everything.
Twitter is designed for text message blasting and like Facebook is a free social networking website! Messages sent out through Twitter are called “Tweets” (both are forms of communication between birds) which are brief 140-character messages that are displayed in chronological order on your follower’s profile pages and they can automatically have tweets forwarded to their cellphones. Due to most cell phone providers capping the text message character limits of cell phones at 160-characters, the guys at Twitter decided to limit tweeting to a 140-character message and an additional 20-characters to add the sender’s username to identify the source of the message.
Understanding Twitter is about as easy as understanding how, when and what you should be sending your potential customers.
How:
How to send from and manage your Twitter account is very important and there are many 3rd party programs available to help you do this. These outside programs typically include advanced organization features, which can allow you to categorize your followers into as many different groups as you would like. Other programs can automatically track what people are saying about your dealership and some programs will even scan Twitter to find potential people you should reach out to based on advanced search criteria.
When:
When to send a Tweet is very important as your followers are receiving Tweets from sometimes hundreds of other people over the course of a day. Because not all twitter users have Tweets forwarded to their cell phones, if not timed correctly your tweet will be pushed off of your follower's home page before it is even seen. A good way to gauge the best Twitter time for your dealership is to review your website’s daily visitor traffic statistics (Google Analytics or other website tracking software) to determine your busiest internet traffic time of the day. This will tell you between which hours your potential customers are typically online with free time to maximize your chances for exposure.
What:
Tweets can be about practically anything. It’s ok to tweet about a sale you are having or a service special but be careful to not only tweet about this. Try tweeting a link to an interesting RV story or informative website. Send tweets to introduce new staff members or maybe ask people opinions on a product. You only get 140-characters so be direct and to the point. If you have long story, put it on your website and tweet a link to it. There are many free websites that specialize in shortening URL links so that you will waste less space providing a link.
Now that you have an idea about how, when and what to tweet to your potential customers, be sure to integrate your Twitter pressence with your dealership website and Facebook account. There are many widgets available that can automatically display your most recent tweets on your website and allow other people to forward your tweets onto their friends with the click of a button.
Remember, “Don’t be Unsociable” and be sure to check back next week, as I will be covering the advantages of the business professional networking website LinkedIn.
- Carl Sconnely, President of Systems 2000, Inc.
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3/29/2010 - Don't Be Unsociable. – Part 2
Last week I covered a few basic techniques on how to get a dealership Facebook account off the ground, so this week I will be expanding on some techniques you can use to keep your newfound Facebook friends coming back for more.
The main drive of your Facebook page should always be meaningful and constantly changing content. Unless you have a fun viral advertising video or an amazing custom widget you have developed, consumers will only keep coming back to your Facebook page if there is regularly updated information. Educate consumers on how to maintain their RV's, what processes set you apart from all other RV dealers, or maybe offer periodic reviews on destinations that all RVers should make a point to visit.
Remember to post messages on your wall consistently but not incessantly. Try to avoid direct marketing statements such as a specific unit for sale at this price but instead invite your fans to come see updated information, or this weeks RV destination of the week. Try to involve your Facebook fans to post messages/pictures of their most recent trips in the RV they bought from you. Nothing is better marketing than a potential customer seeing happy past customers describing their perfect vacations.
Take advantage of the Facebook communities wide selection of widgets or apps. Facebook has two good editing tools called FaceBook Markup Language (FBML) and Facebook Video. FBML allows you to give your dealership's Facebook page a custom feel and Facebook Video lets you share videos with all of your fans.
In short, remember to communicate with your fans by engaging in a two way stream of communication and make your Facebook business page a source of valuable information. Facebook users won't immediately find you and show up to buy an RV they have to trust you first and the rest is soon to follow.
Be sure to check back next week, as I will be moving on to helping your dealership understand the power of Twitter.
- Carl Sconnely, President of Systems 2000, Inc.
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3/22/2010 - Don't Be Unsociable. – Part 1
Most dealerships are already familiar or at least aware of Internet social marketing in the form of Facebook, My Space, and Twitter; but very few know how to effectively use these tools to help nurture a successful following to increase business.
Today, in Part 1, I will be covering tips for dealerships to successfully use B2C (business to consumer) social marketing on Facebook and then next week I will follow up with best dealership practices for other social sites.
The most important thing to remember when creating a Facebook account is that they do not allow business branded profiles. Facebook periodically removes those accounts, so make sure your dealership treads carefully if you have already done this. The best way to go about getting started is to create a business fan page for your dealership and then have additional personal accounts to help drive traffic.
To start with, how are you getting customers to your Facebook page? Just simply having a link on your website or mentioning it to customers is almost never enough.
The first step to social network success is to create motivation for future and current customers to become your fan. Do this is by creating a contest or offer special discounts only available to your Facebook fans. A monthly $50 or $100 gift certificate drawing is a small price to pay to grow a loyal following of potential customers that check your Facebook wall and messages regularly. Also, with over 95 million Facebook users in the US alone, chances are most of your customers already have an account, so be sure to not forget about friend inviting your recent customers. Last week, Facebook even passed Google briefly as the most visited website on the internet.
Make sure your dealership takes advantage of the huge amount of demographic data available on Facebook. Reach out and join Facebook groups with users that have interests that align with RVing and post messages on the group wall. If a group doesn’t exist in your area that includes RVing, go ahead and create your own. This can be a tedious task but can be rewarding when you connect with a group of interested customers.
Getting a customer to be your fan/friend however is only the beginning of a successful social marketing campaign. To truly see results you need to regularly engage your newfound Facebook friends.
Remember, Facebook isn’t just another ad space; it’s a social network that can be used to grow a large number of future customers. Be sure to check back next week, as I will be going over even more tips and tricks for maintaining a successful dealership Facebook account.
- Carl Sconnely, President of Systems 2000, Inc.
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3/8/2010 - Feed Your Mouse A Little Rat Poison
In 1963, Dr. Douglas Engelbart of the Stanford Research Institute developed the first prototype of a computer pointing device which could allow a user to navigate on a computer screen without the use of a keyboard. This new invention was quickly dubbed “mouse” because of the tail-like wire that protruded from it.
Since then, the mouse has quickly become almost a necessity when dealing with any computer running a modern operating system, such as Microsoft Windows®.
In the RV business however, the mouse occasionally becomes troublesome for non-windows users when upgrading from an older DOS-based dealership software system to a modern Windows®-based one. This transition is typically toughest in the parts and service departments because many employees were trained years ago on computer systems requiring little or no mouse movement.
If you are one of those people that don’t consider the mouse to be an improvement, don’t get discouraged. Microsoft didn’t forget about mouse-haters everywhere and has built in a variety of keyboard commands that allow non-mouse users to do practically everything that their mouse wielding co-workers can.
Sometimes there are programs which do not have keyboard hot keys and a user must resort to emulating mouse movements by using the directional pad on your keyboard. To do this, you have to activate your mouse alternative by pressing three keys at once, the “Alt”, the left “Shift” key, and the “Num Lock” key all at the same time. To deactivate this just press the same button combination again.
While browsing with your keyboard mouse buttons, you can hold down the “Ctrl” button to speed up the cursor movement or press the “Shift” button to slow it down for precise clicking. To emulate a left click, push the “5” button and to right-click, hold down the “*” button and push “5.”
To navigate on an internet page or fields within a program, the “Tab” button will typically allow you to change the focus of the cursor to the next available field and by pushing “Shift” + “Tab” it will cycle through in reverse the order. The “Enter” button will push the default button on the page such as "Submit."
Also, many programs designed in Windows® have menu bars that have an underlined letter (example: File) on the menu. This underline defines the Alt-shortcut character which can be pushed along with the "Alt" button to open the menu or make the section.
On most keyboards designed for Windows®, there is a "Windows" button on the bottom left and/or right of the keyboard. By using a variety of character combinations and the "Windows" key it will provide a shortcut to many commonly used Windows® functions. To launch “My Computer,” push “Windows” and “E.” To open the Search dialog box, push “Windows” + “F”.
Another helpful keyboard command is “Alt” + “F4”. This function works by closing out programs or unwanted pop-up windows and can also be used to shut down Windows® itself if no programs are open.
Keep in mind there are many more commands out there for keyboard power users but these handful of commands should be a good starting point to begin navigating through Windows® without the use of a mouse.
If you don't want to use keyboard short cuts and have an acute aversion to having a rodent in your hand, there are alternative pointing devices, such as a track ball, glide pad, or a touch screen monitor.
The technology has evolved to help mouse-haters everywhere exterminate their rodent problem without those messy poisons.
- Carl Sconnely, President of Systems 2000, Inc.
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3/1/2010 - Always Fly First or Business Class When Traveling the Internet Part 2.
As I covered in last week’s blog “Always Fly First or Business Class When Traveling the Internet – Part 1,” RV Dealerships have become increasingly reliant on the Internet in recent years, but many dealerships fail to realize the importance of using the proper bandwidth and network components to keep their businesses running successfully.
Your network is only as strong as its weakest link. Just because your dealership has made the jump to a business level Internet connection such as a T1, doesn’t mean that your network will suddenly be lightning fast.
Last week, I mentioned that Systems 2000 typically recommends to our dealers Cisco, SonicWALL, Netgear, Netopia, and Watchguard network component brands. Lately, I have received a lot of questions about specific models we felt worked the best. To answer this, we recommend the Cisco ASA 5505 Router. This router not only operates as a typical high-end router, but also as a VPN and Firewall. The ASA 5505 is easy to configure, and although other models could possibly save you $150 in upfront costs, the reliability and scalability of this piece of hardware will pay for itself ten-fold with fewer tech visits.
You will want to limit your employees from using “unnecessary” real time streaming video and audio to greatly improve the Internet experience for your entire dealership.
There are 3 main ways of doing this:
1) The first method involves tweaking the settings on your firewall. By going into your firewall management program, you should be able to “prohibit” certain website URLs from being accessed on your network. This can also be done on a per user basis, which will allow you to still give your Internet manager and salesmen the ability to perform their typical duties. This eliminates the distractions of any non-work related bandwidth hogging sites such as YouTube, MySpace, and Facebook.
2) The second way of limiting access would be to disable certain programs from running, such as Windows Media Player, QuickTime, etc. to ensure that non-work related video streaming and web surfing is held to a minimum. This is less effective because there are a variety of smaller alternative programs to view videos.
3) Some of our clients have resorted to blocking the Internet completely for non-managerial users.
As with most decisions in a dealership, you should have a strategy meeting to determine who needs access and where they need it.
It is important that dealerships have in place an Employee Internet Policy section of their handbook. This section should state a zero tolerance of non-essential use, personal shopping, and offensive sites.
Unfortunately, some rural dealerships and campsites are still without the option of high speed internet. I have gotten a few inquiries that ask what a dealership limited to a dial-up connection can do for a faster internet experience in a rural area. There are a couple of options available and you will want to purchase the highest bandwidth available from the supplier of your choice:
1) Satellite internet is available to anyone that has a view of the sky. This allows even the most remote dealership to have a reasonably fast internet connection. Typically satellite receivers cost about $500 and the monthly internet service plans vary between $50-$100.
2) The second option is the use of long range WiFi. This is very similar to a standard WiFi connection but on a slightly larger scale. This is great for multi-location dealers with locations within 5 miles of each other. If one location has a good internet connection and another is lacking, a powerful transmitter can be installed to provide internet between both locations. The cost of this is roughly $50-$75/month.
3) The third and probably the most common way of bringing internet connectivity to rural areas recently is with the 3G wireless data card. These cards are able to pick up internet almost anywhere you can get a cell phone signal. Although the upload/download speeds are slightly slower than the other options, they are the most portable and are very useful at RV shows. Be sure to opt for a provider who supplies 3G service in your area. Monthly service plans usually run about $30-$100.
Once again, if you are currently having Internet related problems, feel free to email me a copy of your services and I will have our engineers take a quick look and offer some suggestions. Email cs@sys2.com, Subject: Internet Connectivity.
- Carl Sconnely, President of Systems 2000, Inc.
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2/22/2010 - Always Fly First Class or Business Class when traveling the Internet.
RV Dealerships have become increasing more reliant on the Internet in recent years. Dealerships rely on Internet leads to fuel up to 60% of their unit sales, RV Parts and Service departments almost exclusively use the Internet to place online parts orders or submit warranty claims, and there's a growing trend is to use hosted or web-based DMS servers to reduce overall IT costs.
As dealers make decisions as to the services they wish to incorporate into their website, internal processes, or DMS software, software companies often hear the complaint that their Internet service is unreliable, slow, or down right non-existent. I have yet to see a case where these issues are not easily resolved; in fact the hardest part is just trying figure out what the dealership is paying for. Like understanding the restrictions on your frequent flyer miles, your bandwidth may only be available when that first class customer isn't using it.
Don't fly coach. Business-class Internet connections come with many features that average Internet connections do not. The first and most obvious benefit of this connection is the increased upload and download speeds. Upload is when you take data, such as pictures, and copy them from your computer to your website or some other computer. Download is when you copy data from another computer to your local machine or server. Be aware that you may have purchased slower upload speeds than download. Upload speeds are more important in a dealership since you are trying to move those all-important pictures onto the Internet as quickly as possible.
Most ISPs (Internet Service Providers) will guarantee a QOS (Quality of Service) with a business class Internet connection. This means that your dealership will be guaranteed a set bandwidth speed as opposed to a standard Internet, which could fluctuate depending on the usage of other Internet customers in the area.
If you are unsure what your current connection speed is, your ISP can provide “speed test” results, which can be used to help gauge your available bandwidth.
Your network is only as strong as its weakest link. Some dealerships make the jump to a business level Internet connection such as a T1 but never properly upgrade their network to handle the increased bandwidth. Your Internet may not be going down, it could just be the router or other equipment that links your in-house network to the Internet. If your dealership has a low quality firewall, router, or switch it could severely limit your Internet speed internally. If you have a business-class Internet service, you should always have a business-class firewall, router, and switch as well. Systems 2000 typically recommends to our dealers Cisco, SonicWALL, Netgear, Netopia, and Watchguard brands because they all offer high quality business-class networking solutions.
In next week's article, we will continue the discussion with VoIP (voice over IP), diagnosing problems, static IP addresses, and how to squeeze all the performance out of your bandwidth.
If you are currently having Internet related problems, feel free to email me a copy of your services and I will have our engineers take a quick look and offer some suggestions. Email cs@sys2.com, Subject: Internet Connectivity.
Until then, remember, your Internet is as important as your phone system - don't fly coach!
- Carl Sconnely, President of Systems 2000, Inc.
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2/17/2010 - NTP Distribution Connectivity Launch in Palm Springs CA.
Systems 2000 will be demonstrating the NTP parts inventory communication link at NTP's annual trade show in Palm Springs CA. The show is scheduled to run this Tuesday through Thursday.
This is more than just an electronic file upload of a purchase order; its an active communications link that displays current availability, pricing, purchase order submission, and e-packing slips.
It is the biggest step forward in RV industry communications in years and hopefully other suppliers and DMS companies will follow suit. This type of business development isn't just good for NTP and Systems 2000, it's good for the entire industry. As overhead is lowered and order processing and delivery speeds are increased, the RV Industry will be able to move more product and raise customer satisfaction levels.
If you're a dealer attending the show, stop by to take a look at the interface. For those not attending, Systems 2000 will be scheduling a webinar to demonstrate the new connectivity in the near future.
Dealers not using Systems 2000 should call their DMS provider and urge them to create a similar interface.
- Carl Sconnely, President of Systems 2000, Inc.
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2/9/2010 - DMS Comparison Guide - We're Getting Close.
Last week I had the privilege of being able to present our software to a very knowledgeable dealer 20 group. Within the allotted time, we tried to cover as much of the important aspects of our software as possible. I enjoyed the interaction with the dealers in the room, as their questions were intelligent, insightful, and to the point. This group called the "RV Profit Group" and moderated by Lee Berryman, contains some of the most successful dealers in the country; but more importantly, all members in attendance of the presentation are currently running on IDS. We made our presentation on Monday and then IDS was invited to make their presentation the following day.
What is so important about this meeting is that dealers were able to look at both companies and make comparison between the two software systems.. I have always been a big proponent of RVDA or RVIA doing a side by side comparison of the systems available to the RV industry. This would be an independent and un-biased comparison that dealers could use to shorten the evaluation period when deciding on purchasing or switching software systems.
Until that time, I can only suggest that more dealer groups follow suit. It is helpful to have your peers in the room asking the questions that one might not think of. It also allows the group to discuss features and benefits as they might apply to their niche. And in the end, they can probably negotiate a group rate with the company of their choice.
At the end of the meeting, we were also asked how Independence RV was doing. At the current moment, Ronnie and Julie Jordan are taking an extended trip to the Winter Olympics in their new custom RV. As I have written in the past, dealers using the right technology can be productive from anywhere in the world, and Independence RV is no exception. The dealership is completely up and running on the Systems 2000 software and things are flowing smoothly. Julie had asked for some minor customizations, such as giving the cashier the ability to apply a pay on account to multiple invoices. Currently the cashiers' privileges only allow a payment to be applied to one invoice due. This change is complete and we will install it for her as a welcome home gift.
The next conversion that were are gearing up for is Don McNamara's Giant Recreation World, a three location IDS dealer that is set to go live on March 1st 2010. We are currently in the process of converting the initial data for the appointed staff to review. We will keep everyone posted on the progress.
- Carl Sconnely, President of Systems 2000, Inc.
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2/3/2010 - SQL: Behind every great dealership software package is a great database system
Databases are the core of almost every software program from Apple's iTunes to your dealership management system, but what makes one better than the other? Database servers come in many different sizes and contain different features.
Software for an RV dealership requires a database that can handle thousands of simultaneous database transactions, be secure to handle sensitive customer information, and be flexible enough to integrate with RV manufacturers and part suppliers.
Because of these reasons, Microsoft® SQL Server is the database of choice for Systems 2000. Outside the RV industry, many other large corporations rely on SQL server environments as well because it is accepted as a “commercial” level database server. MySpace, the popular social website, manages 8 billion "Friend" relationships, and stores 34 billion e-mail messages all through Microsoft® SQL Server. MySpace's databases contain over 1 petabyte of data (that’s 1 million gigabytes)!
Energizer Corporation manufactures batteries, flashlights, and a variety of other consumer products that are currently sold in more than 150 countries. Because of the large number of markets they compete in, Energizer uses an easy-to-use enterprise resource planning solution for some of its global locations that is backed by Microsoft® SQL Server.
Microsoft® SQL Server was designed to store and process terabytes (1,000 gigabytes) worth of data as opposed to earlier database systems such as Microsoft Access which topped out at about a gigabyte. A terabyte probably seems like an astronomical number, but keep in mind that the average computer sold now comes with a 500 gigabyte hard drive and hard drive data storage technology has been doubling its size every 18 months for the last 15 years. If this is true, the average sized hard drive for a home computer will be a terabyte in less than 18 months.
Microsoft® SQL Server comes in different levels which makes it scalable to any size company. For smaller companies there is a free version called Microsoft® SQL Server Express which includes basic database functions and can handle storing up to 4 gigabytes of data. The Microsoft® SQL Server Express version is also limited by only using one CPU processor and 1 gigabyte of memory to handle data processing. As companies grow and begin using the regular versions of SQL, database size, CPU and memory restrictions are removed which drastically increases performance. If you are using the express version and start to see a performance drop or are approachingthe 4 gigabyte limit, you should look into upgrading to the full version.
The most current version of Microsoft® SQL Server is the 2008 version. There are many improvements but on the user side, you simply need to know it runs faster. Another major enhancement in is when database backups are created they are now automatically compressed to save disk space.
Another logical reason for the use of Microsoft® SQL Server comes right from part of its name, “Microsoft.” SQL is designed to work with Windows© and has a natural integration to other Windows©-based software. Because of this, integrations to other Windows© systems are far easier to establish than when doing the same in a UNIX or other operating system. Because Windows is the most popular operating system in the world, it ideally makes Microsoft® SQL Server a perfect match for dealerships using or looking to move to Windows© on their own in-house servers.
Remember when shopping for a dealership software package to always look under the hood. Make sure the database server is a good fit for your dealership.
- Carl Sconnely, President of Systems 2000, Inc.
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1/25/2010 - The Evolution of Integration Provides a New Path of Least Resistance for Dealers
In order to truly succeed, businesses have to change with the times. This doesn't just mean that RV dealers need to change and use new technologies and practices, but that all businesses associated with the industry need to step up and take part in the evolution.
Our industry has gone through a lot in just 5 short years and apart from the transformation of our economic landscape, the majority of change has stemmed from the technology we use to sell RVs. Websites have gone from being optional to a necessary tool of survival. Dealership management systems have become increasingly important as dealers strive to increase efficiency, reach a wider audience with higher sales penetration, and monitor profits and productivity more closely. The next form of technology-driven evolution to sweep through the RV industry is coming in the form of part supplier integrations.
For years, auto-makers have striven to create lean and efficient parts ordering practices in both manufacturing and at the dealer level through the use of supply chain and dealership management systems. This knowledge & technology will hopefully soon be a standard within the RV industry, giving dealers the information and control they need to run more efficient parts departments than ever before.
This week, Systems 2000 added NTP to a growing list of parts supplier integrations. As with prior integrations, we expect NTP to see an immediate increase in orders due to the seamless ease of ordering parts through their Systems 2000 PO Software.
We are very excited about this particular integration because it is expanding the typical level of integration that most parts suppliers have with a dealership software company.
The new NTP electronic parts ordering integration will allow dealers ordering NTP parts to do so directly from a purchase order. Before placing a parts order, item availability can be checked to eliminate any delays that could arise from back-ordered parts. Once NTP receives the order, their system will send an electronic confirmation back to the Systems 2000 Dealership Software. At the time when NTP ships the inventory, an electronic version of the packing slip will automatically be transmitted to the receiving clerks' module which saves key punch time and errors.
What I see that is different in this effort is NTP's drive and commitment to assist dealers. Bob Mortar, the NTP Smart Teams, and other company staff are on a mission to make dealers more profitable. If you had a chance to stop by their booth in Louisville, you may have noticed the optimism and energy coming from those working the convention.
The development schedule of this integration is very aggressive, with the release set for the NTP show on February 16th through February 19th in Palm Springs, California. Fortunately, everyone is on board for making sure the deadline is met. It's hard work but also rewarding knowing that the industry as a whole will benefit.
I truly feel that this high level of parts ordering integration will be the next industry standard. NTP's committment to creating strong, profitable dealerships within our industry coincides directly with our mission here at Systems 2000, Inc. We are very much looking forward to working with the NTP team.
We urge all software companies to contact NTP and create integration on this level. And we ask that all manufacturers and other suppliers contact RV software companies to start moving in the same direction. This will benefit everyone in the RV industry.
- Carl Sconnely, President of Systems 2000, Inc.
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1/18/2010 - New Blog: Top 7 things I like about Windows 7 Professional
Windows 7 is now out and I have had the pleasure of using it for over a month now. I believe Microsoft has done a pretty good job with this version and I have put together my top 7 features of Windows 7. Like all software, if you are contemplating upgrading to Windows 7 make sure it's the professional version. Never try to use a home version of software or hardware in a business environment.
1) Snap - Snap is a quick new way to resize open windows by dragging them to the edges of your screen. This is especially helpful when you want to compare two screens side by side. Just drag the first window to the far left of your screen. Windows 7 will resize to fit the left half of your screen; then do the same with the next window to the right. You will now have two side by side screens.
By using snap in a dealership environment, it will allow employees to easily manage multiple modules of a dealership software package without having to minimize anything.
2) Live Taskbar Previews - Employees that are multitasking all day long will have more programs running on their computer than others. I know personally that when I have several windows minimized to my task bar, I have trouble finding the correct window to click on and open. With Windows 7, as my mouse passes over the task bar, mini versions of the program instantly display and disappear. So if I have 4 sessions of Internet Explorer running, the mini-windows make it easy to click on the window I am looking for. Click on the full screen image, and you can start working with it immediately. You can even close windows from the thumbnail previews—a big time saver.
3) Pin - If you’re like me, you may have as many icons on your screen as you do papers lying on your desk. Just pin the most used icons to your task bar and they are easily found when you need them. One big improvement is the ability to control where your programs appear on your taskbar. If you want your web browser right next to the start button, just drag the icon where you want it; it will stay there until you move it. You can even pin specific documents and web sites to your taskbar.
4) Windows Search - In Windows 7, the Search results are more relevant and easier to review. It works in a drill down fashion. Type 'Cas' and you will see all the programs and documents with ‘Cas’ in the description. The more you type, such as 'Cash Deposits,’ the system instantly refines the search. Now, you can find more things in more places, and do it faster.
5) Shake - Is for when you are very busy and have several windows open at one time. To quickly clear the desktop of all but one window, click and hold the left button (on that window), then shake your mouse. Every open window, except that one instantly disappears. Shake it again—and your windows reappear.
6) Sleep and Resume - One of my favorites, since I carry my laptop to and from the office. Windows 7 is ready when you are. When I'm at the office, Windows 7 instantly connects to the office network. When I go home and open the laptop it sees the home network and automatically switches over to it; then it reconnects to all my websites and programs that were open at the office - as if I never left.
7) Play To - There are many dealerships that take advantage of playing unit videos and slideshows for customers on a second monitor while paperwork is being processed. By using the "play to" feature in Windows 7 it is much easier for you to manage what plays on the second screen.
- Carl Sconnely, President of Systems 2000, Inc.
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1/11/2010 - New Blog: Major Advancement From US Bank
For those of you who have followed my blogs, back in October I wrote an article called,"Why Do Banks Make the Simplest Things So Difficult?" The article started off with "For decades, banks have spent millions of dollars on the printing, warehousing, and distribution of financial contracts. We are now in the 21st century and laser bank contracts should be the norm. Let me reiterate: 'Should Be' but unfortunately they’re not."
Finally, US Bank has stepped up to the plate and has done a fantastic job. Not only have they created a royalty free laser contract, they created one that works in all 50 states and is formatted on 8.5" X 11" paper. Yes, a letter sized laser bank contract! This means, if you have an in-house computer system that's capable of printing laser documents, you no longer have to use those outdated multi-copy forms.
US Bank took a big step forward by using technology that saves themselves millions of dollars, while providing a hassle free way for dealers to print forms. This is an absolute "Win/Win" scenario. For years, banks would purchase contracts pre-printed and in bulk quantities, paying for the printing fees upfront. Many of these contracts were never used and disposed of at the bank or dealership level, which is an unnecessary waste. Laser contracts make perfect sense to the bank and the dealer. The bank no longer has to purchase thousands of copies of contracts, and the dealers can test print as many as they like and with ease and speed, without worrying about running out of contracts or alignment issues.
When US Bank decides to make a change to the contract, they only need to supply the dealer with a new background image. This image can be broadcast via e-mail or downloaded from a website; and for computer programmers, it makes their job easier and provides faster service for the dealer.
The RV industry benefits from this type of technology and support from its suppliers - we need other banks and companies to follow suit. If you're using US Bank, get your software company to program the new laser form for you. And this is not meant to be an endorsement, but if you're not using US Bank, you might want to consider supporting a company that is helping to move the industry forward.
- Carl Sconnely, President of Systems 2000, Inc.
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1/4/2010 - New Blog: My Personal Economic Indicators
In 25 years of providing computer systems to dealerships in various markets, it has surprised me how our sales trends can predict a swing in economic indicators long before the government or national news agencies even start reporting the results.
About ten years ago, I started to analyze our vertical market sales and compared them to the state of the economy. By grouping our sales and revenues into four categories, RV, Marine/PowerSports, Automotive, and Heavy Equipment/Other, I could see a trend that would signal everything from economic “dooms day” to “our cup runneth over.”
As an industry became confident, it would start to prepare and build its infrastructure to accommodate growth; thus we would see an upswing in software sales to that particular industry. Conversely, if there was lack of confidence, we would see a dip in sales or the reluctance of a dealer to purchase needed software.
The trends by industry played out like this:
Disclaimer: The following information is only Carl’s observation and opinion and should not be used as an investment strategy. These trends could be influenced by other factors, such as the sun setting in the west, change of direction of the wind, or the raising of taxes.
If our marine and powersports software revenue dips, it tells me to proceed with caution. Boats, motorcycles, ATVs etc., are non-essential pleasure items, normally purchased by males, with or without the consent of their significant other. When there is enough money to buy the wife a nice piece of jewelry before she makes you take that bass boat back, it means times are good in this industry and times are usually also good everywhere else.
If our automotive and heavy equipment revenue swings from CRM software sales to service department software sales, this indicates that dealers are shifting investment dollars from their sales department to the service operation. Furthermore, it shows that the slow down is hitting main stream America and people are holding off on purchases and opting to repair older units instead. In addition, with both service and CRM software sales down in this industry, it signifies a "zero confidence" economy as the consumer continues to drive his vehicle, despite a cloud of black smoke trailing behind and showing everyone where he’s been.
The RV industry software revenues are the first to come back and the last to diminish. When our RV dealership revenues dip, I don’t need to watch the news to know the economy is in the “you know where.” My guess is that RV purchasing is a planned event and a lifestyle change. It is normally done with the consent of both husband and wife, with good credit and somewhat financially sound decision making processes.
What I have seen for the fourth quarter of 2009 is that our RV software sales are up and there is a swing from service to CRM in the automotive industry. Theses industries are improving their infrastructure and the trend seems to be continuing. Based on our RV software sales, I think the outlook for 2010 is looking up.
Systems 2000 is not alone; among the 10 major industry sectors in the S&P's 500 index, tech stocks have rallied nearly 61 percent in 2009. The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite index is up almost 45 percent and in the latest survey, Russell Investments attributes tech stocks' allure to solid growth prospects and strong balance sheets. Other companies, like RV dealers, are investing in their future with more confidence than in the past.
I hope everyone had a great New Year and hope 2010 is a year that RV dealers see a 61% or more rally in revenues.
- Carl Sconnely, President of Systems 2000, Inc.
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12/22/2009 - New Blog: United Again by Bluetooth - Wireless Technology Brings Our Devices Together
Legend has it that King Harald the Fairhaired of Norway's rise to power was fueled by his desire to marry a neighboring king's beautiful daughter. Told by the daughter that she'd only consider him if he ruled all of Norway, Harald immediately set off to conquer all the neighboring Norwegian tribes. He won the heart of his fair maiden, who eventually bore him a son to follow in his footsteps. Harald's son Eirik also married his true love, Gunnhildr, who upon his untimely death fled to her native Denmark for the help of her brother: Harald Bluetooth.
Determined to keep Norway in one piece, as it was under Harald Fairhair, Bluetooth swept through and conquered Norway, bringing it together with his native Denmark. This unification of two countries and hundreds of tribes is what his name is so famous for.
In 1994, a milenium after Bluetooth's great feat, Ericsson Mobile Communications, a world leader in telecommunications, initiated a study to investigate the feasibility of a low-power, low-cost radio interface between mobile phones and their accessories. The study was so successful that just four years later a Special Interest Group (SIG) was born and brought Ericsson together with Nokia, IBM, Toshiba and Intel. These five companies set out to change the way our gadgets interact and chose Harald Bluetooth as their representative to unite individual and competing devices together.
Bluetooth technology is mostly known for mobile phone headsets, however it's also used for all types of technology connectivity. Just recently shipped to the United States are some of the first Bluetooth enabled computer monitors. This eliminates the the wires going from the computer to the monitor and can allow other devices, such as mobile phones, to display on the monitor. I envision the use of these monitors in the finance department. It is my personal opinion that the finance department should always be clean and organized - just as if it's an extension of the bank. Like a bank, this atmosphere gives the customer a feeling of order and professionalism. Having a wireless monitor gets rid of the ugly cables and allows the finance manager to easily turn the monitor in the direction of the customer if they are not using a dual monitor setup.
Very soon all devices as we know them today will be be wireless (even replacing the power cord!) but thats another blog in the future. For more information on Bluetooth techology and how it works, visit www.bluetooth.com.
I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday from all of us here at Systems 2000, Inc.
- Carl Sconnely, President of Systems 2000, Inc.
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12/14/2009 - New Blog: Digipad Image Technology
In our constant endeavor to make RV Dealerships completely paperless, we have recently found a promising product called Digipad.
In the past we have experimented with devices known as Tablet PCs. Tablet PC technology is fairly expensive and quite heavy when carrying around a service bay all day.
For under $150 each, the Digipads are reasonable enough for almost any dealership to afford. They are lighter (like a clip pad) and little more durable if accidentally dropped.
The product looks and functions very similar to a normal paper clipboard but electronically records everything written on it. All handwriting is captured as an image file which can be easily transferred and stored on your computer.
In short, the Digipad replaces the need to scan a handwritten document. Like the Tablet PCs, there is a handwriting translator that works fairly well, but until a dealership software system can accept the converted text and insert it into the appropriate fields on a screen, this feature won't be very useful.
I have tested the Digipad as a service write-up sheet and it worked fairly well with one exception: when the image was transferred to the computer it became a little skewed and I will be contacting the manufacturer to see if there is a fix for that issue.
I envision using this technology for customer write-up sheets, mechanic R.O. notes, and possibly credit applications.
We will be doing more tests on the Digipad and will eventually put it out to some test dealers. We’ll keep everyone posted as to if and when the quirks are resolved and whether or not it truly helps the dealership.
- Carl Sconnely, President of Systems 2000, Inc.
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11/30/2009 - RVIA Kickoff In Louisville Kentucky
With a slow economy, attendance is expected to be down for all trade shows as companies try to cut expenses. I understand the reasoning behind not going to a trade show but companies should always send at least one representative to scout out new ideas, products, and services.
The cost of a flight, hotel, and other expenses are easily compensated with a show discount or an idea that brings in an extra deal or two in the coming year.
RVIA, like all trade shows, has two strong days and one final day where most vendors are just standing around trying to kill time. Most dealers are already on their way home before the convention even opens its doors on Thursday morning. For dealers, the third day is actually the best day to spend quality time with show vendors. They can get questions answered and in-depth demonstrations of products without waiting in line or mixing with a crowd of other dealers.
Many times, dealers come to our booth wanting to speak to a particular person, only to find them tied up with someone else. With other appointments and flight schedules looming, they cannot wait or even come back at a later time.
I believe it would be beneficial for RVIA to promote 3rd day attendance. Possibly with vendor discounts, hotel vouchers, training seminars, etc. Vendors would need less staff, dealers would have more time to negotiate deals, and RVIA’s convention would become stronger as everyone would benefit.
How do you think RVIA could promote 3rd day attendance? Or do you think that RVIA should be cut back to a 2 day convention? I would like to hear your opinions.
- Carl Sconnely, President of Systems 2000, Inc.
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11/23/2009 - How to Convert a Multi-Location Dealership System
In continuation of the articles regarding switching Dealer Management Systems, we will soon be documenting and making public the steps, so that any dealership, even those with multiple locations, can easily move from one management system to another.
I have always said that business owners and managers make decisions based on the information that is provided to them. Prevalent in the automotive, marine, and RV industries is the fear of a costly conversion, not only in the upfront software fees but also the loss of wages, information, and sales. By publicizing these conversions, we hope to dispel those myths. There are many great options for dealers to choose from and they should be able to make those choices without fear.
Giant Recreation World, a Central Florida dealership with three locations and over $40 million in sales per year will be moving from their current IDS system to Systems 2000’s Software. Founder and CEO, Don McNamara has agreed to answer questions for any dealers wanting more in-depth information during the switch over.
At Independence RV, processes are running pretty smoothly and we will be entering the 'Bells and Whistles' stage. In this stage, we will start to implement the functionality that separates today’s systems from yesterday’s text or DOS based systems. These bells and whistles will create efficiencies and ultimately increases profits.
Last week, Rainmaker Software’s company president, Chad Carr, did a press release on their CRM enhancement called “360." According to the press release, a dealership’s employee can view all sales information for a customer. The “360” enhancement also automatically notifies the salesperson when their customer’s RV is in for service. I haven’t seen a demonstration of their enhancement, but this type of tool is invaluable for a dealer and represents the type of cutting edge software that today’s dealers should be investing in.
Here at Systems 2000 we want to wish everyone a very safe and happy Thanksgiving and hopefully we will see you at Louisville!
- Carl Sconnely, President of Systems 2000, Inc.
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11/16/2009 - How will Google Caffeine Affect Your Dealership’s Website?
If the first question that pops into your head is “What the heck is Google Caffeine?” you are not alone. Caffeine is the codename for the newest Google website ranking algorithm. Google uses algorithms or formulas that try to figure out how to answer your search question. In turn, website development companies try to get their (or your) websites to the top of the results list.
For years, I have preached to dealers to keep their websites clean, simple, and updated with fresh information, along with having your site written in HTML or ASP.net. These rules are not just for your site rankings but for the person who comes to your website looking for information. You may be impressed with your site, and your web programmer's bank balance may be sky high with all the additional graphics, video, and audio you've paid him to program, but in the end, the only thing that counts is whether the visitor stuck around to get the information he/she needed or if they just moved on to the next site.
The number one reason someone leaves your site before reading any information is speed - or the lack of it. That nice little video introduction or background music might look cool, but try it with dial up or a slower internet connection and then judge for yourself on how cool it really is.
It seems as though the team at Google feels the same way. Why list your site as number one when the number two site is faster? Since Google still commands roughly 70% of all Internet searches, any changes could affect up to 70% of your online business. Many dealerships are living off online leads for unit sales. So this could be devastating depending on how it affects your web page's rankings.
What will be changing? The change, according to Google, will be making its search engine faster, more comprehensive, and accurate.
What will be changing? The change, according to Google, will be making its search engine faster, more comprehensive, and accurate.
As most people are aware, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is simply about making a website friendly to search engines and exploiting their weaknesses. Google Caffeine will make it much harder to exploit ranking weaknesses to gain top ranking spots. Websites will have to rely more on their content than SEO “tricks-of-the-trade” to gain rank.
There are also rumors of real time social media, such as Twitter and Facebook postings becoming more prominent in search results. As most dealerships have discovered, it never hurts to have an active social media presence and now it should benefit your dealership even more. Website load times and size are anticipated to weigh more heavily.
Until Caffeine officially goes live, it will be hard to know what will happen to your dealership’s website rankings. Enjoy the holidays without worries, as Google is delaying the rollout of Caffeine until after shopping season, but be sure to watch your rankings closely in January.
On another note, we would like to thank the NTP Smart Team and Greg Gerber for visiting our headquarters last week. Now they both know that we don’t work out of my garage.
- Carl Sconnely, President of Systems 2000, Inc.
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11/9/2009 - Cyber Wars Are Not Science Fiction
I’m not a “Trekkie” but as a kid with only one TV in the house and an older brother who liked Star Trek, I ended up seeing a few episodes. Even at the age of 10, I questioned the logic behind many of the episodes, especially the one where war was being waged by two computers. Captain Kirk’s logic, which I did agree with at the time, was to just shut down the computer and go bomb the other planet to smithereens.
What Kirk and I didn’t take into account (and unlike our Captain, I have the excuse of only being 10 years old) was that the other system may have already rendered our missiles useless, shut down our power grid, and emptied our bank accounts. Like a soldier with a broken gun, you have no choice but to surrender.
Today, we live in a world where hacking and cyber attacks are not coming from bored, 14 year old kids that get their kicks from deleting your computer files. We now have governments, terrorist organizations, and organized crime working constantly to infiltrate every system on the planet.
If you’re thinking you’re too small and your dealership really isn’t that significant to an organization such as Al Qaeda or the Russian Mafia, think again. What better a treasure than a dealership’s database or information stream. Dealer management systems handle point of sale transactions and F&I information. Credit bureaus are routinely pulled and credit cards are processed daily, leaving only your mother’s maiden name out of the picture, that is, unless your system is tracking the nearest relative not living with you - who just happens to be your mother.
On the Serengeti plains of Africa, the Lion prides feed off the old and weak to sustain themselves. In the business world, organized crime and terrorists search for older and weaker computer systems. With software written before cyber-crime was a gleam in a terrorist or mobster’s eye, these systems are easy to infiltrate and they store years of data that can be used to fund their causes.
Every dealer should ask, "How old is their system and what security upgrades have been made to defend their dealership?" Realize that you, the dealer, are liable for a breach, and worse yet, you may be unknowingly supplying information to one or more of those organizations - right now as you are reading this blog!
- Carl Sconnely, President of Systems 2000, Inc.
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11/2/2009 - Independence RV System Conversion Update
Independence RV is now up and running on Systems 2000’s vehicle inventory module, e-mail, calendar, CRM, F&I, and Drivers License Scanning. We have linked the inventory to Newmar’s website and even set up access to the system via Apple’s iPhone for some of the management team.
This week's “to do” list consists of training the parts and service departments and bringing them live on the system. We had a meeting with Terry Burkhart, the parts department manager, to discuss the data conversion from IDS to Systems 2000. Terry had just finished a full inventory count and had a variance of counted to computer totals of only $200. He has to be commended on his parts accuracy and this type of diligence will eliminate the common issues associated with the old "garbage in - garbage out" cliché. Contained in the IDS database are over 27,000 part numbers of which only 4,000+/- are active parts. Since our system automatically searches all price books when a part isn’t found in the active parts file, it isn’t necessary to import the inactive part numbers. Terry decided to import only parts that have been used within the past 3 years, but if for some reason he needs more history, we can always import it later.
The accounting transfer will automatically post sales from Systems 2000 back to IDS’ General Ledger. This routine ensures that the accounting department can move onto the system at an easy pace, without rushing to meet a company-wide conversion deadline. We have used this method before when converting dealers from ADP and Reynolds & Reynolds, but it’s a first for an IDS conversion. Use of this method also allows a dealer to convert in the middle of a busy season and for multi-location dealers to bring on one location at a time.
We are hoping for a go live with parts and service by week's end and will keep everyone posted. Feel free to call the dealership at any point to ask detailed questions regarding the conversion.
- Carl Sconnely, President of Systems 2000, Inc.
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10/26/2009 - Why Do Banks Make the Simplest Things So Difficult?
For decades, banks have spent millions of dollars on the printing, warehousing, and distribution of financial contracts. We are now in the 21st Century and laser bank contracts should be the norm. Let me reiterate: “Should Be” but unfortunately they’re not.
Here’s the issue: for years, banks have used outside legal firms to research and design contracts for them. They would then purchase these contracts pre-printed and in bulk quantities, paying for the printing and royalty fees upfront. Many of these contracts were never used and disposed of at the bank or dealership level, which is an unnecessary waste - especially with today’s technology. Laser, or plain paper documents make perfect sense to the bank and the dealer. The bank no longer has to purchase thousands of copies of contracts, and the dealers can test print as many as they like and with ease and speed, without worrying about running out of contracts or dealing with noisy printers.
So what’s the catch? Like the music industry and illegal downloading, anyone can print as many contracts as they want and the legal firm who designed the document doesn’t get its royalty fee per form.
The legal and printing firms are now working with software companies to track how many times a contract is used and wanting the software company to collect those fees from banks and dealers and then remit them.
Would it not be simpler for the banks to either negotiate a one-time royalty free price or a quantity price, based on the number of loans processed? For example, 'Bank of the Future' says to the legal firm, “we fund 50,000 contracts per year on average, so at $3 a contract here’s your $150,000 upfront.” Then, at the end of the year they disclose to the legal firm the exact amount of funded contracts and negotiate next year's pricing.
When using laser contracts, it doesn’t really matter if a dealer printed 10 contracts and threw 9 of them in the trash - it's his paper. The only thing that matters is what is funded by the bank. The dealers can use their standard F&I system to print laser forms efficiently and send the final copy to the bank.
The next 'simple task made difficult' is loan information submission. Banks should have a secure web page that is strictly for simple data entry. This is the type of page that any junior programmer, who can chew bubble gum and type on a keyboard at the same time, would be able to program and setup. It would be nothing more than a top to bottom screen that a dealer would tab through, fill in the blanks, and at the bottom click a submit button. This type of screen is easy for software companies to integrate to and eliminates the need to involve the bank's programmers or 3rd party companies.
In the end, it is the dealer’s voice that banks listen to. Call your bank representatives and pressure them to jump into the 21st century with laser contracts and loan information submission without using 3rd party companies. And if you find there is anything I can do to help move this process along for the dealership industry, please don't hesitate to contact me.
- Carl Sconnely, President of Systems 2000, Inc.
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10/19/2009 - Independence RV System Conversion Update
So far the conversion has been pretty smooth. Payroll has been processed twice now and everyone was paid without any issues. I spoke with Julie Jordan regarding the ease and cost savings of running the payroll, and even I was surprised at how much they were saving. We have estimated a yearly savings of almost $15,000 in payroll alone. This week we will be activating the computerized time clock, which will provide more savings in key punch time and will eliminate the need to purchase paper time cards.
We looked at the vehicle inventory data in the IDS system and though it was pretty clean, we decided to connect to Newmar’s website instead and extract their vehicle information. The data on the site is more detailed and listed all accessories per vehicle, along with all appliances, appliance model numbers, and serial numbers. This information will be invaluable to the service department when warranty claims are submitted on malfunctioning items.
In the finance department, we have worked closely with Michael Wilson in reviewing all of the documents and settings. Michael is a true veteran in finance and is very meticulous about his job, so we expect things to run quite smoothly in this department. On this install, we have converted as many documents to laser as possible without infringing on copyrights and are using a duplex printer to print both sides of the forms at one time.
We did discover a discrepancy between our system and the IDS system regarding sales tax on GAP insurance - our systems are set not to charge tax on GAP. Note that in the State of Florida, GAP insurance is not taxable and we suggest that all dealers check their systems to ensure you are not charging tax on non-taxable items.
Notes:
1) Cost savings aren’t just software to software. Some systems provide savings in other areas of your business.
2) If possible, get your software company to read information from your manufacturer's website. This will give you more detail with less keypunch time.
3) Use laser forms with duplex printers whenever possible; and urge your banks and suppliers to provide you with royalty free images of their contracts.
4) Check your system’s tax settings against your state guidelines - in the State of Florida, GAP is not taxable.
- Carl Sconnely, President of Systems 2000, Inc.
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10/12/2009 - RVDA Was a Good Trade Show
Last week at the RVDA show there was a nice feeling of optimism from both dealers and vendors alike. Attendance was off, but those who chose to be there were serious about preparing for 2010. As always, it was good to see our clients and chat with fellow vendors and competitors.
RVDA is an important event that allows dealers to slow down and take a more in-depth look at the products and services displayed. Also, there are many great seminars and I was fortunate to be able to attend some of them.
On Tuesday, Systems 2000 hosted a seminar on how communicating with the proper technology can help you run the perfect business. We based the presentation on the premise that running a business is broken down into two fundamental elements: first, providing a functional product or service, and second, communicating with customers, vendors, and employees. The latter is the most important facet of your business. Without good timely communications with prospects & customers, you wouldn’t have clients in the first place; and without good communications with your employees, you can't keep customers happy and loyal. Further, without good communications to and from your vendors, you wouldn’t have any products to sell.
Couple that with a study that shows on average 16 hours per week are wasted through trying to communicate (non-returned calls/e-mails, etc.), searching for information, and reacting to misinformation.
At RVDA, we suggested a three pronged approach to curbing wasted time and improving communication: (1) install inexpensive web-cameras and use a free version of video conferencing software between employees, so you can conduct a quality face-to-face chat with anyone in the dealership, regardless of your location. In addition, salespeople can have video conferences with out-of-area customers, helping to increase comfort level and to put a personal touch on the online buying experience. (2) Use email and electronic note taking to remember what was said, so that it is always tracked and never lost or misplaced, thus providing accountability within the dealership. And (3) implement a document scanning process that permits employees to get information without having to ask another department or sifting though filing cabinets.
We believe so highly in the use of these technologies that we’ve incorporated the email, note taking, and document scanning directly into our software. From just about any screen you can type a note, send an email, or scan a document and that information is tied directly to the CRM for later recall. For example, if you’re building a PO and want to email a supplier, you can do so without leaving the screen - the email is then stored with the supplier's file. Likewise, you can add notes directly to a customer’s deal or scan a packing slip and attach it to a receiving screen.
There is a new wave of DMS computing on the horizon, and for our customers, it's already here. CRM is no longer just for vehicle sales, it’s for tracking everything about a customer, supplier, and even your employees in every department of your dealership.
- Carl Sconnely, President of Systems 2000, Inc.
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10/1/2009 - Independence RV System Conversion
I would like to re-iterate that the purpose of this public conversion is to let the industry know how a conversion should be handled. Through this process, we here at Systems 2000 will be both students and teachers.
Regardless of who you are switching from or to, conversions need to have the full cooperation and attention of both the dealer and the computer company. Dealerships want to change computer systems for various reasons, whether it is for better support, new technology, or cost savings. Unfortunately, many avoid changing or even just looking at their options out of fear of the conversion process. A few years ago, we started using a different set of procedures when moving some of our dealers off of a competitor's system. I feel this information, as a whole, will benefit the industry; and dealers will find there is actually a methodical way to approach an upgrade or conversion. I will also try to outline the dealer's responsibility in the process and what their expectations should be.
Regardless of who you are switching from or to, conversions need to have the full cooperation and attention of both the dealer and the computer company. Dealerships want to change computer systems for various reasons, whether it is for better support, new technology, or cost savings. Unfortunately, many avoid changing or even just looking at their options out of fear of the conversion process. A few years ago, we started using a different set of procedures when moving some of our dealers off of a competitor's system. I feel this information, as a whole, will benefit the industry; and dealers will find there is actually a methodical way to approach an upgrade or conversion. I will also try to outline the dealer's responsibility in the process and what their expectations should be.
At Independence RV, we have done the hardware review and installed the new Cisco ASA5505 router, a Virtual Private Network (or VPN) is installed, and access is setup between the in-house IDS server and Systems 2000 hosted server, which resides at a secure location. Our next step is to extract the vehicle data from the IDS system and verify that it is clean enough to put into the Infinity Vehicle Module. IDS uses a Pick Data Base and Systems 2000’s Infinity uses Microsoft’s Sequel Database. If the data isn’t clean enough, we will be reverting back to the old 1970s way of doing a data conversion – loosen up those fingers and re-key it in! Yes, it's true - many people don’t realize that re-keying data can actually be cleaner and faster than a data extract.
Independence has thrown a slight curve at us. They currently use an outside payroll service and have determined that the cost savings is so substantial that they want to start with the Systems 2000 payroll module now. Normally, we bring payroll on at a later date, but we can accommodate them, and hopefully have them trained before next week's payroll period. Bringing payroll on mid-year means you have to be very meticulous with the start up data entry. One bad keystroke and someone’s paycheck is affected. We have asked Julie Jordan to provide us with the past 3 quarterly summaries, so we can get all of her year-to-date data in the system.
The next possible snafu is the check printer. Independence is going with a "blank stock" check printer, where our software prints the bank MICR numbers on blank check paper as a security safeguard. Scheduled for delivery on Friday and installation next week sounds good, but these days you can't always trust what the hardware vendor tells you. Due to the economy, many hardware manufacturers stopped producing to shrink inventories and underestimated the demand for their products. As a result, some items can go out of stock so quickly that vendors' websites can't keep up. Knowing this, we have a back-up plan in place to be sure we can still get next week's payroll done if for some reason there's a hardware delay.
The next possible snafu is the check printer. Independence is going with a "blank stock" check printer, where our software prints the bank MICR numbers on blank check paper as a security safeguard. Scheduled for delivery on Friday and installation next week sounds good, but these days you can't always trust what the hardware vendor tells you. Due to the economy, many hardware manufacturers stopped producing to shrink inventories and underestimated the demand for their products. As a result, some items can go out of stock so quickly that vendors' websites can't keep up. Knowing this, we have a back-up plan in place to be sure we can still get next week's payroll done if for some reason there's a hardware delay.
Lessons for Any Conversion:
1. Garbage in, Garbage out. If your current system is a mess, don’t import it.
2. Hardware shipments may not arrive on time, as manufacturers have tried to reduce inventory levels. Their website might not be up-to-date or they may tell you it's in-stock just to get your order. Make sure you double-check with the supplier and always have a Plan "B."
3. Installing a network printer isn’t “plug and play” like on your home system. It may take a few attempts to get all the settings correct. Make sure you have allotted at least a day or two for installation and testing.
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9/28/2009 - IDS to Systems 2000 Conversion Step 1
As standard procedure, most software companies provide minimum specifications for the computer hardware that is needed or they do an evaluation of the current hardware in the dealership. Incorrect hardware or hardware setup can cause problems that cost the dealership and the software company valuable time. It’s hard enough to learn a new software system, but throw in a server that keeps locking up or a terminal that disconnects at the worst possible time and you have a recipe for user frustration and system complaints.
With this in mind, we are going to start by having Independence RV run off of our hosted servers. If you’re switching systems and your new software company has server hosting, we suggest you use it at least for the first three to six months. Once the system is running smoothly, you can then opt to move the system over to an in-house server. If any problems arise, you have a pretty good idea that it’s going to be an issue with the new server and not the software.
At Independence RV, our first step of analyzing the hardware has been completed. We now have to configure the router for a virtual private network that allows our server to talk to the IDS server.
Through this process, the two servers will pass data back and forth until all departments are fully running on the Systems 2000 Infinity platform.
Since IDS is a DOS legacy system, most applications use the keyboard for input and directional movement through the system. Using a mouse sounds like a simple task, but it really isn’t if you have used a keyboard for the past ten years. We will be bringing in touch screens to help the users transition into a Windows environment. Once the users are comfortable with the software, we will make the decision as to move the touch screens to another area of the dealership or leave them in place.
Once connectivity between the servers has been established, we will then start the installation of selected modules and activate the bi-directional communication between the two software systems.
In my next post, I will announce which modules we will be activating, along with the training and go live schedules assigned.
Tip of the week for Infinity Users: When entering Units (Vehicles, boats, trailers, etc.) that you already have purchased in the past. Just click Add to bring up a blank screen, then click File and Copy From. You will be prompted for the stock number of the unit you wish to copy. The system will copy all info except the serial number and whether it is New or Used. This is helpful when you have purchased a group of similar units and don’t want to re-key the same data.
- Carl Sconnely, President of Systems 2000, Inc.
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9/25/2009 - Systems 2000 Allows Public View of IDS Computer System Conversion
In an unprecedented move, Systems 2000 will allow prospective IDS dealers, who are debating changing their dealership software, to contact and monitor the progress of an “IDS to Systems 2000” software conversion.
"Under normal circumstances, conversions are kept private by software companies until months or even years after a switch," says Carl Sconnely president of Systems 2000, Inc. "But in this case we want to show the RV industry that a switch isn’t as painful or costly as alleged by some in the industry."
In conjunction with Ron Jordan, founder and owner of Independence RV, established in 1985 and located in Winter Garden, Florida, Systems 2000 will use a departmental phase-in process and data conversion. "We chose Independence RV because of its outstanding management team and willingness to be in the public spotlight," states Sconnely. Ron Jordan and his staff use approximately 40 computer terminals and are familiar with both ADP and IDS systems, having gone through conversions once before.
Carl Sconnely will provide period updates and details through his technology blog in RV D@ily Report while Ron Jordan will be available by phone or appointment to speak to dealers about the progress.
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9/21/2009 - New Blog: Non Verbal Communication is the Key
Studies show that humans communicate just as much (50% or more) with non-verbal or body language as they do with words. Here at Systems 2000 we believe in another form of non-verbal communicating - the electronic form.
Human beings need interaction with each other, but this interaction should be quality interaction in the form of face to face conversation or a handshake with your customer. Quality interactions are those with the purpose of helping you meet a goal of some sort: increasing customer service ratings, forming new relationships, increasing profits, etc.
Unfortunately, many dealerships are forced to waste valuable time on "non-quality interaction." An example of "non-quality interaction" is calling up your supplier to place an order or to get availability information. Yes, this may fulfill your special order, but how you communicate to fulfill it is not important - you could order a part face-to-face, over the phone, or online and you'll get the same end result.
With extensive use of the Internet becoming more and more common, manufacturers and suppliers are finally beginning to provide websites where dealers can perform all of their "non-quality interaction" tasks online. However, enough is not being done in this area and the end result is a lot of wasted time for both dealers and suppliers.
To point out two exceptions to the rule, there is Stag-Parkway and Bell Industries. They are two of the industry's largest parts suppliers and take every opportunity to use technology to decrease their shipping time and streamline their internal operations.
I’m sure most dealers are aware of Stag-Parkway’s website that allows dealers to log in and place orders. Users select which parts they would like to order, check the availability, and then electronically submit their order. By doing this, both dealerships and Stag-Parkway save time and energy - which in-turn, increases profit for both parties.
The next step is to have these manufacturers/suppliers work with the DMS companies to create TRUE bi-directional communications. Bi-directional communications are where information flows from the DMS to the supplier and then back to the DMS from the supplier.
For example, your parts manager builds a PO in the DMS and the DMS checks availability and electronically submits the order to the supplier. When the order is placed, an acknowledgment from the supplier is sent back to the parts manager. As the order is shipped, an electronic packing slip is sent to the DMS, eliminating keying in the receiving ticket and flagging back orders. Then an electronic invoice with the PO number referenced is sent to the accounts payable department in the dealership.
And all of this is done with-out double entry, wasted time, or misinformation.
I encourage all dealers to contact their DMS provider and get electronically connected to their suppliers, as well as to urge their manufacturers and suppliers to work with DMS companies and create better electronic interaction.
The end result is higher profits for all and quality communication with your customers.
- Carl Sconnely, President of Systems 2000, Inc.
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9/11/2009 - New Blog: You Can Touch It For Less
Touch screen technology is the next big technology interface trend. Why aren’t you taking advantage of this?
Your dealership probably already has in place a slew of existing non-touch screen monitors and you probably don’t have the budget to purchase a new $500 - $600 touch screen monitor for your employees.
That’s ok, because you don’t need to buy new monitors to take advantage of a touch screen. Touch Screen Overlays start as low as $150 depending on your monitor size. They fit securely on top of your existing monitor screen and simply plug into a USB port. These overlays work alone or with a keyboard and/or mouse attached. Employees can touch the screen overlay with their finger, a gloved hand, or even a pen stylus and they will function just as if you purchased a true touch screen monitor.
You might be wondering, what advantages do touch screen monitors offer?
A touch screen is far more user-friendly than other input devices, such as a mouse or trackball, and virtually requires no training time for computer novices. We all know that in our industry the biggest challenge of getting your dealership to use any new technology is simply making it easy enough so anyone can use it. Touch screens go another step further than that and even turn an everyday work task into a fun and interactive experience. This always results in better initial training effectiveness and employee acceptance.
Touch screen technology can be used with virtually all computer programs, however there are drawbacks when using a touch screen with programs not designed for them. Systems 2000 has specifically designed multiple aspects of our system to accommodate people using touch screen technology. Larger buttons are always beneficial, along with a user-friendly one touch navigation interface.
Touch screen technology can be used with virtually all computer programs, however there are drawbacks when using a touch screen with programs not designed for them. Systems 2000 has specifically designed multiple aspects of our system to accommodate people using touch screen technology. Larger buttons are always beneficial, along with a user-friendly one touch navigation interface.
Touch screen overlays are typically made from glass or another similar hard-coated surface. Overlay systems are hardy and not affected by dirt, dust, grease, and most liquids. They are rugged enough to stand up to harsh dealership environments where keyboards and mice often get damaged. Because of this, touch screen technology is extremely well suited for the typical dealership departments such as in a service bay, parts store, or even in the F&I office.
In a dealership environment, by using a powerful dealership software system such as Systems 2000 Dealership Software with an inexpensive touch screen overlay system, your employees can maintain peak productivity. Using touch screen technology can effectively increase user accuracy, reduce training time, and improve your dealership’s overall operational efficiency.
- Carl Sconnely, President of Systems 2000, Inc.
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9/4/2009 - New Blog: Video Conferencing In Your Dealership
Over the last 10-15 years, online forms of communication have grown immensely. E-mail, instant messaging, and video conferencing have taken the world by storm. Once thought of as simply an innovation of the future and a legend of Star Trek, people are now talking to the faces of friends, family, and business partners all over the world. What's more, this advanced form of communication actually costs pennies on the dollar, compared to its predecessors. Online video conferencing and Voice over IP (VoIP) systems have emerged as powerful tools that are able to save businesses huge sums of money.
Systems 2000 recently installed video conferencing at a new multi-location dealership; in which every computer was equipped with a $20 camera/microphone combo. Now employees can communicate face to face not only between their multiple locations but also internally from office to office. This was all part of the dealer’s wish to be one of the most technologically advanced RV dealerships in existence. By doing this, the dealership is able to operate more efficiently with fewer personnel who no longer have to walk office to have a face-to-face conversation. For owners who want to travel or take a vacation, they can now have face to face conversations and meetings from anywhere in the world. Imagine sitting on a beach and enjoying the sunshine, while having your weekly manager's meeting.
How much is your dealership’s phone bill? By cutting out most traditional long distance phone calls previously made from a landline, phone costs can be reduced significantly by using a Voice Over IP service.
Online video conferencing is also effective when conducting employee meetings. Instead of having to do company meetings twice, a conference can be broadcasted to multiple locations simultaneously. Since most video conferencing systems are web based or quickly installed from the web, employees can log in from practically anywhere they have an Internet connection.
Online video conferencing and voice over IP calls aren't just a passing fad. In 1995, only 16 million people worldwide were using the Internet. Today, the numbers are staggering at over one and a half billion users. More and more of these users are recognizing how easy it is to video conference over the web, and businesses are beginning to realize the tremendous cost savings associated with this advanced way of communicating. As part of our mission to adapt tomorrow’s technology into today’s RV dealerships, we at Systems 2000 encourage every dealer out there to drop that telephone and pick up the webcam instead. Your wallet will thank you.
- Carl Sconnely, President of Systems 2000, Inc.
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8/28/2009 - New Blog: Stay Connected to Your Dealership Anywhere, Anytime
Most RV dealers enjoy the RV lifestyle and the luxury of travel as much as their customers do. Unfortunately, many owners and managers struggle with the idea of leaving the dealership for long periods of time without having regular contact & access to information throughout their trips.
Luckily, in recent years, technology has made keeping in touch and accessing your business both affordable and convenient. By simply taking a laptop and a cell phone on the road, users can work remotely from practically anywhere, just as if they were sitting in the dealership. This is possible by taking advantage of cell phone "tethering" or laptop 3G air card technology.
Here at Systems 2000 we have seen a huge increase in remote logins over the last couple years by our clients. Our customers are able to operate remotely because we utilize Microsoft Windows® Terminal Services, which allows for the use of remote connections from virtually anywhere. We firmly believe that an active dealership owner or manager should easily be able to find the pulse of their dealership at anytime and from anywhere.
Of course, traveling owners and managers aren't the only ones who can benefit from the technology. Cellular internet service can make shows easier, cheaper, and more organized. Instead of having to do off-site deals on paper, you can log directly into your system to avoid any lost details, pricing discrepancies, and additional work. Of course, the largest factor is price. Before the availability of cellular internet service, Systems 2000 would pay, on average, $800 for three days of show internet service for each convention we participated in. Now, we pay $360 for an entire year's worth of remote internet service - well worth the change!
Plus, if you are running on an advanced cell network (3G or better), which most all phones are these days, the internet connection is just as fast as your typical home or convention internet service.
If you aren’t yet taking advantage of this flexibility, adding internet tethering to your cell phone plan roughly runs about $30-50 a month depending on your provider. Some phones may not be compatible, in which case you can purchase a USB plug-in device (the size of a flash drive) or an internal "air card."
Once you have activated your cell phone tethering, simply plug a USB wire from your phone into a computer for instant Internet access. If both your phone and computer are Bluetooth capable, you can even gain internet through the Bluetooth connection for a completely wire free experience.
Start taking advantage of cell phone Internet tethering today and always be connected to your dealership, whether at home, at a campsite, or on a tropical island.
- Carl Sconnely, President of Systems 2000, Inc.
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8/20/2009 - New Blog: Get Paid Immediately When The Work Is Done
RV dealers who service units are floating money for their customers. This float may be for a few hours or even in some cases, months on end. Unlike an automobile, where the consumer needs the vehicle, an RV can sit on your service lot for months, waiting for the owner to return and pay for the work.
Unfortunately, this means the dealership is stuck paying for thousands of dollars in repairs up front and ends up serving as a "free" storage facility for the customer that delays picking up his RV until he has the money - sometimes for more than 30 days.
An easier way is to run a pre-authorization of a credit card for the estimated amount of the repairs. The customer then signs the pre-authorization slip and the amount is reserved on their credit card. This now ensures that they have the ability to pay and allows you to charge the card when the work is done.
If your service department software facilitates credit card pre-authorizations, the authorization code will be stored with the repair order. Just close out the RO and the system will convert the temporary charge to a permanent charge and put the money in your account. This same process can be used with special order parts or other services to be performed.
- Carl Sconnely, President of Systems 2000, Inc.
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8/14/2009 - New Blog: We Owe, We Owe, Where Did That Service Work Go
There's the old philosophy that the sales department sells the first unit and the service department sells everyone after that. Meaning, that without good customer service, your valued customers are not going to return to purchase again. Tag that with 'you only get one chance to make a good first impression' and you will want the customer thinking he made the right decision as he is introduced to your service department. Many times that first introduction comes in the form of a 'We Owe' where the service department must take care of some promised items. How often does the service department complain that they didn't receive the 'We Owe' paper work in time, if at all; and the sales department complain that they turned in the paper work and the unit still wasn't ready for the customer.
This can be prevented by giving access to your finance or sales management team to start an RO or even schedule work for the service or delivery departments. With Systems 2000 software we have incorporated a one click button that transfers the 'We Owe' information directly to the service department. If your system doesn't have a feature like this, you can still accomplish it with a little additional work. I suggest that you provide access and a little training of the service module for your sales management team. They can then create an RO and your service department can modify and schedule the work appropriately. With this approach, finger pointing is eliminated and the customer is left with a good first impression of your service department; you have also saved on the cost of 'We Owe' forms.
In some dealerships the sales department is given access to the delivery calendar; and knowing the approximate time it takes to prep a unit for customer pickup, they will schedule the job. With this functionality they can work with the customer's and the Get Ready department's schedule.
- Carl Sconnely, President of Systems 2000, Inc.
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8/7/2009 - New Blog: Change Is Good For Everyone.
There's a bit of a buzz about the acquisition of IDS by Constellation Software Inc. and how it will affect the current dealers that are using their legacy system. Much of the conversation is focused on whether IDS' support and software development will improve or deteriorate. The true point is this change is good for the entire RV industry. Einstein's theory that "for every action there is a reaction," such as gun kicking backwards as the bullet flies forward, can also be applied to changes in the business environment. Dealers will begin to re-evaluate their present system; they will look to the future to see what's new and coming from the acquisition, and will in turn realize there is a better way of using their computers. This doesn't mean they will switch to another software provider but they will become aware that a software change is inevitable.
Like the Y2K issue that forced software upgrades back in 1999, businesses became efficient after adopting new technologies and the economy flourished.
Systems 2000 wishes all the best to the current staff as they progress through the transition and we take a positive view that the industry as a whole will benefit.
- Carl Sconnely, President of Systems 2000, Inc.
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7/31/2009 - New Blog: Good News About Banks
With all the bad news and issues with banks these days, I would like to write about some good financial technology that is built into Systems 2000's DMS and hopefully available in your current software, if you're not a Systems 2000 client. These new technologies will save you hundreds of hours of employee time and expense, along with creating more effective security.
They are as follows: Remote Check Deposits, Bank Reconciliation Download, Direct Deposit, Positive Pay, and Remote Check Printing. All of these items are quite common, but having a DMS system that facilitates these processes for you, is where you save time, money, and create extra security.
First, remote check deposit machines are available from your local bank, normally free of charge. Instead of having to make a trip to the bank each day, your A/R clerk inserts a stack of checks into the scanner. The machine reads the checks, displays them on the screen for verification, and then deposits the total into your account. You just file or shred the checks when you're done. If your DMS is capable, it will also read the file created by the scanner, make a deposit entry into your accounting system, and apply a credit to the appropriate customer. Here at Systems 2000, we have saved quite a few hours per day by not having to go to the bank or make an accounting entry every time we have a deposit.
Bank Reconciliation Download is a process where your DMS reads a bank's list of all cleared checks and automatically updates the check register. This in turn makes balancing the check book a simple 5 to 10 minute process, saving several employee hours per month. Since this download is updated immediately, your accounting person can even balance the check book daily.
Direct Deposit has been around for years but is only effective if your DMS can integrate with your bank. This is especially useful for payroll. Once the payroll is processed, the DMS transmits the deposit directly to the employee's bank account, saving you time and the cost of checks. Here at Systems 2000, using direct deposit has increased productivity for both the company and employees. Employees no longer need to take extended lunch breaks to run to the bank on payroll day and they don't have to worry about losing checks. The money is in their account every payroll - no hassles.
Positive Pay is a feature that when a check is cut, your DMS sends a message to the bank stating that Check number 123, to John Doe, for $500 has been issued. If the bank receives the check and it doesn't match the supplied information, they will not cash it and will alert your dealership. This is an incredible feature to help ward against fraud, and requires zero effort on the part of the dealership.
Remote check printing is where your DMS has the ability to print a check to one of your remote locations. This is a very important control feature for multi-location dealerships. For example, multi-location dealerships will normally establish a bank account for each location and provide a GM with a check book to write checks up to a limited dollar amount. At the end of the month, your accounting department now has to balance multiple checking accounts. With a blank stock check system, a printer resides at the remote site with blank paper in it. The accounting department at headquarters cuts a check and tells the DMS where they want it to print to. At the remote location, the printer prints the entire check: including logo, check number, bank MICR information (at the bottom) and the owner's signature. This gives your main accounting department complete oversight and at the end of the month they only need to balance one check book. The best part of this whole set-up is, checks cannot be stolen because until printed by headquarters, they are just blank sheets of paper!
Banks have deployed so much technology in the past years, but few dealers or their DMS providers have taken advantage of it. Our goal is to help RV dealers run their operations with the highest level of fraud protection & security, and fewer employees and overhead.
- Carl Sconnely, President of Systems 2000, Inc.
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7/24/2009 - New Blog: Stop Building New Challenges For Your Dealership
Every customer that walks through your door, submits a lead from your website, or calls your dealership increases the gap between your dealership’s databases when using a third party CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system. Although a good CRM can improve relationships with customers and up closing ratios, if it’s an add-on to your current DMS, the program also has the downfall of continuing to build walls between your dealership’s departments.
Why should you care?
How long would it take to sort through your duplicate prospect records between your CRM and your DMS (Dealership Management System)? Most times, different addresses and phone numbers will exist for the same customer as both databases are usually not corrected at the same time when updated.
A common myth about a CRM is that is a sales tool, meant for use by your sales team. This couldn’t be further from the truth, as a CRM is truly a dealership tool. If you are running a powerful CRM like Systems 2000 offers, every department in your dealership should be taking advantage of its features.
Parts and Service people can benefit from using the CRM as well.
If your 3rd party CRM does not directly tie into your other departments, it becomes cumbersome to use and your staff will quickly push it to the wayside. When information is entered, it should be available for use in parts, service, sales, and accounting without having to type it again.
This way, employees can log critical communications with customers, schedule follow up calls, and can even be monitored by management to make sure everyone at the dealership (regardless of department) is following up with customers and prospects correctly.
By using an integrated CRM, management can quickly view all sales, communication, and history from one screen. This is extremely beneficial when making key sales decisions because a customer’s complete history is instantly available.
Think of all the cross-selling opportunities you are missing by not having data immediately available your other departments. What if a prospect comes into your dealership’s service department for a repair with an old RV, wouldn’t you want the prospects information to be available to your sales team?
On the other hand, consider the service advertising opportunity an integrated CRM presents. For example, Systems 2000's CRM can send welcome letters, service specials, and warranty recalls regularly to an up-to-date customer list. Suddenly, not only is a CRM increasing RV sales, but it’s also increasing your parts and service profit.
RV Dealerships have been moving away from fragmented software packages since the 1980s for good reasons. Make sure your dealership isn’t implementing a CRM that takes you two steps back and one step forward.
- Carl Sconnely, President of Systems 2000, Inc.
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7/17/2009 - New Blog: Steal Your Own Parts to Ensure Inventory Accuracy
In past articles such as “Work Smarter, Not Harder” I wrote about how using the 80-20 rule can increase productivity in your parts department and I still stand by my 3 general rules of thumb:
1) 80% of your parts stock comes from 20% of your suppliers.
2) 80% of your sales come from 20% of your parts.
3) 80% of your sales come from 20% of your customers.
But I am now adding a fourth rule of thumb:
4) 80% of inventory variances/inaccuracies come from your top 20% most active parts.
Why does this happen? Because the parts in this top 20% are sold the most, ordered the most, and handled the most, which means they are also more apt to be mismanaged the most.
The first step to ensuring a rock solid inventory count or value is targeting that top 20%. This is where a comprehensive Dealership Management Software (DMS) helps your dealership to really increase your parts department's success. Most DMS systems provide reports on which are your most popular parts and once you know which ones fall into that top percentage, be sure to perform cycle counts on those parts frequently. Here at Systems 2000, we have incorporated a physical inventory counting option that targets those top 20 percent, so parts managers don't have to run reports and re-key the physical data.
Whether by report or software functionality, you need to know which parts to focus on. The key to making a successful plan for ongoing parts cycle counts simply boils down to two things: “is it quick?” and “is it easy?” If your plan is complicated or takes too long to complete, it will be the first thing your employees will cut out of their daily routines.
To make it quick, try dedicating 30 minutes per day to counting selected bins. Make the cycle count the first task of the day before other needed items take precedence or distract the counting process.
If your parts are bar-coded and you're using Systems 2000 software or other software that can read a portable scanner, then purchase a Scan Pal or other barcode data collector. They are inexpensive and easy to use and will cut your count times in half.
Now, you might ask, how do I ensure inventory accuracy from my parts managers and personnel? If you're the owner or top level manager, I suggest that after hours (at least once a month) you go out to 1 or 2 bins, count the items and then remove a part or two. Be sure to put them somewhere out of sight. When the cycle count comes in, it should disagree with the computer's count. This is a good thing because you now know the person doing the count did an actual tally versus just agreeing with the computer and saying they did it.
I also suggest that a random person from another department be sent in to do the count to ensure it is un-biased. Over the past 27 years, I have worked with dealerships and seen so many crazy things. Now nothing surprises me - from a parts store within a parts store to vehicles that were sold and never reported to management, embezzlement schemes in the accounting department, and more.
On a daily basis, the accounting department should look at three figures: Accountings Parts Inventory Value, Parts In Process, and Parts Inventory Total. These figures should be turned in with the daily cash drawer. Take the accounting figure minus the parts in process and it should be very close to the parts department's current inventory total. If not, it's meeting time to discuss the discrepancy.
- Carl Sconnely, President of Systems 2000, Inc.
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7/10/2009 - New Blog: Brilliant Barcoding
For RV dealerships today, barcode scanners are practically a necessity. By using them in conjunction with dealership software, barcode scanners are able to quickly cash out parts customers, help organize parts inventory into bin locations, and keep an accurate count of parts on hand. As mentioned in my previous blog “Misplaced RV,” barcode scanners can also be used to track an RV dealership’s unit inventory.
For RV dealers, there are typically two types of barcode technology that your dealership software should support: barcode readers and barcode collectors.
Barcode readers are usually a point of sale type scanner. These scanners simply read a barcode and immediately input the UPC (Universal Product Code) into the attached computer, just as if someone had typed it. These scanners are perfect for any situation where information needs to be entered on a screen immediately.
Barcode readers will prevent cashier mistakes on pricing, eliminate the opportunity for unauthorized discounts to be given on parts, and decrease the time it takes to cash a customer out.
The other type of barcode technology is a barcode collector. These hand held devices are designed to collect data and sync it to a computer when it is docked. The benefit of a barcode collector is that employees can scan items without not tying up a computer while they are scanning.
RV dealers who have large parts warehouses and use inventory receiving and parts pickers should take advantage of hand held barcode collectors. By doing so, when parts are received they can immediately be scanned into your dealership software. Along with the convenience, this provides a safeguard against an employee accidentally marking all parts as "received" on a receiving ticket without checking first.
Also, by using a handheld barcode collector, your parts pickers can gather parts for your mechanics and immediately scan the parts to relieve them from inventory. This way, there is no confusion as to which part was relieved and no chance that the part will fail to end up on the repair order.
Using a powerful dealership software package, along with barcode readers and collectors, has been proven to increase efficiency. These hand held barcode devices are streamlining RV dealerships and controlling costs everyday.
Carl Sconnely, President of Systems 2000, Inc.
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7/2/2009 - New Blog: Happy Birthday America!
The fourth of July has been observed publicly since July 8, 1776. It commemorates the formal adoption of the Declaration of Independence, which formed the United States of America.
I’m sure I’m not alone when I say that I always look forward to the traditional BBQs, fireworks, and of course flag flying. I thank the brave men and women of our armed forces for serving our country and preserving our freedoms.
Along with being our country’s birthday, fourth of July weekend has also become one of the busiest weekends of the year for RV travelers.
It’s holidays like the fourth of July that prove that RVs will never be a thing of the past because they give people the freedom they need to simply get away from it all. Owners can hop in and travel wherever they want and always have a safe and convenient place to stay.
I would like to wish everyone a safe, Happy fourth of July!
Carl Sconnely, President of Systems 2000, Inc.
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6/26/2009 - New Blog: Misplaced RV
You may be surprised to find how often your staff has trouble locating an RV or travel trailer on your own lot. One of our highest volume dealers once came up to me and said, "Did you know your system actually just sold a unit for us?" He proceded to explain that with eight locations and a massive service department, salespeople often had a hard time locating the unit they were trying to sell, and in some cases, could never even show the "lost" unit to the prospective customer. On their previous computer system, they would walk the prospect out to where the unit was supposed to be, only to find that it had been moved or even worse - stolen. On this particular day, a customer came through the door right at closing to see an advertised unit. Had they still been running their old system, they would have had to ask the customer to come back the next day, when they could verify its location. "However," he continued, "with the confidence of our new inventory program, we took the customer directly to the lot location where the computer said the unit was - there it was!" The customer purchased that night!
How did the computer know? The Systems 2000 solution to unit locations is vehicle bar-coding. This provides a quick and easy way to know exactly where every one of your units is at all times.
Each time a unit is received on the lot, either through purchase or trade in, a waterproof barcode label is affixed to the unit or a bar-coded dealer window sticker is printed and put on the inside of the window. In the morning, a lot person or other designated employee just walks the lot (or if it's a large lot, a golf cart might be driven around) with a handled held scanner. RVs undergoing service can be scanned into a service bay and then simply scanned out when the work is complete.
Once the unit is scanned, the software reads the data and updates the computer's inventory as to the exact location of the unit, which in turn, can also update your website's inventory display. An exception report then prints all units that were not scanned, alerting you to possible missing or stolen vehicles.
Barcode scanning makes shuffling inventory among multiple locations a breeze. Transferred units are scanned in when they arrive at their new lot or tent show and your software and website are automatically updated.
You will never be forced to have a scavenger hunt again, knowing instantly the exact location of your next sold unit, with an integrated vehicle bar-coding program.
Carl Sconnely, President of Systems 2000, Inc.
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6/19/2009 - New Blog: Why Go Green Now?
I’m sure everyone has noticed how many companies over the last 5 years have been jumping on the "Going Green" advertisement bandwagon. They change out a few light bulbs, drop a couple recycling bins around the office, and eliminate most of their paper use.
Recently however, appeal within the United States to "Go Green" has paled as concerns have shifted more toward economic stability. In a recent poll by Pew Research Center, only 41 percent of respondents considered protecting the environment to be a top-level issue, in comparison to 56 percent last year.
If “Going Green” isn’t making as big of a marketing statement as it once did, why should your dealership bother?
The answer is simple: Dollars and Cents
Dealerships using Systems 2000's latest software have access to the tools to "Go Green" directly through their DMS. There are many paperless options for dealerships to e-mail invoices, quotes, and marketing materials electronically without ever leaving the software. Also, secure document scanning and storage is widely used for unit invoices, part receiving tickets, driver licenses, and a variety of other accounting documents.
Here are other benefits that your dealership can reap while “Going Green”:
1) Create Efficiency - Storing documents electronically will allow you to find what you need in seconds, rather than searching through thousands of files packed in a room full of filling cabinets.
2) Security - Your documents can now be encrypted in a secure environment that will prevent prying eyes from compromising your customer's privacy. Remote or Tape Data backups will secure your documents as well in case of fire or other natural disasters.
3) Increase Accessibility - Instantly forward your stored documents on demand by simply attaching them to an e-mail.
4) Save and Recycle Paper - Its easy to understand that less pages printed and less paper wasted internally = less supply costs and a cleaner environment.
Whether you want to just save the environment or simply save money, start using your Dealership Software to “Go Green” today!
Carl Sconnely, President of Systems 2000, Inc.
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6/12/2009 - New Blog: Tweety Bird gets his due.
Birds tweet and twitter all day long and now in today’s social media frenzy, the name Twitter is mentioned on a daily basis.
Like e-mail or fax blasting, Twitter is designed for text message blasting. It is a free social networking website that allows its users to post brief 140 character messages (tweets) that are displayed on the user’s profile page and also automatically distributed to the user’s followers or friends.
Why, you might ask, should your dealership care about Twitter? Twitter has quickly become a powerful marketing tool because of its ever-growing user base of 4-5 million people! Many of these Twitter users even have their new tweets sent directly to their cell phones.
For new Twitter users tweeting is simple, but to tweet effectively as a business, there are certain ground rules you should keep in mind.
Depending on the number of people a user is following, your tweets might be bumped off of their first page in under an hour. It is important to tweet regularly in order for your tweets to be seen, but tweet too much about the same news and users will simply ignore your tweets, or even worse - stop following you.
Keep in mind that most users of Twitter log into the service during typical business hours. It is important that you tweet during those hours for maximum exposure.
Consider running a contest or two through Twitter. By doing this you are encouraging followers to keep a close eye out for your tweets, and over time it will become habit for them. Some companies even offer limited time specials or sales via Twitter.
There are programs such as “Twubble” available that will explore profiles of your followers and generate a list of their followers that have similar interests. Using this list, you can follow them and hopefully they will begin to follow your dealership as well. The general thought behind this is that if someone is following you, generally the people that follow them have share similar interests.
Now that I have covered some basics for business tweeting, it is important to keep in mind that you shouldn’t base your entire marketing strategy around Twitter. There are diminishing returns on the effectiveness of your time spent on Twitter. Many people that have become disappointed with their Twitter results are simply putting too much time and focus into it. They end up neglecting those marketing channels which have been proven to work, and ultimately end up hurting their business. Take only about 10 minutes a day to tweet effectively and your dealership will be pleasantly surprised with minimal effort.
By promoting with Twitter properly you can create a large online social following for your dealership. This positive Twitter exposure ultimately will build your dealership’s brand, create loyal customers, and will increase your bottom line.
Carl Sconnely, President of Systems 2000, Inc.
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6/5/2009 - New Blog: Training is an investment, not an expense
When any dealership decides to implement a new software package, training its employees is inevitable. Of course, the type and extent of the training administered varies greatly.
I have seen too many dealers insist on having the bare minimum of training to save a few dollars a month on a lease payment. Sadly, this limits when, how, and who gets trained at the dealership without taking anything but price into account.
There are 4 basic methods of initial training typically available from software providers: Self Training (Training Videos / Manuals / Online Tests), Class Room Training, Online, and Onsite. Each method of training has both benefits and drawbacks.
Self Training. Most companies offer some type of manual and help videos for your employees to learn from. For basic software packages this may be the fastest and most efficient way to teach your employees. Usually these methods are free or very inexpensive. For more robust software packages, this however is usually the worst option.
Self-Training things to remember:
1) How motivated and computer savvy are your employees? Most employees become discouraged and negative toward change when there is a lack of real training. Just one negative employee can slow down an entire implementation process.
2) Is your new software updated regularly? Dynamic software packages are always adding new features and streamlining processes to stay cutting edge. Manuals and videos are rarely ever 100% complete or current with every aspect of a dynamic software package.
3) Does your new software include support? Without a support line, there will be no one to answer the questions that are bound to pop up. A big misconception by dealerships, however, is that a support line is there to train their employees. Support personnel are not trainers and although they can help with answering specific software questions, they do not possess the overall dealership knowledge to walk your employees through an entire system.
Online training is the most common type of startup training and is an excellent value for dealerships. This training is usually conducted by having the trainer connect directly to a computer at your dealership to conduct a virtual training session. Online training is good because your employees are trained on your dealership’s actual data and multiple employees can be trained at one time. In addition, the trainer can be asked questions throughout the training session and you have saved on the cost of travel and hotels.
Online Training Considerations:
1) How fast and reliable is your current ISP (Internet Service Provider)? With a slow or unreliable Internet connection it could make for a very slow moving and frustrating training session.
2) Can your employees remain focused for the whole training session within your dealership environment?
Many companies offer a Software School of some type that allows dealers to send their employees to a training facility to be trained. This is usually inexpensive and convenient if your dealership is within driving distance to your software company. By leaving the dealership environment it will allow some employees to focus better on the training. The training classes usually include multiple dealerships.
Software School Considerations:
1) Does your dealership have unique processes? In a classroom environment, you will be using training data and will be following a specific predetermined list of topics.
2) Can you afford to strip your dealership of key employees to attend the class? Unless a decision is made to close the dealership for a day, it is difficult to get everyone to the class that needs to be trained. Most managers attempt to attend classes and try to pass the information on to other employees.
3) How do your employees learn? Most employees learn best by doing, not watching. By being away from your dealership, your employees are unable to immediately practice everything they have just learned. Information can be lost if excellent notes are not taken.
4) What is the total cost to attend? Initially classes may be inexpensive, but ultimately what will your transportation and hotel costs be?
Onsite training is usually the best training option for dealerships if the price tag can be afforded. Trainers are able to work directly with your employees. They are also able to evaluate the specific day-to-day operations of your dealership and suggest new ideas to streamline current processes. Most employees pick up information faster when training is done face-to-face and on the job.
Onsite Training Considerations:
1) Cost. Although onsite training is the best training method available, it is fairly costly to have a trainer visit your dealership.
2) How busy is your dealership? If you are short staffed and amidst your dealership’s busy season, it might not be very productive to have an onsite trainer at your dealership.
I hope my rough breakdown of typical software training options will be helpful when making your next software decision. I personally don’t support one singular method of training myself but instead suggest a blend of the above options. In the end, it is important to remember that training is an investment, not an expense. You can sell a customer the most expensive and feature-rich RV in the world but they will still crash it if they never learned how to drive.
- Carl Sconnely, President of Systems 2000, Inc.
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6/1/2009 - New Blog: General Motors Will Survive
Last week was a busy one for Systems 2000, as we finished up the rigorous manufacturer electronic communication re-certification process set forth by General Motors (GM) before the May 31st deadline.
Why, you might ask, is GM so concerned with the certification of their new electronic communication program amidst all their dealer closings and recent bankruptcy announcement?
It’s simple: GM understands the importance of the integration that manufacturer electronic communications offers its dealers. They are counting on it to create more efficiency, lower their costs and increase future revenues.
Initially, it looks like much of their preparation to retool their factories, lean-up their dealer base, and increase the effectiveness of their electronic communications has been well received amongst investors with a rise in stock prices.
The RV industry should take note of the automotive industry and continue to look harder at developing and implementing full-blown factory communications. These communications should follow universal standards to allow quicker adoption and implementation.
Imagine if dealers could find out instantly from an RO screen whether an RV is under warranty, no matter where the RV was purchased. They would also have an RV’s service history available regardless of where it was repaired. Repair technicians could pull up the instructions on how to repair almost any RV issue, complete with the parts that are needed. To help bolster service sales, if there are any service specials or regular maintenance work due for the RV, the service writer would be notified.
RV Manufacturers could also instantly track unit sales to better gauge their production and accurately track their dealers' performance. Would RV Manufacturers be in as much trouble as they are now if they had closer ties to their dealers and scaled their production back quicker?
There is no Universal VIN decoding in the RV industry. To be able to enter a VIN number and immediately have all of an RV’s information accurately filled in, including all accessories and options sold with the vehicle, would save countless hours of manual entry. It's not as if this information isn't already in someone's computer system. It just needs to be made available to authorized dealers.
What if your RV part suppliers were able to electronically monitor your part sales and provide you with extremely accurate part orders and the promise they would buy back the remaining parts after a set time? This would allow most dealerships to spend less time worrying about what to order and more time selling.
As you can see there are plenty of further integration possibilities in store for the RV industry. Possibilities, which if implemented correctly, have the potential to very positively impact both dealers and manufacturers. In later articles, I will go into more detail about the benefits of manufacturer communications.
Sincerely,
Carl Sconnely, President of Systems 2000, Inc.
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5/22/2009 - New Blog: Wanted: One Good RV to Help Our Veterans.
Keela Carr, a 35-year-old Orlando resident, will soon embark on her second annual walk of 2,700 miles across the United States to thank over a 1,000 veterans and individual members of the armed forces along the way.
Keela is the founder of 'A Thousand Thanks'. For those of you who are not familiar with A Thousand Thanks, it’s a charity organization that not only exists to inspire a spirit of service and gratitude from the American people to the American Service men and women, but also to bring about true change in the care of America’s wounded Veterans.
She will begin her journey in Barstow, California and walk all the way to Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia. Keela will be traveling roughly 30-40 miles per day on foot.
I was immediately drawn to this story last year and have become an avid supporter of this years A Thousand Thanks charity. After visiting with Keela, I learned that she has recently made a plea to the RV industry for a temporary chase RV for her journey of A Thousand Thanks. The RV will be a crucial part of the charity event for resting after grueling days of walking.
This is an excellent opportunity for positive exposure for dealers and the RV Industry as a whole since this is a high profile charity event. Last year alone, A Thousand Thanks was reported by the media over 2,600 times. This coming year there is discussion of a camera crew accompanying her to create a documentary of her trip.
Her trip is an inspiration to everyone and truly embodies the RV lifestyle of being active, exploring new places, and enjoying the outdoors.
Keela will be providing daily blog updates of her trip online along with pictures. I encourage all dealers to spread the word to RV owners, via email blasts and links on their webpage’s as this is an exciting event to follow.
If any dealers or manufacturers are interested in becoming part of this amazing charity by donating the RV needed or simply to help raise money and awareness for our troops, please contact me for more details at cs@sys2.com or call 407-358-2000.
Thank you to all of the men and women of our armed forces!
Sincerely,
Carl Sconnely, President of Systems 2000, Inc.
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5/15/2009 - New Blog: Are four computer monitors better than one?
When Microsoft's Windows software was released, it was supposed to emulate a person’s desk with papers laid on top of one another. The only issue is that a desk is about 3 feet by 6 feet and a computer monitor is only a fraction of that size.
We have recently upgraded members of our programming staff from two computer monitors per desk to four monitors per desk. Yes, you read that correctly - four monitors on one desk. Now four monitors is probably a little overkill for a dealership environment or it might appear as some type of overcompensation but the New York Times has even published a related story by Ivan Berger regarding multiple monitor productivity.
The story states, “Survey after survey shows that adding an extra monitor will give your output a considerable boost — 20 percent to 30 percent, according to a survey by Jon Peddie Research.”
How impressive and functional would it be for your sales staff to have a monitor facing a customer when desking a deal? Systems 2000's and most other high-end Finance and Insurance software has the capability to easily display a customer friendly breakdown of the deal while your staff is seeing different information on their monitor.
When its time for your F&I manager to sell aftermarket products they can have their menu selling system display plans and open electronic brochures for products on a screen facing the customer. The customer would be able to agree to products by simply clicking on them with a mouse.
Warranty submissions would become easier for your warranty clerk. Information could be copied and pasted directly from your Dealership Management System on one screen to the warranty online submittal form on another. Your accounting department could display purchase orders, service tickets, or deals on one screen while auditing the accounting reports on another.
Multiple screens allow your employees to become more efficient in their everyday tasks by multi-tasking. Many projects involve multiple programs and to have both open side-by-side will greatly increase efficiency. Employees that encompass two or more positions, for example parts and service could have each module displayed together at the same time.
A one-time investment of as little as $100 to add an extra monitor to gain 20-30% more productivity is a bargain when compared to the costs of hiring additional employees. By having two monitors, key employees at your dealership can achieve greater productivity and bring a heightened image of professionalism to your customers.
Sincerely,
Carl Sconnely, President of Systems 2000, Inc.
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5/8/2009 - New Blog: What will be the future of Dealership Software Technology?
I was recently asked the question “What do you think is the future of Dealer Management Systems?” Since dealerships are complex organizations that have to stay on top of new techniques and technologies, it is always good to look to the future and be ahead of the curve. Dealers are a 'vertical market' for software and technology vendors; which means that software and technologies that fit every day businesses, just wont perform to the needs of a dealership. Thus new and up and coming developments will be have to be tailored to the industry.
As with computers moving from the limitations of dial up connections to DSL and other forms of high speed connectivity, we are again being limited to what we can do with bandwidth and mobile applications. The next technology wave will come from high-speed wireless communications. This fourth generation of communications or 4G network will allow dealers to wirelessly link their computers, phone systems, messaging systems, and live video to the Internet at blazing speeds.
Cell phones will become the new laptop and desktop. You will lay your cell phone on the desk, and it will link directly to your monitor, keyboard, and printer with more power than that clunky box you now have. Text messaging is not just for your kids anymore. It's powerful and it's a quick way to advertise and keep in touch with your customers.
Suppliers and manufactures will adopt standards for ordering, warranty claims, and sales registrations. Complete product sales and service history will be maintained for all to view, regardless of where and who did the work. Dealers will be alerted immediately when a unit comes in for service that requires additional maintenance.
Consumers will be able to take 3D virtual tours of any unit on your lot. Your CRM System will track their every move as to how long they virtually kick those tires on one unit versus another, what options did they review the most, and interact intelligently with prospects. They will also be able to watch true high definition full screen videos of each unit in action, compared to today's choppy 4" square flash video.
But most importantly, many dealers have PC's and servers that run Windows, but the application they are using for DMS is the old DOS software. These dealers will be forced to abandon their old DOS powered systems and move to true Windows DMS systems. Dealers already using a Windows DMS are far ahead of the curve and will grab market share from their competitors who will still be in the implementation and learning of the basics.
Sincerely,
Carl Sconnely, President of Systems 2000, Inc.
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5/1/2009 - New Blog: What the heck is a Webinar...?
The term Webinar is simply an abbreviation of Web-based Seminar. Webinars differ from traditional seminars in respect that they allow users to participate from anywhere in the world with an active Internet connection and utilize remote audio / video technology to connect the presenter and the attendees.
As the software leader in the RV industry, we just recently held a Free Systems 2000 Training Webinar this past week and it was an incredible experience. Our hosted Webinar allowed us to provide free software training to a large number of RV Dealerships simultaneously with great success. Throughout the Webinar, dealers were able to interact and ask questions which ultimately ended up tailoring the training session.
After the Webinar, I started thinking past the immediate benefit Systems 2000 is offering RV Dealerships and how RV Dealerships themselves could benefit from this technology.
How beneficial would it be to offer a brand new RV owner a free refresher Webinar on how to upkeep their RV properly, RV Tips/Tricks, etc.? You could attract and retain not only your recent customers but also potentially the customers of other RV dealerships all over the country. Future RVers or other RV enthusiasts could also be drawn in to your series of Webinars depending on your Webinar topics.
Internally at dealerships, Webinars could be used to hold inter store or departmental meetings. For multiple location dealerships this could mean a huge savings in time and travel expenses. Also, weekly sales meetings could be attended or hosted from almost anywhere. Many F&I compliance trainers have already started using them to cut their travel expenses and bolster the ranks of their training class attendances. I have even spoken to some dealers that have said a few of their aftermarket product vendors are already using Webinars to keep their dealers up to speed on proper product sales and/or application.
Now that you are familiar with what a Webinar is, get ready to start seeing more of them from almost every company in the industry as they are quickly becoming the new cost effective way to share information whether it is on training, retaining customers, or courting new prospects.
Sincerely,
Carl Sconnely, President of Systems 2000, Inc.
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4/24/2009 - New Blog: If you have the tools already why not use them!
Why aren’t you using a Dealership Management payroll module and saving money? To this day, I am still surprised at how many dealerships are looking to cut costs yet continue to partake in the luxury of using a 3rd party payroll service. Most payroll services require the dealership to do most of the hard work by filling out and faxing forms or a inputting data into a website. With a good DMS, this data is already collected, calculated, and posted into the payroll module.
Your DMS package should have an electronic time clock to track hourly employees and mechanic flag times. This data then transfers directly to the payroll, with automatic calculation of over-time, taxes, and deductions. Commissions for Sales department personnel are automatically figured and are integrated with payroll as well.
By working with a 3rd party you are also putting yourself on a tighter payroll schedule. If your payroll is Friday, you will need to have your information submitted earlier in the week to ensure checks are received on time. By using in-house software, you are able to print payroll checks at a moments notice and without the worry of an ominous cutoff time or date.
I have found that the biggest fear of dealerships running an in-house payroll system is simply the dealernot knowing what the Federal or State’s rules are and believing that it is a hassle to run a payroll. With a good payroll module, your IRS reports will be certified and your state reports should have all the information needed to easily report - meaning you just print them and mail them.
After a payroll is run, DMS Packages typically update all of the payroll check information directly into accounting. This keeps you from having to manually re-key anything from an outside payroll company.
In challenging economic times like this, take advantage of one of the many ways an integrated software package can help save your dealership money. If you have the tools already why not use them!
Systems 2000 Dealership Software offers a variety of other included payroll module features such as a direct deposit check amounts export, remote location payroll check printing, and the ability to print quarterly / year end tax forms right from the system.
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3/20/2009 - New Blog: Work Smarter, Not Harder
I’m sure everyone has heard of the 80-20 rule which simply states that 80% of your profit comes from 20% of your customers. This rule was first formed back in 1906 when an Italian Economist Vilfredo Pareto observed that 80% of the land in Italy was owned by 20% of the population. Since then, this rule has been applied successfully to many different business theories including RV parts sales.
1) 80% of your parts stock comes from 20% of your suppliers
2) 20% of your parts stock consist of 80% of your sales
3) 20% of your customers contribute to 80% of your profit
The key to using this rule to your advantage is finding out exactly who and what your profitable 20% is coming from. This is where a comprehensive Dealership Management Software (DMS) helps your dealership to really focus your success. Most DMS systems will allow you to easily run Parts Sold Reports, Parts Sold by Customer Reports and Parts Ordered Reports by supplier.
By identifying the top 20% of your parts, you can really hone in your pricing matrix to maximize the profitability of your parts department. Also, by knowing exactly which parts are fast movers, you can pay special attention to them, ensuring they are always in stock and ready to be sold.
Who is part of the 20% of your customer base, which makes up 80% of your profit? Make sure that for any sizable parts sale your parts department gathers vital customer information for your database. A list of your best customers can be used to start discount programs, mailing lists, and be very useful throughout the rest of the dealership.
I’m sure offhand it isn’t hard to figure out who your top 20% of major parts suppliers are, but why are they your top suppliers? Are they the cheapest, do they ship the fastest, or are you just simply stuck in a habit? By using a DMS system you can easily compare part pricing among suppliers and track the average shipping times on your parts orders. Having this information at your fingertips means you can prioritize which supplier would be best to order a needed part, based on whether you need the part faster or at the cheapest price.
As with all rules, there will always be some exceptions, but by focusing on the 80-20 rules in your dealership’s Parts Department, you can make sure your dealership works smarter, not harder, and with better results.
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3/13/2009 - To Host or Not to Host...
The positive part about an economic recession is that it forces every one of us to look in the mirror and make some long-awaited decisions. We trim the “fat” to make our businesses stronger, leaner, and well prepared for the race ahead. In a quick down-turn, we make the easy decisions: tighten up the advertising budget, delay a few purchases, and slow our hiring. But when the ebb of the market extends beyond a few months, the decisions get harder and it really forces everyone to look beyond the spotlight items, combing the P&L with a magnifying glass and an alternative way of thinking to find ingenious ways of saving.
One of the largest expenses dealers fail to look at is the time and money spent on maintaining and upgrading their server. Most dealers pay a premium to local tech companies that don't have much experience with a business class servers. All too often when a dealership’s server crashes due to hardware failure they are forced to pay huge emergency fees to get everything back up and running. Then you need to factor in the employees loss of productivity.
Many companies are recognizing the large expense of server maintenance and turning to their dealership software companies for off-site server hosting.
Off-site server hosting has rapidly increased in popularity over the last few years with the improvement of both wired and wireless internet infrastructure. Previously, hosting your Dealership Management System(DMS) offsite was not a viable option for larger remote dealerships due to poor Internet services. However, new advances have taken hold: fiber-optic connections are quickly reaching into remote areas, air cards from wireless providers can provide an internet connection practically anywhere, and even cell phones can be used as a data modems, providing a fast & direct connection to the net.
Remote server hosting through your dealership software provider can alleviate much of the cost and pressure of purchasing, maintaining, and upgrading your server to keep it up-to-date. Imagine not having to spend money on replacing an out-dated server or performing tedious Windows® updates, daily software data backups, anti-virus updates, hardware trouble-shooting and overall server maintenance. Most off-site servers are stored in special facilities designed to withstand natural disasters, power outages, and have guaranteed Internet connectivity.
The dealership will even realize a significant savings on their electric bill. Servers, tape backups, and other 24/7 peripherals use a lot of power. But the biggest savings for a dealer is NO HEADACHES. Dealers just want to run their dealership will little or no interruptions.
There are many companies that offer some sort of off-site server hosting, but make sure you know exactly what you are getting into:
1) It is wise to only consider off-site hosting with your DMS provider. They are familiar with the specific requirements of their software; using a different company brings a 3rd party in between you and your dealership software. This usually results in finger pointing at the first sign of trouble. Also, by using your DMS provider, they will have direct access to the server and decrease the amount of time needed to update, troubleshoot, and ensure that your data is backed up properly every night.
2) Verify what is included in their hosting services and what is additional – are back-ups performed? Do they mirror their servers? Do they run mission-critical processes to automatically switch to the back up server? Is anti-virus protection provided? Are hardware upgrades and maintenance extra? And especially, are they using true servers versus virtual servers. Virtual servers are really one server made to run as several and performance is greatly reduced.
3) Can you get to your backups and restore only what is needed. Such as, if your sales log corrupted, could you only restore the sales log or would you have to restore all of your files. And most importantly, how long would it take for the file to be restored.
While off-site server hosting still might not be the choice for the few dealers left stuck in internet dead zones, it can offer substantial long term cost savings to most other dealerships.
Systems 2000 Dealership Software provides off-site server hosting options to all of our clients. Our off-site servers are housed in a secure facility that is shared with the Department of Defense, Travelocity, and many other well known corporations. We pride ourselves in being one of the most reliable, secure, and cost effective off-site server hosts.
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3/6/2009 - New Blog: Why bother with long-term prospect follow-up
The majority of people who walk onto your lot will end up buying an RV in the near future. Initially though, about 80% of your dealership traffic will leave your dealership without buying on their first visit. Studies have shown that in upwards of 90% of sales staff do not participate in any follow-up with prospects, even if they ended up purchasing a unit on their first visit! If your sales staff is not doing timely follow-up, your dealership is missing out on one third of those prospects that can be coaxed back to your lot. If a prospect does return to your lot, they are likely to purchase sixty-six percent of the time – a percentage that cannot be ignored.
To help curb this alarming lack of follow-up in the RV industry, there are many automated follow-up Dealer Management software systems that are available today. These systems use a variety of tools to create automated follow-up campaigns for your dealership; some of these tools include emails, letters, text messages, and reports.
When planning a follow-up campaign, you should decide how often and how far into the future you would like to follow-up with prospects. Automated follow-up methods usually vary, but most systems will give you the option of sending an email, letter, or both. Typically, dealerships send a “thank you for visiting” correspondence the day after a prospect visits your dealership, a managers follow-up letter should go out the week after the visit, and then a second salesman letter no later than two weeks after the visit. You should also send an e-newsletter once a month with dealership news, events, and specials.
If a prospect purchased a vehicle without an extended warranty, then a warranty expiration notice can be sent out along with any regular service reminders.
Don’t give up on the 80% of the prospects that visit your lot and don’t purchase; the technology is available to increase your closing ratios without major expense or man hours.
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2/27/2009 - New Blog: Start Profiting from your Online Lead Investments
If you haven’t heard of e-mail lead parsing, you are missing out on one of the easiest ways to increase closing percentages for online leads. The process of ”parsing” an e-mail lead consists of breaking down the contents of an e-mail and categorizing the data (Name, Phone Number, Unit, etc.) automatically into your Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Program or Dealership Software. Thus, instead of the information just sitting as a message in someone’s e-mail inbox, it is instantly transformed into a working and trackable prospect. All lead information is instantly captured into your system and is never overlooked or lost.
Leads can be parsed from a variety of different sources such as your own dealership’s website, 3rd party lead generating websites (RV Trader, RV Search, RV123, etc.), and manufacturer websites. Without parsing, leads received from these sources typically drop into a designated employee’s inbox as a simple e-mail. Unfortunately, this puts your online prospects at the mercy of that employee. What happens when your internet manager goes on vacation or calls in sick? How do you keep him from cherry picking the promising leads and overlooking the rest? Even worse, how do you keep him from walking away with your advertising dollars if he decides to change employers, leaving behind nothing but a blank inbox?
Internet leads are viable sources of income if you treat them correctly. I have personally watched dealers grow steadily and well out-perform the competition during even the slowest economic times, simply because they embraced internet customers and improved follow-up time & procedures on these leads. Unfortunately, the majority of dealers are slow to catch on. Studies have shown that on average, a whopping 70% of online generated leads are not followed-up on in a timely manner and, even worse, are sometimes not followed-up on at all.
One of the largest benefits of parsing is that the information is already in your system, ready to be tracked. No one can walk away with your advertising dollars, and it doesn’t matter if your internet manager went on vacation – someone else can get to the lead before it gets cold. A good CRM system will have you assign the lead to a salesman (or will automatically do it for you) and will track all communication from that point forward. In addition, management overview tools should be readily available for reviewing a salesperson’s lead progress & follow-up. This instills accountability in every lead that is passed onto a salesman to ensure follow up in a timely manner.
Time is crucial when dealing with online RV buyers because they are easily able to browse the inventory of 10 RV Dealers in the time it would have taken to visit one. In addition, responding to an inquiry quickly sends a message of professionalism and helpfulness regarding your dealership, which actually increases the viability of your lead. Studies have shown that if you don’t contact a web-generated lead within 1 hour, you will decrease the effectiveness of your follow-up call by over 6 times!
There are so many benefits to having leads automatically parsed into whatever Lead Management program you are using. Ask your Dealership Software provider if they offer this service and start increasing your internet sales percentages and overall productivity.
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2/20/2009 - The RV Industry is moving away from being an “Off-the-Rack” industry
The RV Industry is becoming customized. Widespread product customization and personalization marketing to consumers is nothing new and was originally developed back in the early 1990s, with the introduction of personalized shopping carts and home pages on the internet. Since then, one industry after another – from department stores to restaurants – has adopted this business practice successfully and increased sales. Consumers, especially younger generations, have come to appreciate and even expect a certain level of personalized service and recognition.
The automotive industry capitalized on this expectation years ago and began allowing consumers to build their perfect vehicle on the web. Shoppers would know every feature they wanted and what they could afford before ever stepping foot in a dealership. Toyota’s Scion brand has experienced great success and taken this even further by focusing primarily on build-to-order units, based on customer specifications, that speak to the younger consumer’s focus on uniqueness and individuality.
This spotlight on personalization has since filtered down to the RV industry. As younger generations find their way onto RV lots (and their websites) around the country, the ability to add that personal touch and design the RV of their dreams makes a big difference in the purchasing decision. Having a Build your Own (BYO) RV website allows dealers to capitalize on consumer expectations, while further educating and increasing the excitement of potential buyers.
A BYO RV website allows a prospect to design an RV from the convenience of his/her own living room. A correctly built BYO RV website should be easy to use and have helpful tips and detailed information throughout every step of the building process. It should also be sure to encompass the look and feel of your dealership and clearly display your contact information at all times. A good BYO RV site will be easy to use, fun and informative, and will keep your dealership name in visitors’ minds long after they leave the site.
The biggest advantage of having a BYO RV website for a dealership is that you can offer thousands of possible RVs to a prospect without actually having to pay for the floor plan on them. BYO RV websites will undoubtedly gain more popularity if the current floor plan challenges facing the RV Industry are not resolved soon. One study, on a related industry, done by Forrester Research estimated that the auto industry could save almost $3,500 a vehicle by simply changing its factory production from “build-to-stock” to “build-to-order”. Doing so would virtually eliminate a slew of manufacturer over-stock, production, and forecasting problems.
A BYO RV website has little overhead, short of the hosting and upkeep costs. In addition, leads that come in from a BYO RV website are typically of superior quality. These are consumers that know exactly what they would like to purchase and already know how much it is going to cost them.
Give your dealership an edge and start utilizing a BYO RV website. Studies have shown that consumers are drawn to a particular brand or store 30% more than other companies if they offer customizable products. Systems 2000 can provide your dealership with a Build your Own RV page, but if you are not using one of our websites, please contact your current provider and find out how long and how much it would take to add that feature to your website.
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2/13/2009 - New Blog: Is your Pay per Click Campaign a target of Click Fraud, and what can you do about it?
For those of you who aren’t familiar with PPC (Pay per Click) ads, they are paid listings that appear as “Sponsored Links” typically on search engine results or as ads on their participating website partners. Search engines have turned PPC marketing campaigns into a huge multi billion-dollar industry. In 2008, Google pulled in $21.1 billion in online advertising revenues alone. As with any new industry without strict regulations there is a downside for its participants - click fraud. Click Fraud is an Internet crime that happens when either an individual or automated program clicks on ads for the purpose of generating a profit without having a legitimate interest in the ads link. Recent articles I have read are stating that the overall Click Fraud Rate of Search Advertising is up to 17.1% and at 28% through content network clicks. We run a fairly active PPC campaign for Systems 2000, Inc. and deal with PPC Fraud on a regular basis. Here are some pointers if you would like to get a better idea of your current PPC Fraud Rate and how to go about receiving a refund on invalid clicks.
To start, your website should be tied into a decent website analytics tool such as Google Analytics (Free to use) or HitsLink. These tools will give you a clear picture of how many visitors are coming to your website, how they arrive, what they are doing on your website, and how long they stay. Once your website analytics program is active, you can compare the number of clicks your PPC provider says you are receiving and compare that to the number of incoming visitors being recorded by your website analytics. This data will probably not match exactly, as most website analytics programs will register multiple visits to your website done by the same visitor in a single session as one single visit. If the visitor hit the back button on their browser and clicked on your ad again, your PPC provider would record this as two clicks. Another thing to keep an eye out for is your website's bounce rate (the percentage of people coming to your website and immediately leaving). If your bounce rate shoots up from a steady 20% to 80% overnight then there is definitely an issue, assuming your website content hasn’t changed dramatically. Also, make sure your visitors are coming from your target country and not overseas countries such as China, India, and Thailand. Many PPC providers will allow you to block unwanted countries or languages if your campaign settings are adjusted. There are many other ways to spot Click Fraud but these are just some of the basics.
If you have determined there is a definite Click Fraud issue, you should immediately start using an Ad Fraud Monitoring program which only runs about $10 a month. These programs capture your PPC visitor’s IP addresses and the frequency of their clicks. Most are also able to print out specific reports that were designed to be submitted to major PPC providers (Google, Yahoo, etc..) in an attempt to receive a refund for invalid clicks. For best results, make sure you have your reports ready and contact an account representative over the phone directly to plead your case. Here are the appropriate and well-guarded numbers to call, which I challenge you to locate through the PPC provider websites on your own:
Google Adwords: (866) 246-6453
Yahoo! Search Marketing: (866) 999-6837
While there is a good amount of fraud that occurs by click farmers and your competitors, the decision on whether PPC is right for your dealership comes down to your ROI (return on investment). Using the above website analytics tool, you can track how many of your PPC visitors are turning into quality leads and also help hone in on which words are working best. Everyone likes to be in the #1 paid search result spot but unless a keyword is profitable, you're just wasting valuable advertising dollars.
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2/6/2009 - New Blog: Catch me if you can - Dealership has fraudulent checks written on their account
"Catch Me If You Can" - A true story about Frank Abagnale Jr. who, before his 19th birthday, successfully conned millions of dollars worth of checks as a Pan Am pilot.
Everyday in the news you hear and see cases of identity or check fraud, but it always seems so far away. Recently, I spoke to a dealer located in Mesa, AZ, that had found fraudulent checks were being cashed on their account. The investigation is ongoing, so there were no specifics on how the fraudulent checks were made, but today's readily available printing technology makes creating false checks an easy endeavour.
You might be wondering exactly how easy it is for someone create and forge one of your checks these days? To answer this, check stock is readily available to anyone who wants to order it and MICR printers are very affordable. The ink used by a MICR (magnetic ink character recognition/reader) printer is magnetically charged and the letters are printed in a special readable font. A MICR is used by banks to electronically read your checking account number along with the information printed on the check. Someone creating fraudulent checks simply buys a MICR printer and ink cartridge, blank check stock, and check printing software. Using a copy of one of your dealership’s checks, they just input your check information and print a new check in minutes.
In today’s age of increased identity and check fraud how do you protect yourself? First, purchase blank check stock and a MICR printer of your own. This protects you from thieves stealing your actual checks. Assuming someone were to steal a piece of check stock, they could do nothing with it - there would be no bank information (in the form of MICR numbers) on the paper and thus, no way for the thief to use it. In addition, you can put printers at remote locations with blank check paper and print the check to that location remotely as needed, eliminating the need for multiple check books. The printer will print all information, including the check number, routing/account number and even an electronic signature.
The best defense for RV Dealers has been to set up positive pay with your bank. Positive pay should be included in your accounting software and automatically sends a notification to your bank whenever you print a check. This notification includes the check number printed, the payee's name and address, and most importantly the check amount. Any checks that are sent to your bank to be cashed against your account are verified first with the electronic notifications they have on file for all valid checks printed at the dealership. If the bank receives a check that doesn't match or a check who's information has changed, it will be flagged and will not hit your account. If your software doesn't have positive pay routines built in - I suggest you start looking into modernizing your accounting software. Unfortunately, in this day and age, it is not a matter of if, but when you will be the victim of check or identity fraud.
Systems 2000 Inc. currently offers positive pay services and an IRS certified accounting package.
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1/30/2009 - New Blog: Family business is good business in slow economic times
When I think of the words and phrases “strong commitment”, “loyalty”, “decreased overhead costs” and “stability” they remind me of the core values of a family run business. Its no wonder that most RV Dealerships are family run businesses and always tend to weather and bounce back from economic down turns. To further support this theory, Texas A&M University has performed a study to compare the competitiveness and stability of family run businesses compared to non-family run businesses. The results of the study, which was conducted by Professor Jim Lee, showed that family businesses do indeed tend to experience a higher employment rate, revenue growth, and are more profitable than non-family businesses.
It’s my experience that family run businesses don't stop at closing time. They continue 24/7; from dinnertime, to family outings, and other get togethers. At some point the conversation always turns to the business side of things. But what about the companies that have gone from family owned entities to corporate managed divisions. Normally there's a change in the level of service and the pride of one's reputation; and rarely is it for the good. Now with economic downturns, corporate layoffs, and tough cash flows, many corporations are downsizing or even terminating whole divisions.
I suggest you know your suppliers and your competitor's suppliers; are they family owned or publicly traded. If publicly traded just type in their stock symbol or company name and quickly read their quarterly reports. Usually in just the first few lines you can see how stable they are. For example, we keep an eye on our supplier Dell Computer and our competitors, such as Brunswick/IDS traded under BC or ADP/Lightspeed traded under ADP.
Also, what is your supplier's key product and how dependent on them are you. We had a bad experience with our phone system, of which we purchased from a company that sold other technologies. One day, we received a notice that this company was no longer in the phone business and we were on our own - in short we did not do our homework and were caught by surprise.
Like most RV dealers, Systems 2000 is family owned and operated for over 24 years. We've stuck to our core of producing "dealership software" and understand the pride and enjoyment of working with family and friends. All of our software is written and supported by us, in our offices, in Altamonte Springs Florida. We do not contract external programmers, outsource our support, or resell software from other companies.
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1/23/2009 - New Blog: Consumers are trained to order so give them a menu.
Stop leaving extra money on the table. There are a variety of studies that have linked Menu selling to higher F&I revenues varying from 23% to almost 60% annually. Sadly though, I can’t even count the number of dealerships that I have talked to that don’t use a Menu Selling System and don’t offer a full line of aftermarket products for a variety of reasons.
With a good compliant electronic Menu Selling System and basic training, any F&I manager should be able to competently offer a full line of aftermarket products to a customer in less than 10 minutes. I am by no means saying an electronic Menu removes the need for a sales pitch but instead it provides F&I managers with a powerful tool that promotes the 300% rule. The 300% rule states that a 100% of your dealerships products should be offered to a 100% of your customers 100% of the time. A Menu also gives customers clear menu choices that allow them to feel like they are making the decision and not simply falling victim to a sales pitch. This results in the customer feeling more satisfied with their purchasing decision.
A Menu also ensures that every product - is offered to every customer - the same way every time. Many F&I managers are still playing a dangerous game of payment packing, fluctuating product prices, and non-full disclosure. By doing this, it could be leaving your dealership wide open to the threat of legal litigation and a negative community reputation. A properly used menu system ensures full disclosure and greatly reduces the threat of legal exposure. Each product should clearly be displayed and even some higher end Menu Systems will allow customers to click on the products to view a short video or electronic PDF brochure. Electronic Menu Selling Systems offer other advantages such as a voice recording, which stores a customer’s acceptance and refusal of aftermarket products. Nothing speaks clearer to a disgruntled customer with a broken vehicle who refused an extended warranty than his or her own voice.
Think of future sales as well, if a customer has a great buying experience you can guarantee that your dealership will be his first stop when it comes time to trade his unit in not to mention all the service work in-between. An electronic Menu Selling System reduces the overall time and pressure of the backend sales process, reduces charge-backs, and if properly used will consistently increase your back end bottom line.
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1/16/2009 - New Blog: The technology is available you just have to use it.
Years ago in 1984 when I started in the RV industry, dealers desperately needed basic software integration, which included updated vehicle costs and accounting transactions posted from finance, parts, and service – thus eliminating double entry. Today, this basic integration is still needed but falls far short of making most dealerships successful.
The average RV customer has embraced modern technology and the internet, and is by far more educated than previous years. Proof of this started back in 2004 when eBay®, the online auction giant, reported that "RV" was its number one search term, beating out "gold", "BMW", and even "iPod." Studies have also shown that in upwards of 80-90% of all RV buyers do some form of online research before visiting a dealership. Why wouldn’t they? With the Internet, consumers are able to view the inventory of 10 dealerships in their area in the time it takes them to physically visit one and avoid high-pressure salesmen tactics. With this being said, in today’s environment a dealership can’t afford to fall behind when it comes to modern selling tools. It is essential for dealerships to have a software package that includes an integrated website (automatically uploads units and parts), an integrated CRM to efficiently manage these leads, and a built in sales system that easily electronically communicates with your prospects and suppliers. A modern dealership should also be using a DMS software package that can handle graphics, such as pictures of vehicles, pictures of parts, and document images. This eliminates having to search through 30 filing cabinets in the back room. Your DMS software should also have the capability to email a quote or invoice right through the system and even send text message alerts to customers as to keep them updated with the status of a special order part or the completion of a service ticket. Prospects who contact your dealership via the Internet should automatically be saved into your DMS database and assigned for an immediate salesman follow up. Marketing campaigns via mail and email should be automatic and handled directly by your software package. Multiple location dealerships should have one central database able to handle millions of customers; allowing them to track every contact or purchase of a customer and easily calculate profits and commissions between locations.
Dealerships who embrace the new available technology of the 21st century will thrive, grow, and in may cases will find that this new technology is actually less expensive than what they are currently paying for their old system.
by: Carl Sconnely
President of Systems 2000
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