Automotive News Canada - December 2022 - S23

BEST PRACTICES 2022
23
Communication
breakthrough
find the optimum date and time for service
or sales appointments. It can arrange connections
to shuttles, loaner vehicles, valet
and delivery services for customers.
ACE Marktplace also coordinates shuttle
and valet tasks, completes service loaner
management and crunches the data to
provide insights into, for example, how
often a customer uses a shuttle, loaner or
rental vehicle.
The platform caught the attention of
Kimoby from Quebec, a cloud-based business
instant-messaging company that
purchased ACE Marktplace in February.
Financial details were not disclosed.
Kimoby said it will refine and offer the
platform via subscription to dealerships
across the country. The Policaro Group
will serve as its innovation partner, providing
a test bed for product development.
A team of 12 people and two third-party
software companies were involved at various
stages of ACE's evolution, said Dan
Robinson, who steered design of the platform.
" They
put a lot into this, " said
Robinson, who left the Policaro Group
in February to become Kimoby's senior
vice-president of strategic partnerships in
North America.
SURVEYS: TOOLS ARE COOL
Results of satisfaction surveys conducted
by the manufacturers and provided to
the dealership group, as well as customers'
comments about the ease and convenience
of the service, indicate that the tool was an
instant success, Robinson said.
Text-based systems that enable customers
to arrange services, learn when their
car is ready or determine when a vehicle
on order will arrive at a dealership are
particularly helpful to address customers'
expectations as dealers face ongoing supply
challenges, Chris Sutton, vice-president of
automotive retail at J.D. Power, said in its
March Customer Service Index (CSI) study.
" Proactive communication with customers
is one solution for dealerships to mitigate
a disruptively tough situation. Simply
implementing text or email alerts can
greatly improve customer satisfaction. "
In February, the
instant-messaging company
Kimoby acquired ACE
Marktplace, which will be offered
to dealerships on a subscription
basis. SUPPLIED PHOTO
The Policaro team, in consultation with
software developers, decided that customers
wouldn't want another app on their phones.
Instead, the group's dealerships receive customers'
service requests through the automakers'
apps, such as Porsche Connect or
BMW ConnectedDrive, Robinson said.
RECOUPING COSTS
The Policaro Group is seeing " thousands
and thousands " of dollars in cost recoveries,
Robinson said. For example, highway tolls
and fuel charges accrued when a customer
is test driving a car or using a loaner are
tracked and quickly recovered from the driver,
whereas it was more difficult to do so in
the past.
The Porsche dealership recovered $6,500 in
one month alone, primarily in tolls and fuel
costs, Robinson said.
The ACE Marktplace also makes it easier
to manage car rentals in-house and has the
potential to find more efficiencies, such as
creating a pool of drivers for a group of dealerships,
thereby cutting the overall number
required, Robinson said.
Under Kimoby, the introductory ACE
Marktplace product is a valet service called
ACE mobility. Kimoby is refining other services
before rolling them out in the coming
months, said Robinson, adding, " We want
dealers to be blown away when they see
this. "
Pricing for ACE Marktplace will be
announced in May and be scaled so that any
size dealership can afford it, he said.
- ANC
ACE MARKTPLACE
Services that are in the
works include:
* A self-service test-drive
module that will enable
dealerships to track
customer activity
* A system with real-time
vehicle-delivery tracking
* A tool that provides live
updates on service progress
*
An inventory-management
system that instantly
informs dealerships of
critical problems such as
potential theft or battery
failure
* Instant inventory audit
reports on vehicle location
and status
* A module to turn a dealership's
loaner fleet into a
revenue-generating subscription
and rental service
*
A fleet management module
that provides real-time
tracking of where a driver is
going and what he or she
is doing
Automotive News Canada - December 2022

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