CDK: No more customer service nightmares

Switching dealership management system providers should be done as seldom as possible, auto retailers usually advise.

Not only is the process complicated and laborious, but a rocky transition can hurt business performance.

A.J. Hiers, president of Boniface Hiers Automotive Group in Merritt Island, Fla., said switching from Reynolds and Reynolds' system to CDK Global's early last year was a "nightmare."

"We had a long-term office manager, and that was the beginning of her demise because it was so stressful," he said.

CDK, Hiers said, appeared to have "sent in their JV team" to install the system. The switch was expected to take a few weeks but lasted for months.

"It's still not ironed out," he said. "We still have issues with CDK."

But CDK, which has the largest market share among DMS software providers in the U.S., said it is working to remedy such concerns.

At the National Automobile Dealers Association Show late last month in San Francisco, the company insisted that complicated billing and what some dealers see as a blase approach to customer service are things of the past.

CDK has launched a Customer Success initiative that will include "customer success advocates" and a "performance management team" in addition to service representatives. The company said it will hire 100 people by June to support the effort, and already has about 30 such staffers.

CDK is also creating a Customer Success Dashboard that will link dealers' performance goals with system use information. The new service model will include a "performance manager" to contact dealerships monthly to discuss dashboard statistics and performance. That person will also visit stores three or four times a year.

"We'll come to them and instead of saying, 'How is business going?' we'll say, 'This is what we're seeing. Let's talk about that and let's try to fix it together,' " said Dan Flynn, president of CDK Global North America. There will also be specialists in finance and insurance, service and other areas of dealership operations.

"It's just raising the bar for our support," Flynn said. "[Customers] say, 'We really would like you guys to support us better,' and that doesn't mean answer the phone faster. That's included, but it's not the only piece. This level of support is really the cornerstone of what they're asking for."

The dashboard will display about 30 critical year-over-year metrics for the dealership and the group, Flynn said. If it's a 10-rooftop group, dealers can see how the operation is performing as well as individual stores. Benchmark data will show dealers how they stack up against peers.

For example, retailers zeroing in on a goal of 4 percent used-vehicle sales growth might see that peers have a 5 percent growth rate and adjust their target accordingly. The benchmark data will come from other CDK clients. The information is kept anonymous.

Dealers will not be charged for the improvements.

Flynn said the company also is simplifying its billing by reducing the total of stock numbers it uses to track items such as hardware, software or services. The eventual goal is to get all billing on one page per store.

Simpler billing is being rolled out in Drive Flex, CDK's Web-based DMS that was introduced last March. CDK touted Drive Flex at the NADA Show, calling it a modern, easy-to-use DMS. It is available to dealers with one or two locations, but Ron Frey, CDK's chief strategy officer, said Drive Flex will eventually replace Drive, the company's flagship DMS.

After hearing about CDK's improvements, Hiers said, "Too bad that wasn't in place before they sold me a bill of goods." But he added that he remains "cautiously optimistic" the company will follow through on the changes.

"They just need to do what they tell you they're going to do," Heirs said. "We never asked for anything more than that."

His sentiment is shared by Heath Thompson, general manager at Ronnie Thompson Ford in East Ellijay, Ga. Thompson has been using CDK's DMS for about six years.

"I think they're trying, because it's better now than it was when we first went with them," he said. Thompson said he was dismayed, however, with a recent customer-service experience. He said the CDK representative who contacted the dealership via phone spoke such poor English that staffers had trouble understanding the person.

"It was horrible," he said.

One big problem, Thompson said, is that his dealership "very seldom" sees its customer representatives.

These are the kinds of things CEO Brian Krzanich said he has heard from dealers since being named to the job in November.

"It was a very consistent theme of, 'We tend to see you every couple of years when it's time to re-up our contract, and we don't see a lot of you in between,' " Krzanich said. "Your hours frustrate us. We're here all these other days, and you're not. So how can we consider you a real partner when you're not around enough and you don't work the same hours I do?"

Krzanich, who most recently was CEO of Intel, has emphasized speed in implementing the new initiatives. He said there is no specific dollar amount tied to the company's enhanced customer service investment.

"We were going to pay for this one way or another," he said. "You were going to pay for this through doing better services, or you were going to pay through losing customers."