I often make a joke when I’m teaching a seminar that reports need to be geared toward the “little brains” in dealerships. After a small laugh, I explain that typical departmental managers don’t have smaller brains than the controller or IT director – rather they can devote less attention to looking at reports because they are answering the phones, desking deals, and faxing an invoice – all at the same time. The challenge of the next generation of technology will be to make software so easy that they can do their jobs – with their eyes shut.

As an F&I manager, I found one of the most difficult tasks I had was to determine where to place paper. Although the shotgun method worked fine for a while, this frustrates the lenders when they get 200 applications and only 50 contracts. I recently looked at a great product called DeskX that lets me submit a contract to the perfect lender who is going to buy that contract and at the best rate and maximum profit. How important is it to select the best lender? An average dealer will spend about 30 percent of his time rewriting the original deals that were closed. According to one GM that I spoke to, these rewrites cause an average loss of $1,000, or the typical “30K a month loss.” Why DeskX is different is because it compiles the data and the more the dealer uses the system, the more the system adapts to that specific dealer and his business practices in conjunction with the lenders. For credit decisions, accuracy is the name of the game and DeskX prides itself in this. My favorite part was how easy it was to enter a deal and then use its likely, moderate, and unlikely rating system to select the best lender, tier and rate for the deal. DeskX is worth opening your eyes and taking a look at www.teamgds.com.

And while I’m talking about pushing paper, let me introduce you to Compli, a software provider in the space that further protects dealerships with automated compliance software. Compli has built a solution that automates all of your policies and procedures into one system. It also tracks whether each staff member has read and been trained on your procedures. Once they have done so, electronic signatures help guard you from future litigation. This is an automated way to ensure you and your employees stay in compliance and protect yourself from lawsuits, can it get any easier? You can see for yourself at  www.compli.com and put your litigation worries to rest.

And finally, how can we forget CRM when discussing automation? Smart Web Concepts is an interactive marketing solutions provider whose applications make it easier for GMs to follow up with prospects, track the progress and make a sale. The product has many automated systems to help you stay on track; leads brought in are automatically responded to with a template e-mail and then immediately assigned to salespeople using a round robin system for follow-up. A color coding system helps dealer execs know at a glance how long it has been since a lead has been followed-up on by a sales associate and automated action items help your sales staff stay on track when communicating with prospects. Additional tools to help dealerships draw in buyers with little to no effort, such as an interactive chat feature, are coming soon. But perhaps the most exciting thing that Smart Web Concepts offers dealers is the ability to routinely report and track the effectiveness of third-party leads. Automated reports can show a snapshot of not only how many leads each provider is sending, but also which leads are resulting in sales for the dealership, thereby providing instant ROI information at a glance. You can visit Smart Web Concepts at www.smartwebconcepts.com. As I mentioned in my editor’s notes, I hope to continue finding these gems of technology that are so simple to use that you’ll want to open your eyes to watch the money rolling in.

Sandi Jerome is the editor of Digital Dealer magazine. She is a former controller, CFO, system administrator, F&I, assistant GM, and fixed operations manager with over 20 years experience in the automotive industry. She is the owner of Sandi Jerome Computer Consulting.