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VinSolutions

Score7.4 out of 10

7 Reviews and Ratings

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What is VinSolutions?

VinSolutions, a Cox Automotive company, offers a suite of CRM and operational support applications for auto dealerships.

Categories & Use Cases

Reviews

What users are saying about VinSolutions.
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VinSolutions can do it all, if that's what you want.

Incentivized
lane CAMPBELL
General Sales Manager in Sales at Fitzgerald Auto Mall (1001-5000 employees employees)

Pros

  • indicate the next lead action needed
  • offer real-time views of lead and visit progression across multiple showrooms
  • internet lead management

Cons

  • reporting. My primary sales activity report has changed twice and is far more complicated and less valuable
  • trainers seem to be too focused on how to use Vinsolutions deeply and perfectly as opposed to effectively
  • the current task-nagging process is FAR too cumbersome and requires FAR too much tending to process. Yes, I know it can be customized.

Most Important Features

  • lead management

Return on Investment

  • lead management leads to higher closing ratios
  • lead source reporting increases ROI
  • user management allows very fine tuning at the location level

A Decade with VinSolutions.

Incentivized
Verified User
Manager in Marketing (201-500 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

VinSolutions is our CRM - Customer Relations Manager. It is used in our sales department (the service uses a different platform). Vin is our go-to for interacting with customers, making notes, working leads, etc. All leads from all sources enter into VinSolutions and notify the proper employee/s to start communicating. We use it to email customers about everything and anything, we make notes and tasks for employees so as not to forget things. Essentially, VinSolutions is super important for the sales department. In Marketing, I also use VinSolutions to pull customer lists to be able to market to them in email campaigns.

Pros

  • Receiving leads from all website and third-party sources, and notifying employees when leads come in.
  • Looking up reports. There are premade reports, and you can create your own reports to pull, or even to pull automatically at certain times.
  • Settings roles and authorizations for employees, so they do not have too much access to alter the way they want to use it, but it's set upper manager's request.

Cons

  • Because VinSolutions is able to pull customers lists, they also made a campaigns manager that allows you to create marketing emails and send them out. However, after the initial launch they never updated it, it seems. It would be the best thing...if it was 2005.
  • This customer lists that I like to export to upload into my own email software, I can't get the actual list myself - I have to contact my Vin rep for them to give me. These lists are not the same, nor have the same filters, as the report lists that Vin does provide dealers. So, I prefer the other.

Most Important Features

  • Communicating with customers and documenting it.
  • Receiving and processing phone/internet leads.
  • Reviewing and analyzing reports for ROI and employee training opportunities.

Return on Investment

  • Not sure about our financial investment in VinSolutions, but we have been with them for over 10 years, so our management keeps choosing it over other options (we have reviewed others in the past recommended by our dealer group).
  • Positive impact on keeping our customers...ours. This avoids sales consultants recording their customers in some random ledger of their own...and then taking that list with them when they leave - especially to another dealership. This ensures that each person is the dealership's customer, and not the salesperson's customer.
  • History is recorded, and we never know what we need until we run into an issue. VinSolutions is our go-to for many past communications and transactions. It provides a 'road to the sale' story that managers can pull up to help them navigate concerns.

Other Software Used

CDK Drive

VinSolutions- Well worth the price for dealer management and inventory management

Incentivized
Verified User
Director (51-200 employees employees)

Pros

  • Tracks sold logs, desk logs, offers, etc. so there is no confusion over what was offered or by whom.
  • Gives a clear, concise list of sold vehicles, who sold them, and front and back end gross for easy reference.
  • Trade appraisals are clearly visible, along with who appraised them, so there is no potential for misunderstanding between the sales managers, GSM and GM.

Cons

  • Could be easier to use - not the most intuitive setup I have seen.
  • Realistically, it feels like VinSolutions and vAuto could be combined into a single product.

Return on Investment

  • By tracking front and back end gross openly, it seems to incentivize sales people to try harder to hold onto money.
  • It does a great job of ensuring customer satisfaction by reminding sales associates to follow through on sales and follow up post-sale.
  • Reporting functions make it easy to track leads, hand them off to different reps who are possibly better suited to complete the sale.

Alternatives Considered

POWER Dealer Management System

Other Software Used

Dealer.com, Kronos Workforce Central, Google Authenticator, Google Hangouts Chat, Google Hangouts (Classic), Apache OpenOffice, Microsoft Office 2016, Carbonite Backup for Microsoft Office 365