- Manage your organisation’s unique sales process with the configurable showroom module.
- Configure a vehicle to a customer’s exact requirements using manufacturer, specialist third-party or manually created vehicle specification data.
- Make the customer’s buying experience more professional with embedded images and integrated video, as well as presentations and product website links.
Vehicle Sales
This module provides a suite of tools to manage all aspects of vehicle sales and stocking, covering showroom operations, sales administration, stock control and accounting for new and used vehicles.
Improve your sale process
Maximize the profit on every sale
- Monitor and control vehicle profitability throughout the sales process using flexible ‘back office’ deal optimisation tools.
- Increase vehicle accessory sales with pre-defined links created between vehicles and related accessories.
- Allow customers to choose from a variety of finance schemes, all catered for within Autoline, including hire purchase
and contract-style leasing. - Maximise profitability and increase customer satisfaction by easily optimising finance proposals.
Easily administer vehicle sales and stock
- Eliminate re-keying errors and save time using back-office functions automatically updated from the vehicle transaction data.
- View all amendments made to vehicle records via comprehensive audit trail reports.
- Manage key stock tasks including stock movement, inter-company transfers, value write-downs and detailed cost and profit analysis per vehicle.
Marketing
Autoline’s CRM module is a comprehensive marketing tool designed to manage the business processes that can help increase customer satisfaction and improve sales performance. It enables you to manage contacts, enquiries, transactions, marketing campaigns and gather CSI feedback.
Understand your customers
- Easily share important information using a single customer and vehicle CRM database.
- Improve campaign responses by grouping and targeting similar customer types.
- Analyse a customer’s value to your business using simple tools.
Communicate effectively with your customers
- Capture and analyse customer and prospect information with ease using ‘My Desktop’ – your customisable home screen
- Manage your daily activities effectively, such as customer communications, appointments, tasks and follow-ups using ‘My Desktop’.
- Effectively target customers using their preferred method ̶ email, letter, fax or SMS.
- Improve inbound and outbound call responses using the integrated ‘Contact Management’ call centre solution.
Easily manage key CRM processes
- Help increase customer loyalty and generate additional sales using automated follow-up triggers for activities such as chasing revenue and MOT / service reminders.
- Manage your CSI and complaint handling process effectively using inbuilt functionality.
After Sales
Designed to help your workshop(s) generate additional revenue and increase profitability, intuitive tools enable workshop capacity optimisation through the best allocation of technician and jobs. And real-time visibility and control over what is happening in the workshop ensures this vital part of the business is effectively managed.
Maximize workshop capacity
- Accurately calculate capacity using pre-defined shift patterns, teams, skills and efficiencies.
- Book in servicing and repair work quickly, allowing you to spend more time with the customer.
- Ensure maximum utilisation of available workshop hours using automatic technician allocation.
- Avoid booking jobs for absent technicians with the comprehensive holiday/absence planner.
Effectively control technician’s time
- Simply record technician activity using a touch screen, keyboard or mobile device.
- Easily monitor and control all workshop activity, repair order progress and unused capacity.
- Easily identify non-arrivals or delayed repairs as they are colour-coded for simple identification.
Increase workshop performance
- Identify additional urgent and non-urgent work using the fully integrated electronic Vehicle Health Check (VHC) solution.
- Make informed decisions about your workshop activities using real-time visual reporting tools.
- Assess workshop performance by technician, team or location using graphical Key Performance Indicator (KPI) reports on utilisation, efficiency, productivity and labour recovery rates.
- Increase customer satisfaction by instantly notifying customers of completed repairs via SMS.
Service Desk
Making sure every customer has a pleasant experience when visiting or calling the Service Desk is the first step in ensuring customer satisfaction. A suite of comprehensive tools within Autoline helps streamline your service desk operations, from managing repair orders via Point of Sale and allocating a loan vehicle with ease, through to invoicing the customer using their preferred method.
Prepare accurate repair orders every time
- Compile repair orders using a combination of parts, labour, menu pricing, sublet work and consumables.
- Offer a wide range of service pricing arrangements to your customers using optional customer categories, price levels, discounts and contract terms.
- Provide every customer with a detailed breakdown of repairs undertaken on their vehicle.
- Manage sublet work undertaken by third parties, which can be included within the repair order.
Provide customers with a variety of invoicing options
- Provide customers with a menu pricing layout by grouping together related repairs such as warranty and service contracts.
- Increase efficiency by producing separate invoices for varying requirements on the same repair order.
- Analyse the sales history of any account using automatically recorded information.
- View service history and reminder information for each account via the CRM record.
Effectively manage loan vehicles
- Increase customer satisfaction by booking a loan vehicle at time of service booking.
- Easily view available booking slots via a simple, easy-to-use colour-coded calendar.
- Avoid unexpected costs by recording key details on vehicle collection and return, including mileage, fuel level, damage and driver licence details.
Parts
Increase productivity by using comprehensive tools to effectively manage parts sales, stock and purchasing. Structured processes and rich functionality ensure a wide variety of transactions needed by a parts department are catered for, all centred on providing a quality service to the customer.
Increase stock turn
- Easily manage stock using a combination of factors, including franchise indicators, locations, product groups, suppliers, re-order categories or discount codes.
- Control stock levels by easily viewing the real-time stock situation for each part number, including orders, reservations, delivery information and free stock availability.
- Reduce stock obsolescence by using best practice processes for stock checking, including perpetual inventory management.
- Always use the latest price files, with direct interfaces to all major vehicle manufacturers.
Effectively manage the buying and selling of parts
- Easily deal with an extensive range of transaction types including optional customer and order categories, price levels, discounts, special contracts and multiple currencies.
- Avoid unhappy customers, using tight controls to ensure the correct prices are applied to each type of customer and transaction.
- Maximise stock availability and turn by ordering based on realistic demand patterns as every parts sales transaction can be analysed.
Place orders with ease
- Submit and obtain receipt of stock orders electronically via direct integration to vehicle manufacturer systems*.
- Maximise dealer group stock purchasing terms and reduce stock obsolescence using seamless inter-company stock ordering and receipt processes.
- Simple management of order delivery and distribution for bulk supply or wholesale operations.
* specific details of interfaces for particular franchises are available on request.
Accounts
Autoline supports the accounting requirements of single site dealers through to large multi-company, multi-currency set-ups. You can easily view the financial position of your entire dealership, department or cost centre using flexible reporting tools.
Control your organisation’s finances
- Easily manage different credit limits and payment terms throughout the system.
- Keep tight control over all supplier purchases by storing, viewing and controlling them centrally.
- Save valuable time by scanning and approving purchase invoices electronically, and printing cheques and remittance notes direct from the DMS.
- Reduce outstanding credit using process-led credit chase facilities and emailing statements.
Easily check vital financial information
- View the financial position of your dealership, specific department or cost centre using drill-down tools.
- Easily store and view invoices and statements using comprehensive document management tools.
- Control your business using a variety of summarised or detailed management accounts.
Manage advanced accounting requirements
- Manage tax coding with full reporting and on-screen tax reconciliation facilities.
- Control internal costs by managing all fixed assets within the DMS.
- Cater for a variety of company trading models, from one or more legal entities through to complex divisional or multi-company groups.
- Manage the complex regulated accounting requirements of certain countries.
Management
Ensure your dealership management team(s) can make the right business decisions, using highly developed reporting functionality. Autoline allows analysis of historic data, gives comprehensive views of up-to-the-minute management information and helps with accurate planning and forecasting.
Track day-to-day performance
- Track and control day-to-day performance of your business using over a hundred out-of-the-box management reports.
- Compare, analyse and report on a wealth of real-time business information in a way that suits your specific business needs using a powerful ad-hoc report generator.
Maximise sales force effectivenes
- Maximise the effectiveness of your sales force using employee activity reports that track enquiries handled, test drives booked, quotes raised and orders taken.
- Ensure your business is running effectively, even when you are away from the office, using pre-configured reports that can be automatically emailed to a mobile device.
Business Proactiveness
- Anticipate and respond accordingly to changes in demand and supply of vehicles, parts and services using comprehensive planning and forecasting tools.