AUTOMOTIVE technology business AutoPlay has responded to the challenges that the COVID-19 pandemic is presenting automotive retailers with some clever tools built around customer contact tracking and hygiene when interacting with dealerships.

The company has just released two products designed to support safer working processes in the dealership during the pandemic.

The first is a dedicated tool for customer contact tracing. It includes vehicle hygiene and customer disclaimers and enables dealerships to more safely operate during the COVID-19 crisis.

AutoPlay is a lead management and nurturing platform that helps dealerships sell more cars through digitising the road-to-the-sale and has offices in both Australia and New Zealand. AutoPlay is part of the global Marque Group family of automotive technology companies.

The new AutoPlay technology includes:

COVID-19 compliance disclaimer

The company said that under existing operational restrictions, dealerships should already track every customer that visits their dealership: when they were there and with which vehicles and people they interacted.

Although AutoPlay already has features that enable recordkeeping in this manner, it now also features a COVID-19 compliance disclaimer.

This disclaimer allows the dealership to record if the customers they are engaging with for lead, test drive, appraisal or loan car interactions were showing any flu-like symptoms and discloses that their personal information may be shared to the relevant authorities if contact tracing is necessary in the interests of public health.

Customer Contact Tracing

AutoPlay says that it has always been considered good business practice to know all visitors to a dealership sales yard or premises, but “there is now a very real and important reason to diligently obtain this information”.

In the event a visitor is diagnosed with COVID-19, the dealer may need to provide a full digital record of contact to the relevant health authorities. Dealerships must be able to quickly identify which staff members came into contact with the visitor, the other people with whom those staff also had contact both on that day and any subsequent days, and even which vehicles that visitor and the salesperson had engaged on together.

Any further people who entered those vehicles will also need to be identified.

The company said that all this information is readily accessible and available for quick collation and review in AutoPlay’s new contact tracing module.

COVID-19 vehicle sanitisation record

This allows for a cleaner to sign off once a vehicle has been sanitised, complying with the current heightened need to ensure all surfaces are regularly cleaned and disinfected.

This section exists on all test drive, loan car and appraisal forms in AutoPlay’s Sales Pipeline, so that all staff are aware at any given time of a specific vehicle’s hygiene record and importantly when it was last cleaned and by whom in digital format.

Checking in and out

AutoPlay said that it now has a simple check in/check out option on all lead records to document when clients visited the dealership. This is designed to help track who has come into contact with staff and other customers, fulfilling contact tracing requirements in hand with the COVID-19 disclaimer.

AutoPlay is also releasing within days another new module empowering dealerships to administer contactless vehicle engagements like test drives, with the full exchange of information and authorisation taking place digitally between the customer and the salesperson via their own respective personal devices.

In addition, AutoPlay will begin providing a new digital visitor logbook for dealership use across sales, service and parts departments.

The head of product and operations at AutoPlay, Matt Darby, said the new tools were “vital to good business operations”.

“The logbook has some great features: you will have an immediate live view of who is onsite at your dealership, who is scheduled to come in, and who has come and gone,” he said.

“The best thing with both the logbook, as well as all of the new features we are developing, is that they integrate seamlessly with our existing lead management platform for ease of use.”

Brendan Bates, AutoPlay Australia general manager, said: “It’s no secret that aftersales – and in particular, the service lane – plays a major role in our recovery as an industry.

“We think it can be extended further.

“Smart digital tools such as the contactless digital appraisal form will allow diligent salespeople and valuers to profile customers and their vehicles in the service lane.

“The investment in increasing appraisals of good quality retail stock in your service driveway today will pay off as lead volumes continue to regain lost ground and those new leads automatically match in AutoPlay to your previously appraised service vehicles.

“It is like you have rolling stock you have not had to buy yet that you can use to potentially make matches to on new and existing leads.

“It’s great that our technology will assist in these vital dealer processes right now while improving contact tracing and compliance especially on the ever-important test drive stage of a lead’s life,” Mr Bates said.

By John Mellor