ONE of Australia’s leading dealer management systems vendors has developed a list of five actions dealers can take to review and adapt their IT systems and processes in a post-COVID lockdown environment in order to sustain their businesses.

Based on insights from Auto-IT’s best-practice dealerships, sales and marketing director Aaran Newman told a workshop at the recent AADA Convention and Expo that dealers should be looking at using government incentives to upgrade their systems and especially address the mounting concerns around the security of their systems and the risk of attack.

Mr Newman addressed the issue of managing the incorporation into dealer businesses the various new staff and customers communications systems developed during lockdowns, the greater call for data analysis by vehicle retailers and electronic marketing issues.

Action one: review IT hardware

Mr Newman said dealers should make sure when reviewing their assets in terms of the instant asset write-off that they should not forget to review their IT infrastructure.

“We’ve seen a number of dealerships upgrade their servers, laptops, PCs, printers and firewall equipment in recent times,” he said.

“Especially if it’s near end-of-life; this needs to be implemented before the end of the financial year. But always get your advice from your accounting firm just to make sure.”

Action two: Cybersecurity risks

“With more people working remotely, cyber security is becoming a more important thing to review. Even (prime minister) Scott Morrison has recommended that all businesses review their entire security.

“We have seen a number of dealerships being hit by hackers over recent times. With COVID coming in over the last six/seven months, certainly business systems and processes have been reviewed by all dealerships to keep people safe and to keep safe clients coming in and engaging with their business.

“But with people working from home, the risk of being hacked is a lot higher. Now we’ve seen a number of dealerships take that course and that is allowing hackers to gain easier access into people’s networks and people’s systems.  And the last thing you want is ransomware within your network.

“One of the key things to do is look at your backups. So we’ve found that the dealerships that have survived these ransomware scares have not only had backups off-site or on their server, but they’ve also had backups off their network.

“So the key thing is to check that and make sure you’re doing that on a regular basis.

“Another point to consider with cyber security is cyber insurance. We’ve taken up cyber insurance and we have worked with a couple of dealerships and helped them answer their insurance companies’ questions on cyber insurance. So that’s something you certainly need to look into because ransomware is certainly a real threat.”

Mr Newman said the dealers need to train staff on the cyber risks they can take in their day-to-day online activities.

“All employers should be training their staff; 20- or 30-minute sessions are probably all that’s required to give them an understanding of how they should be operating in terms of emails, links, using USB sticks with their equipment. Make sure you are controlling the equipment that they are using at home.

Disaster recovery plans and IT policies are also important.

Step three: business systems and processes

“Business systems and processes have certainly changed for businesses, including dealers. Certainly engaging with clients online; training staff how to use website chat systems.

“One of the things we are all doing a lot more of is engaging online; using Zoom, using Microsoft Teams and sometimes using FaceTime on your phone. And it’s really important that your staff know how to handle that. We have all seen the video clips where people have done something strange not knowing that their video was still on.”

Mr Newman said it was important that people review what others are seeing within private rooms where people are working from home and do not reveal more about them that they really intended.

“So making sure that they are aware of their environment when they are on video and aware of what they wear is pretty important.

“You’ve got a lot more staff working from home. How do you keep them accountable? Review your management reporting, making sure you have got the right reports to keep them accountable; getting the results that you’re after.

“Everyone’s talking about contactless engagement, from the collect-and-return service vehicles. I certainly did that during COVID and that was a great experience. Probably expensive for the dealership but something they implemented just to keep service rolling. Delivering vehicles at people’s homes as another way to relieve their concerns about COVID.

“Debtor control – not only during COVID but even now as we come out of COVID – reviewing the credit terms. Things are changing all the time so default risk is still a massive issue over the next 12 to 24 months, probably even more so. So reviewing the debtor’s terms over this period is what best practice dealerships are doing.

“It is also time to look at all your DMS set-ups. This is something that a lot of dealerships don’t often do but some dealerships have lost staff over this period. Do they still have logins to your system because if they do, they can possibly walk into your dealership and start accessing the system and doing what they had access to before. So definitely check that.

Check your workshop loading parameters and check your duplicate contacts. We are doing a lot more digital marketing now and your data needs to be accurate. Get in there and have a look at your data and make sure it’s right. Make sure your staff are entering your emails and mobile numbers. So it is a good time to do this but even moreso in this environment.

Action four: Data Analytics

“Data Analytics is an area we have seen great growth in demand from dealers in terms of reporting.

“One is sales follow-up for service customers. This provides sales staff at the start of each week a look at what service customers are coming in for the week. They can then talk to their service customers (if they’re allowed to), meet and greet them in the service area and talk through the life cycle of their vehicle and whether they are ready for the next change-over.

“With dealerships doing a lot more electronic direct marketing (EDM), it’s a bit like lead management when leads come in. The sooner you contact someone after they’ve opened that email, the higher the chance of success. We have a live report that allows you to see when people have opened the emails so you can get in contact with them as soon as possible.

“We have another report around the retention journey and service and that’s something that dealerships don’t necessarily do too well. But we have dealers with clients who have not come in for a first service and we have a good report for that purpose. During this COVID period, a lot of businesses have been doing follow-up on that because they’ve been relying on service to prop them up. So certainly consider that activity.

Action five: digital marketing

“When people are not coming into your dealerships (as during COVID), digital marketing becomes very important. But also to grow your business in the future it is key.

“From a digital marketing perspective, there’s certainly an increase in SMS and emails going out. These are giving clients confidence and feeling safe in coming into your business and in just letting your clients know the dealership’s open. So very important to be doing that.

“Look at your marketing plans, at your marketing matrixes. So when do you SMS? When do you email? When do you call? Who’s doing that? How they’re doing it? This is certainly very important.

“One of the things that we’ve found just in very recent times is that because no one can travel overseas and used-car sales have gone through the roof, there’s a big car parc out there and I would suggest that safety checks and servicing between now and Christmas will be huge.

“If your service departments are not pumping at 100-plus per cent over the next six weeks something is wrong and that’s where your marketing is very important.” Mr Newman said.

By Neil Dowling