csabatka1 said:

This is the biggest miss that all dealerships, SEO companies, and website vendors have with this, the Schema to tie it all together.

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Don't give away all the secret sauce @csabatka1 !

A freebie from us: From Negative Equity to Lifelong Loyalty - VehicleLyfe

It is a guide to keeping customers who are locked in their cars loyal to your dealership. Another way to phrase it is:

Nearly 30% of your database is underwater, and the average amount is over $7,200! How do you be the one who retains them for service and future purchases?

DR Exclusive Invite:
I need a few dealers to beta test this new VDP Audit Machine we're building.

Our team will audit the 20 OLDEST VDPs in your inventory at no charge. What I want in return is your time to discuss what we found and your honest feedback.

With a 5% VDP error rate we 'should' find only 1 of the 20 VDPs with a major error. Its likely that we'll find a 4-6 of the VDPs missing 1 or more missing medium valued features (i.e. "locking console storage")

Send me an email at VDPAudit@automagiclabs.com, I'll get back to you.

Below is a sample of the VDP audit.

Take a look at the "MODEL COMPLEXITY" bar chart.



To the uneducated shopper, they are unaware that 2022 F250's are built in 6 different trims AND there are 34 unique styles. The MSRPs start at $40,000 and go up to $90,000.

TAKEAWAY:
If you have a stuffed up ride and if you DONT merchandising the shit out of it, then only your smartest shoppers will know that that VIN is loaded. ADVANTAGE: SHOPPER.

A great day is when our VDP Audit can't find anything wrong.
p.s. Missing Key Features in Yellow are "non-standard" features (i.e. optionally installed features)

Below, we isolate the missing $upgrades only:

### High-Value Factory Omissions ($MSRP Impact)
The following premium upgrades are confirmed on the build sheet but are missing from the VDP features list or incorrectly described:

* Equipment Group 502A High ($4,050): The VDP lists a base Lariat; this is the high-spec "High" series.
* 3.5L V6 EcoBoost Engine ($2,075): Listing mentions generic "EcoBoost"; missing the specific high-output 400HP variant.
* Power Deployable Running Boards ($1,300): A visible premium convenience feature completely absent from the listing.
* B&O Unleashed 18-Speaker System ($850): Current VDP lists the standard 8-speaker B&O system, missing the superior Unleashed upgrade.
* Trailer Tow Package ($900): Specific towing capability is omitted from the feature list.
* 360-Degree Camera ($850): A high-demand safety system confirmed on the build sheet but missing from the VDP.
* 20" Chrome-Like PVD Wheels: Listing incorrectly identifies these as standard 18" wheels.
* Extended Range Fuel Tank: The 36-gallon (136L) tank is a major utility selling point missing from the listing.

We, as an industry, think that aged units need discounts.
Aged units problems can begin at birth, and this F150 is an example.



THink about it... The sales reps need help selling this truck too. The leads on this f150 are likley to be VERY unproductive.

I contend the quality of the VDP experience directly connects to the closing ratio.

Example:
84 day old F150 Lariat, LOADED with $9000 of options—HOW MANY OF THEM ARE INVISIBLE?


CPO Gray 2023 Ford F-150 Lariat for Sale in Liverpool, NY | 1FTFW1E81PFC94481 | Davidson Ford of Clay

### AutoMagic Audit: All Omitted Items Confirmed on Build Sheet

* Equipment Group 502A High Package
* Ford Co-Pilot360 Assist 2.0
* Intelligent Adaptive Cruise Control with Stop-and-Go
* B&O Unleashed 18-Speaker Sound System
* 360-Degree Camera System
* Power Deployable Running Boards
* Trailer Tow Package
* 136 Litre / 36 Gallon Extended Range Fuel Tank
* 20" Chrome-Like PVD Aluminum Wheels
* Adaptive LED Projector Headlamps with Dynamic Bending
* Power Tilting/Telescoping Steering Column with Memory
* Heated Rear Seats
* Wireless Charging Pad
* Connected Built-In Navigation (3-Year Trial Included)
* Intersection Assist
* Evasive Steering Assist
* SecuriCode External Keypad
* Rain-Sensing Wipers
* Auto-Dimming Driver Side Mirror
* Power Folding Side Mirrors

Over $10,000 in omitted factory options

I spent last summer driving between Boston and Burlington a lot. 3.5 hours each way.

Starlink is on the roof of my car and I was constantly on Zoom calls and Teams meetings. It was a great way to stay connected, and made the drive less monotonous.

Although I am not a fan of including temporary tech into long term vehicles, I enjoy being connected while on the road. BUT - it is my personal choice to connect Starlink and my phone. I don’t want it in my car’s operating system.

Eric Miltsch said:

I believe they were sold about a year ago.

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Do you know any more about the new owners?

Jeff Kershner said:

Someone should SNAG that URL!

Ahhhh the good'ol days of #DSES. I agree @Ryan Everson it was one of the better conferences. Me and @ryan.leslie presented together at a few of them back in the day.

I used to follow Jarred on FB, but I don't get on much anymore.

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I've had the pleasure of presenting with a bunch of awesome people over the years, but what you and I did at DSES will always stand out to me. We had Facebook presenting on one side of us and I believe it was Google on the other. I remember thinking that half of the people in our room just walked in the wrong door. Shoot, maybe we benefitted from the overflow.

Such a good time preparing and delivering that material with you @Jeff Kershner, especially the donkeys slide.

Ryan Hartigan said:

Wondering what people have seen for best practices for having separate pages for service and sales.

I know Google allows a dealership to have separate pages for each, and it seems brands that have a GMB category of a car dealership (even if they have service shop and auto repair as additional categories) do not rank on the Map Pack for service shops.

I wonder about cannibalism between pages when they have the same address, and potentially the same phone number, and same incorporated entity. What needs to safely be separated and not separated? What have you seen for cannibalizing your total ratings given that they will be spread across more than one GMB page now.

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@Dan Sayer and I separated out the departments for Anderson Auto Group's 8 dealerships several years ago now. Initially we had the issue of Google putting our Service department GBP as the parent with our main store GBP as a child. We shortened the business names and after a few weeks they nested appropriately.

Right now we have this structure for all stores
Example of a Ford store, each has their own GBP.
Anderson Ford of Lincoln North
----Anderson Ford Service
----Anderson Ford Parts
----Anderson Lincoln of Lincoln Service
----CARSTAR Anderson Collision-North

We treat the parent as our sales profile, but it also includes service options.

Our best practices.
Parent (Anderson Ford of Lincoln)
Business Categories, Description, Menu/service link are sales related. The offerings section we do have service related offerings within it.
Ford dealer
Used car dealer
Used truck dealer
etc.....

Service Child (Anderson Ford Service)
Business Categories, Website link, Description, Menu/service link, offerings are service related.
Auto repair shop
Oil change service
Tire shop
Brake shop
etc....

Body Shop Child (CARSTAR Anderson Collision-North)
Business Categories, Website link, Description, Menu/service link, offerings are body shop related.
Auto body shop
Auto dent removal service
etc....

and so on for other departments.

Google loves to automatically update Business Categories and Offerings so watch those,


Another best practice is where we route review requests to, sales goes to main GBP profile, service to service GBP, body shop to body shop GBP. Body shop, service, and parts might naturally go to main GBP, but overwhelmingly they're divided accordingly.

What this looks like:




For searches, we do get some crossover, but we're talking thousands for the main GBP vs the crossover of a couple dozen to a hundred searches.
Main GBP:

1. anderson ford
2. ford
3. anderson ford lincoln
4. anderson ford lincoln ne
5. ford dealership lincoln ne
6. ford lincoln ne
7. car dealerships near me
8. anderson ford of lincoln north, wildcat drive, lincoln, ne
9. anderson auto group
10. car dealerships lincoln ne

Service GBP:

1. anderson ford
2. ford
3. anderson ford lincoln ne
4. anderson ford service
5. ford lincoln ne
6. ford dealership lincoln ne
7. oil change
8. ford lincoln
9. anderson ford lincoln nebraska
10. anderson ford quick lane

This is the biggest miss that all dealerships, SEO companies, and website vendors have with this, the Schema to tie it all together.


Dealership contact/hours/directions page:

Ford service landing page:


Oil change page with offers and actions:

I believe they were sold about a year ago.

DealerInt said:

Dan — that level of transparency is rare and genuinely useful for anyone doing due diligence on Drive right now.

On the reporting side — the customization gap vs Hive and FourEyes is real. Those tools built reporting as their core product, so CRMs will always lag there. But the salesperson self-reporting gap is the one that compounds quietly. When salespeople can't see their own lead performance, you get two problems: managers spend time pulling reports instead of coaching, and salespeople have no accountability loop between deals. VinSolutions adding it after years of requests tells you how much pain existed around it.

The AI training limitation you described is a surprisingly nuanced problem. Most stores don't even realize their AI reps are creating confusion around third-party widgets until a customer complains or goes cold. The 700Credit example is exactly the kind of edge case that erodes trust in AI-assisted conversations — the customer doesn't know what happened to their data, and the AI can't explain it because it wasn't trained to. That's a human-in-the-loop failure point that's hard to anticipate until you've seen it happen.

The DNC visual alert gap is the one I'd be most concerned about at scale. As TCPA enforcement tightens, "we didn't have a visual alert on the record" is not a defense that holds up well. Hopefully Drive prioritizes that one given the liability exposure as Steve confirmed.

The Tekion variable ops accuracy being solid is the key thing — if booked deal data is clean, the manual desk build is painful but workable. The Fixed side gap will matter more as your service retention strategy matures.

Sounds like you've pushed the Drive team hard on these — which usually gets results faster than most vendors admit.

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Still want to be clear. If ranking the CRMs today, Drive is still the number 1 choice.

DealerInt said:

Is that gap mostly on the service side for you, or are you seeing it on variable ops deal data too?

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There is no Fixed integration with Tekion DMS and Drive Centric at this point. Variable Booked deals do report accurately.

DealerInt said:

but if the desking push and deal data aren't flowing cleanly into Tekion, you're reconciling manually somewhere downstream.

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The desking tool in Drive is better than Tekion's, but if they desk in Drive they have to manually build out the deal in Tekion (aside from some customer data that does push). They are all desking in Tekion at this point BUT the managers accept their fate because they love DriveCentric for what it does well as a CRM.

In transparency, my historic complaints about Drive, and this is well known in forums and with the Drive team, are:

- Reporting customization and diversity isn't what VinSolutions was and not nearly close to some third parties like Hive and FourEyes. The level of reporting I WANT isn't what most stores use or will use so I'm a unicorn in this regards.
- There is no salesperson-based reporting for individual salespeople. VinSolutions created this after I had pushed for years. Salespeople should be able to see their own Lead performance without having to rely on a Manager to show them.
- No Tekion Fixed integration for customer life-cycle that includes Service visit data for household or VIN
- I cannot train the AI for our custom needs. For instance, I cannot train our AI reps with a prompt like, "Don't say 'because you were on 700Credit.com' when the shopper was using the 700Credit soft pull widget framed in on our site. It confuses the shopper because they weren't on 700Credit.com so they are immediately cautious of what happened to their data. Say 'thank you for using the pre-approval tool on the site' when you see 700Credit Soft Pull as the source on the lead'" The AI reps ARE crazy good overall though.
- They have no DNC integration for visual alerts on phone numbers on customer records like other CRMs have. This is a growing area of concern once you've been sued...

I have had product requests, as many others in the Drive community have submitted as well, that they have added and updated ongoing. I just want mine done first LOL