• Stop being a LURKER - join our dealer community and get involved. Sign up and start a conversation.

Dealer.com Why Have Your Forsaken Me?

Jump to latest Follow Reply
Mitch Gallant

Mitch Gallant

Refresh Team
Apr 6, 2009
455
119
Awards
1
First Name
Mitch
#1
I have to start with some props to Dealer.com before I get into my "poor me" rant. We've been with Dealer.com for a couple years now and until a few months ago were very happy with the product and even more so with the service.

Now, we're getting the shaft... hard! If you didn't know, DDC sold about a quarter of it's company to Auto Trader Canada. (Different company then Trader.com, same level of "greasiness"). The Trader product is similar to DDC but the pricing is inflated and some of the features are unavailable. To make matters worse we're more or less being forced to switch to the "Dealer Smart Solutions" platform from what we would love to stick with at Dealer.com. DDC won't take an official stand and say you're switching on this date and this time or else, but have taken the frustrating as all hell line of "well you can stay with us but we're not selling you any new products or features so you may as well switch to Trader or find another provider."

Last week I called to add the DDC video feature to our inventory and they wouldn't take my money! I can't get mad with my account rep because I know she'd love to sell it to me so I'm left to make a little noise. I'm sure they hope we slip away quietly soon. To make matters even worse, if we were to take the proposal to switch to "DSS" (which will be over my dead body), it would have to be a completely new website... we can't even keep our DDC site! Maddening considering the years of DDC "Dynamic SEO"

I know there are alot of happy DDC clients, and I would consider myself one if it weren't for this garbage, but if for no other reason i felt compelled to rant in order to make some noise. Hopefully someone important hears me and realizes they've pulled the rug from under us.:bkheart:
 
#2
We were forced to completely drop DDC when their development team wouldn't fix the one part of their Lead Lifecycle system that would tie the whole thing together and give me an accurate way to measure all incoming and outgoing lead contacts. Don't know if what Mitch is talking about is the reason why they couldn't find the time to fix one trigger, but it cost them our account and has left such a bad taste in our mouths that "Dealer.com" is now considered a bad word around the office. Talk about :bkheart:. :mad:
 
#3
Mitch,

You and my old intern (eCommerce Director of Phaeton Auto Group) are the only two dealers I know in Canada on the Dealer.com platform, I hear a lot from Phaeton about the things Autotrader is doing up there. It sure sounds like they're trying to take advantage of a dealer base that is mainly "mom & pops". I really feel for you guys. You are both a lot nicer and calmer than me. I'd probably scare my Trader rep away from the dealership if I worked in Canada.

Everyone else,

One thing to know is that Dealer.com in America is VERY different than Dealer.com in Canada - like Mitch said it is more Trader than Dealer.com up there.
 
#4
Alex Snyder said:
Mitch,
Everyone else,

One thing to know is that Dealer.com in America is VERY different than Dealer.com in Canada - like Mitch said it is more Trader than Dealer.com up there.
Click to expand...

You're bang on Alex and it's because it's a VERY VERY different platform then Dealer.com that we're not seriously entertaining there proposed switch to the Dealer Smart Solutions. I might, MIGHT, think about it if all they were doing is swapping out the DDC logo with their DSS logo but its different templates and options all together.

The account reps are border line brain dead and after getting no where and wasting a half hour on a problem you end up passed to DDC support anyways. Throw on top some exact same services inflated 20% and you feel like running someone over with a Super Duty.

If nothing else they've saved me my monthly hair cut. I just pull it out now a days.
 
#5
I feel for you Mitch. Not an ideal position to be in. I hope things work out with DDC. I do know a lot of dealers that are relatively happy with DDC here in the States.

I know of at least three (3) EXCELLENT companies down here who would be very happy to earn your business. They are top-notch in every sense of the word. This is the feedback I get from some of our dealer clients who are utilizing them.

Good luck to you Mitch.
 
#6
I am currently running a DDC website right now up in Canada but am in the process of switching providers. Our account reps also seem to be quite brain dead, the other internet manager and I got the feeling that during our meetings they were asking us questions and writing down our answers because they were clueless on how to operate their own site! We always got the same response to every question "I'm going to have to forward this on to tech support". We grew very tired of this response and started to look for another alternative after their failed promises of SEO never came to fruition.

We launched this site about 8-10 months ago and told them our main concern was SEO they said the package they had given us was to optimize SEO. We later found out they had not given us the Dynamic SEO package, which we originally were told from our first account rep we had (who stopped working there shortly after we had signed up).

DDC in Canada seems like its run by Trader which is NOT a website company!!
 
#7
Thx @GreenLight, i hope things work out with DDC as well, seems like a long shot though.

@Hixie, you're going through the same frustrations as us and everyone accross Canada.

it's like Trader, realizing their site and books are three swirls down the shitter decided to buy a part of DDC and in Trader fashion proclaimed "We're a pretty big deal, we can handle anything." What's frustrating is DDC was a great company, a super model if you will, but now it's got a huge wart on the north side of it's face!
 
#8
Sorry to hear about this Mitch. One would think there would be a loophole somewhere amongst all of this. Keep us in the look with what this turns into.

It's a shame we don't have more dealers from up north to help voice their opinion here on the forums.

Are you considering jumping ship all together and going another route?
 
#9
Haven't found much of a loophole yet and just fielded a response from our Trader area manager who was a little peeved over this thread... "I was unaware that you had such strong issues, and that you feel I come across as brain dead to you..."

We're considering jumping ship all together, from a platform we don't want to necessarily leave. I'll certainly keep the loop open with the going on's and close it off once we can finally make some decisions going forward.
 
Top Bottom
Back
Jump to latest Follow Reply
Jump to latest Follow Reply
Menu