At NADA 2022, Hugh Hathcock, president, and Kalah McCoy executive vice president, describe on how a key Velocity Automotive’s success is its ease of automation with the tools dealerships are already using.
For more information, visit VelocityAutomotive.com.
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Hugh Hathcock: Velocity Automotive is a three-year-old company. And our platform is about taking the dealer from recon to retail. So we actually have windows stickers, we have a recon tool and we have a digital portfolio tool that markets the vehicle after it through recon. So that whole process is about velocity. Speed of turn. And velocity is about doing things fast, doing things more profitable.
Kalah McCoy: So being a single platform is essential to our dealerships’ success. The less logins and dealership can have the better. I mean, every single dealer that us as, I don’t want one more login, one more place my people have to go, one more piece of software my people aren’t going to use. So everything that we try to do is really about automation. If you’re working in your CRM, you don’t have to leave it. If you’re working in VAuto or your inventory tool, you don’t have to leave it. You can pull these window stickers from anywhere. You can see what step the vehicle is in recon from any tool that you’re on. You literally don’t even have to log into our tool. Everything is seamless with the dealer’s existing tools. And I think that’s really been a big key to our success is being able to automate this through the tools that the dealership’s already using.
Hugh Hathcock: And we can consolidate a dealer from three tools, three platforms into one; one password, one integration. He doesn’t have to have have three different companies to call. Most dealers use a window sticker company. Then they have a several recon company. If they have a recon software company, right? And they have another type of company maybe doing a digital portfolio, we do it all one single platform.
Kalah McCoy: So the Velocity window stickers are super important, really for two different things. So the processes inside of the dealership, when we’re appraising, the vehicles are going to be so powerful to make sure that our people are not missing equipment. We’re not putting the incorrect number on these vehicles and losing trades, letting them walk out the door. It also speeds up the process when we’re at the auction or trying to manage multiple options at one time, for some of our groups that have multiple stores and multiple brands. So they can really make these decisions for buying these vehicles at the right price, on the fly. They don’t have to go back and log into a separate tool or make some of our stores even will have to call separate brands to try to pull these window stickers in different places. So it consolidates it all so they can make the buying decision quick before they lose the car or before they lose the customer on the trade that are praising. But then the flip side of that also is that the consumer wants to see the window sticker. So being able to provide that via email, via text or put it on the dealership’s website is really important and powerful because they want the full transparency. This is, and a lot of times used cars that we don’t have all the information on. And we wanna be the inventory experts on all of our makes and models, not just the new cars.
Hugh Hathcock: When a dealer invests in Velocity recon, he really is investing in improving all his accountabilities people. It’s a software tool that enables him to take all his steps and now force accountability with everybody in those steps to shorten their time. Most dealers are at about 12 to 15 days to total recon time. A good recon software tool will cut down in half.
Kalah McCoy: And it’s really important because every single day that those cars sit on the lot is cost the dealership money, $40 to $90 a day, depending on the brand and the caring costs. And, the cost of physically having that car sitting on my lot adds up really quickly. And then you multiply that $80 or whatever it is by the number of cars you have sitting on your lot for a day, right? And those numbers can be astronomical. And so when we can come in and cut that time in half, it saves the dealership so much money. And then it also adds to the selling cycle. If I can reduce your recon time by five days, we just cut that cost by five days. And then you have five more days in your selling cycle to get the highest gross profit. So it’s really, on both sides, very valuable to the dealership. And it’s something that they’re typically not measuring with software right now about 80% of our dealers that we see are still using handwritten documents or Google docs. And there’s not technology to really time and track this. So it’s definitely a game changer.
Hugh Hathcock: Our Velocity Engage digital portfolios are really the old digital evidence manuals. There’s a lot of car guys out there that remember 10, 15, 20 years ago, the great sales guys have the service records in a folder. They had testimonial letters. They had everything about the car, the original window sticker. So the consumer could see it before they bought the used car. What Velocity Engage is a digital format of all that information, but the dealer doesn’t have to compile it all. We’ve automated it.
Kalah McCoy: Nobody does the evidence manual anymore because it’s too hard. It takes too much time and salespeople don’t have that much time or that much diligence to do it, but we know that it’s valuable. So this is a way to digitize all that information and serve it up to your customers in one place that they can read on their cell phone, that we can see how much time they’re spending, looking at each one of these different pieces of information. So we know what their hot buttons are and what’s most important to them. So being able to have that in a format, that’s easy for them to receive and digest and be able to understand the information about the car really helps in the whole credibility and transparency of selling these cars and doing it better and doing it better than your competition. Your competition’s probably not putting all this information out there in one place. And if your customer has to go searching to find it they’re off your website and onto the other. So it really helps keep it all together.
So we’re really excited to be here at NADA. We’ve had a great dealer turnout so far. We’ve had tons of existing customers and new customers that we’re able to expose to all the great products that we have. And it’s really important for our growth and our future to be able to get the word out and let everybody know what our offering is with the window stickers and the digital portfolios and the recon management software, that it’s all really in one platform. And if you haven’t seen it, if you haven’t taken a look, you’re costing yourself money every single day, you need to give us a call, check it out. We’re happy to walk you through it. We have the best trainers, the best team to support you. And we’re the easiest company to do business with. We really wanna get our word out and get our name out there for all the people that don’t know us and show you what we’ve got to offer.
