RECORD BREAKING SALES AND SAVINGS
Kunes Country Auto Group
Success Story
Leveraging rich merchandising data to create a better customer experience and hold value.
Tom Fohr is the Director of Operations for the Kunes Country Auto Group which consists of 24 locations and has over 3,000 vehicles in stock. “One of the things that’s nice about our group is our core fundamentals, of faith, family, and giving back.” Kunes Country Auto Group started using MAX Digital when its dealerships decided they needed technology that was a better fit for their process. To Fohr, it was, “Less about a race to the bottom more about building value in the vehicles.”
A Focus on Merchandising
Fohr found when talking to the team at MAX Digital, they understood what his dealerships were looking to accomplish. “You could tell they had a retail focus and weren’t just a software company. The process that MAX focuses on is a lot more merchandise driven rather than just pricing.” The biggest takeaway he learned from MAX Digital? “You can merchandise a vehicle effectively and it doesn’t mean you have to be the cheapest one out there.”
A Seamless Transition
Fohr believed switching 16 of his auto dealerships from a product that they had been using every day to a new one would be extremely difficult. “It certainly wasn’t something that was a flip of a switch, but MAX did a good job of having their team on the ground,” Fohr explains. When it came to implementation across all the stores Fohr says, “MAX came in and worked with the entire team and the ongoing training after that has been phenomenal.” (Thank you! We try!) He further explains, “You can live or die by your inventory. So you have to be on top of it every day. With MAX, the thing I think really formed the backbone for us is the workflow process.”
The More Data, the Better
“[MAX Digital] has a lot of checkpoints to make sure that stuff gets done so you don’t miss it. One of my favorite parts is the ad review process. With MAX, it forces you to touch every vehicle before you figure out a plan with it. It’s almost like a used car manager’s old school lot walk where they touch every car before they plan on what they’re doing,” Fohr explains. “You’re just doing that digitally. Now, I think the more data you have, the better,” he continues. He goes on to say that having more data was one of the reasons his auto group was really intrigued. Thanks to the data MAX Digital Fohr says it helped his team look at the history of what they’d done in the past in order to decide what the right plan is for that vehicle in the future.
Appraisals Made Easier
Level one Max is different than what Fohr’s dealerships had seen in the past because they could get a lot of historical data from Max that pulled directly from their DMS. This allowed them to see more granular information on their appraisal levels. Not only what was happening at the point of appraisal, but what happened after that. “If there was a wholesale vehicle or vehicle that somebody took in that needs to get wholesaled, what was their average profit or loss on that vehicle? Not just what did they price it out at, but what did they want,” Fohrs explains. The OEM packages were very valuable to them. “With the amount of research we do we have a lot of different manufacturers and not every rooftop knows what those manufacturers options are.”
Compel the Consumer
“Our descriptions on our vehicles are far more compelling now,” Fohr says. He explains that by implementing the new software his business has a lot more OEM data and with all the packages that the vehicles have, all the options. He believes this helps the customer experience since customers may be looking for a certain option and Max has given them the ability to see all of them. “We can see if our team is missing something so we can coach them on how to do that part better. Whereas previously, we just had to assume they were doing it right,” he says.
Seriously Staggering Savings!
According to Fohrs, the money they’ve been able to save is great, “When we grew as large as we did, any software, when you start multiplying over multiple occasions becomes very expensive.” From a financial standpoint, he says they’ve saved in the neighborhood of half a million dollars and the auto group’s sales have continued to increase. “We’ve had record months so all in all it’s been a win”.