During the good years, many dealers invested in an electronic traffic log to manage the large volume of people walking in.
Today, many of these same dealers are suffering from showroom full of units but void of people. As these dealers and (hopefully)
their OEMs create marketing programs to bring people back, they're realizing the true value of all that contact information
they've collected.
What about you? Are you still using a paper traffic log system? If so, it may be time to reconsider. Why pay for all that
labor — just for something inferior?
Two electronic systems often used and praised by Top 100 dealers are Traffic Log Pro and FUSS. Another player that has been
growing in popularity for the past four years is V-SEPT. Dealernews spoke with founder James Vaughn about what the Tampa, Fla.-based company offers, how much it costs, and the integration it
forged last year with ADP Lightspeed.
More than 7,000 salespeople in dealerships across the country use the Web-based V-SEPT system. Surprisingly, more than 100
of these dealers are Harley dealers, even though the Motor Co. offers its own CRM tool. "In terms of technology, features
and functionality," Vaughn says, "Harley-Davidson's Connect product is about three years behind us." He also points out that
more than 250 Harley dealers use Lightspeed. The setup fee for V-SEPT is $900. The base monthly subscription fee starts at $350. This covers the traffic log and the system's
follow-up capabilities. Free tech support is available Monday through Saturday from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., Eastern Time. V-SEPT
also offers free training for customers every first or third Wednesday of every month.
Updates that occur every 90 days are also free. Because the system is Web-based, it works on mobile devices such as Web-enabled
cell phones.
Colby Richardson is marketing manager for Top 100 dealer Family Powersports in Lubbock, Texas. "V-SEPT generates different
thank-you surveys," he says. "We use about 10 of them that we send out on a daily basis. We have to go in there manually and
send out the e-mails, but all the information is collected for us. It's all pretty user-friendly."
Additional V-SEPT features cost extra. The V-Pulse module, for starters, costs an additional $500 to $1,500 per month depending
on volume. It cues up all the customer contact information to be used by a call center. Users of V-Pulse can check off each
call, make notes and score customers. Then they can print out reports saying how many calls were made and completed, and what
the customers said. If you don't already have or use a call center, you can request a quote from Alliance or Applied Concepts,
both of which have integrated with V-SEPT so that data can be sent to them automatically.
Another module allows V-SEPT to integrate with your telephone system so that it can record how long each sales call lasts.
"It really keeps the sales guys honest," Vaughn says. "Because if they noted in the traffic log that they called somebody,
the manager can look to see that a call was made and how long it lasted."
Price book integrations with Black Book and NADA each cost $18 per month.
VWebSmart allows for the integration with websites hosted by ARI, 50 Below, PowerSports Network and others. Online leads are
automatically downloaded into the system.
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