GM goes the outsource route for dealers’ web sites
General Motors Corp., the world’s largest vehicle manufacturer, is offering its dealers new web-based sales and marketing services with a twist. Instead of supporting dealers and their web sites directly, which GM has been doing with its 2-year-old DealerLink program, GM has entered into an outsourcing arrangement with The Cobalt Group, an automotive retailing research, applications development and dealer web services company.
Going forward Cobalt and GM will offer dealers access to a new web sales and marketing support program called GM PowerShift.
DealerLink was GM’s internal dealer marketing support program, but the car maker is rolling out PowerShift as a replacement option to concentrate more on CRM and other interactive marketing activities, the company says.
Cobalt through the PowerShift program will now offer GM dealers, including Chevrolet, Cadillac, Buick, Pontiac, Oldsmobile, and GMC dealerships, access to three levels of web-based sales and marketing support and site maintenance services. The first tier is for basic web site development and maintenance, while other services include help with online advertising and web-based lead generation.
Prices for various PowerShift options range from about $300 to $1,100 per month. GM is outsourcing more web-based dealer services to Cobalt because of the company’s experience in supporting dealer web sites. Cobalt Group supports about 3,000 dealers nationwide with its various web and information management applications.
In addition to enhanced web support, participating PowerShift dealers will also be given access to GM’s online inventory support technology, which helps dealers promote their available inventory of new and used vehicles on the web, says Jack Bowen, general director, GM customer relationship management.
GM sees the Internet as an effective lead generation tool for auto sales and dealers. Internet-sales leads for dealers have increased about 250% in the last two years, GM says.
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