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Until now, AutoRaptor has offered only two different ways that leads could be distributed to sales reps: Managers could assign each lead manually, or sales reps could be allowed to claim leads.
Today we are proud to announce the ability to distribute leads in a round-robin fashion. Round-robin assignment will distribute leads equally to available sales reps with minimal manager intervention.
Each day when sales reps log in we ask for their schedule that day. Sales reps provide the hours during which they are available to promptly respond to leads. Round-robin assigned leads that are ignored for more than 30 minutes will alert a manager and could be reassigned.
As leads come in during the day they will be distributed round-robin to the sales reps currently working and available to receive leads. A sales rep is considered available during the hours they entered (unless they change their status to 'busy').
If a sales rep is going to be unable to respond to leads for a short while they can click the "Available" indicator and a popup will allow them to set their status to Busy. When they return they can click Busy and simply change their status back to available.
When someone is busy for less than an hour the round-robin system will track how many leads they "missed" and when they return will see that they "catch up". If someone is busy longer than an hour they are removed from the round-robin queue and will not "catch up" when they return.
You will need to be an account admin to enable round-robin. Click on Settings, then Integration, then E-Leads. You'll see a drop-down labeled "How should your leads be assigned?". Simply choose round-robin and select which of your sales reps you would like leads evenly distributed to throughout day.
We have added new filters under the Inventory tab to more effectively search for vehicles you have in stock. In the image above, you will see that on the right of the Inventory screen there are more search fields. Now, in addition to vehicle description. VIN or stock number, you can search your inventory by:
There is also a new feature on the top left of the inventory screen where you can sort your inventory or search results by:
We've recently improved the ability to take notes. Gone are the drop-down and "Add entry" buttons. So how does one add a note? Simply start typing or click into the note field and you'll see the new note taking form appear.
It's now even easier to select the type of activity. We've added a new "Demo" activity as well as the ability to differentiate between inbound and outbound phone calls. This same note entry form is now also used for adding additional notes to some activities - such as marking a vehicle sold or completing a task.
When adding a note regarding a specific activity the form will display the title of the activity. Starting today any tasks completed from an action plan will pop up the note window and prompt you to enter notes. If you don't need to enter any you can simply hit the Escape key or click Cancel. System Administrators can tweak their action plans and disable this behavior or only prompt for notes for certain tasks.
Ever looked at an up sheet from the past, or one you were just assigned, and wondered about the bigger picture? If so, you're not alone. If it's a new lead, is the lead's contact an existing customer? What's the last vehicle they purchased, when was that, what was the payment? So this up sheet is delivered, but is there a newer up sheet for this contact? Are they shopping again? ... So many questions... While it's always been possible to find those answers, we've now made getting those answers a lot easier. Here's what you'll see atop Up Sheets now: 
Now, with just a glance, we can immediately see some essential info:
You can click the contact's name to quickly see the full list of up sheets. From there you can find out if there is indeed a duplicate that you'd want to get help resolving (via our awesome merge feature, see below). Another common question comes up when you're staring at a customer's Delivered up sheet. What now? How do you sell them another car? It's now clear. If the contact doesn't have an active up sheet, an add button appears on the right allowing you to create one and start working with the customer towards their next purchase. 
Sales Managers using AutoRaptor may have already noticed that the “Delete” link on any non-Delivered Up Sheet has a new neighbor: “Merge”. Let’s pause and celebrate this moment. Duplicate (also known as “unwanted extra”) Up Sheets can happen to the best of us. We’re continually working on improving AutoRaptor’s detection and prevention of duplicate Up Sheets, but now we can add the massive computing power of your brain to the arsenal. Here’s how:
Got a question about this merry act of merging -- or anything else? Just click the "Contact us for help" link at the bottom of any AutoRaptor screen and let us know!
We are constantly working to improve our users’ AutoRaptor experience. Therefore, we are pleased to announce a few improvements we have made to certain features in the AutoRaptor system!
You can now change the subject and sender name that will appear in your customers inboxes. Account administrators will find these settings under Settings - Integration - E-leads. One example might be modifying your e-mails to appear from the "Internet Sales Team" instead of your dealership name.
You can change the sender’s name for any of your e-mails. This is useful if you go by a nickname, for example, or if you would like the sender to be your dealership’s name as opposed to your name. To change the sender’s name for your e-mails, click your name at the top right corner of your AutoRaptor screen. Underneath your e-mail signature you will see the field ‘E-mail Sender Name’ with your name in it as default. Simply re-type what you would like your sender name to be and click ‘Save Changes’ on the left.
While we are on the topic of e-mails, we would like to inform you that we have added an additional data tag, which can be used in both in regular e-mails and templates. Along with {FULL_NAME}, {FIRST_NAME}, and {LAST_NAME}, you now have the option to add {VEHICLE}. The vehicle data tag will pull the year, make, and model from the primary vehicle on the up-sheet.
You have already been able to click on the inventory tab and search your dealership’s inventory using multiple criteria, including year, make, model, color, VIN, and stock number. However, if you were searching for vehicles attached to an up sheet, you were limited to searching by make and model in the search in the up sheets tab. The search field ‘Make/Model’ is now called ‘Vehicle.’ It’s not just the name that’s changed either; you can now search for vehicles attached to up sheets using any of the same criteria you use to search your inventory. For example, you can find out exactly how many people are interested in stock number 4887, or how many leads are out on black 2008 vehicles.
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Note: Many of you already use an e-mail address to log in to AutoRaptor. If you're not in that crowd, read on. A few months ago, we boosted the importance of using your e-mail address with AutoRaptor by requiring everyone to have one as part of their user account. And, back then, we quietly introduced the option to use that very same e-mail address as your login (in addition to supporting our traditional "username" approach). Now, we've taken the next step by requiring that everyone use their e-mail address for logging in to AutoRaptor. As a helpful nudge, if you enter your old username instead of your e-mail address, you'll get a blast of colorful messages and your e-mail address will be entered for you in the login field. (We tweaked this to make it a bit easier after getting some feedback. Thanks!) So, that's it: Log in and rock on! |
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The next time you go to mark a vehicle as delivered -- or update an existing delivery -- in AutoRaptor you might see something new: Two additional fields for collecting the vehicle's stock number and VIN.
What? More data? Don't worry, we haven't lost our focus on achieving results (instead of focusing on data entry). Just a wee bit more data can go a long way in helping you and your store know what's going on. Give a little, get a lot. Sound good? You know it does.
So, how does this work?
If the vehicle that you're delivering is already an 'Inventory' vehicle -- meaning a vehicle with a stock number -- then you're all set. But if it's a 'Custom' or 'Build' vehicle then you'll see something like this:
Just enter the stock number and the VIN should fill in automatically. If the VIN doesn't magically appear (which means that this vehicle isn't in inventory for some reason) then you can enter it manually; after you click 'Confirm this Delivery' or 'Save Changes' that vehicle will be immediately added to the inventory roster as a delivered vehicle.
