| DealerSocket of San Clemente, California, won the Stevie Award for Management Team of the year in The 2009 American Business Awards, and Jonathan Ord, Dealersocket’s CEO and Co-founder, is on the Board of Judges for The 2009 International Business Awards. |
SAN CLEMENTE, CA | June 2009 — While the plight of the American automotive industry has been making headlines around the world, auto-related businesses and auto dealerships have been particularly hard hit by the combination of low consumer confidence, a tough credit market, and the struggles of the Big Three Detroit automakers.
Despite this, one company serving the automotive industry is thriving. DealerSocket is an automotive customer relationship management solution provider that credits its success to the steady leadership, unwavering customer commitment, and innovative approach of its management: Jonathan Ord, Co-Founder and CEO, Brad Perry, Co-Founder and President, Cameron Darby, Chief Operating Officer, and Matt Redden, Vice President of Sales.
Building from the Ground Up
Before founding their company in 2001—with no outside investment—Ord and Perry spent a year working without pay in all departments of a dealership to gain a thorough understanding of dealers’ unique needs. The management team continues to apply this principal of building from the ground up to every department of their organization, providing each employee the opportunity to do, contribute, lead, and solve problems.
The DealerSocket team’s mantra is: “Treat people ethically and fairly and give them room to grow,” a philosophy that positively affects both its employees and customers, as is evidenced by a low voluntary employee turnover of less than 2% and a customer retention rate of over 90%.
Providing Effective Solutions
DealerSocket has responded to the challenges dealerships now face with several industry-first solutions enabling dealers to quickly and cost-effectively overcome each obstacle. As turmoil in the industry has continued, DealerSocket signed an average of one new customer per day during 2008, increasing to 1.5 per day by March 2009. Revenue growth in 2008 was 33% with record numbers of dealers leveraging the company’s comprehensive CRM solutions to recession-proof their businesses.
Outstanding Customer Support
At the core of DealerSocket’s unwavering customer commitment is the company’s Support Department. Solidly focused on the entire auto industry, the DealerSocket team serves as its customers’ eyes and ears, providing 24/7, year-round support not only for DealerSocket CRM, but for any issues their steadily increasing international client base requires.
In 2008, DealerSocket’s Support Department handled over 35,000 calls and more than 1,500 email inquiries. Despite the increasing volume and urgency of each request, the department consistently maintained its superior industry standard with less than a 5% call abandonment rate and a hold time of less than two minutes. And while the industry norm for closing a support ticket is approximately one week, DealerSocket’s Support Department closed all 2008 tickets in under one day at the first level and 3-5 days at the data and integration level.
As automakers stepped up incentives to assist struggling dealers, DealerSocket’s Support Department took on this role as well—identifying each new incentive and conducting team exercises to determine how dealers could best leverage them utilizing DealerSocket CRM.
With each support request, representatives introduced all applicable incentives, as well as cost-saving DealerSocket offerings such as MoneyMaker, which helps dealers save money and increase revenues by mining their own data for leads. In spite of an already heavy load, the team spent added time walking dealers through every step in the process of leveraging an incentive or implementing a new component of DealerSocket CRM.
Succeeding Despite the Downturn
The phenomenal efforts by DealerSocket’s Support Department continue to enable customers to experience significant increases in both sales and service revenues during the worst downturn in automotive history.
Recently surpassing 50,000 users at nearly 1,000 dealerships throughout the
U.S., Canada, Australia, and the U.K., DealerSocket continues to thrive despite
being at the very epicenter of the worst downturn in automotive history. With
ongoing expansion, five-year revenue growth of 4,529%, six years of consecutive
profitable quarters, and countless awards under its belt, DealerSocket remains
an unstoppable powerhouse.
About Jonathan Ord
As CEO, DealerSocket co-founder Jonathan Ord sets vision and drives strategy for DealerSocket. Over the past thirteen years, Jonathan has created and executed business process visions for more than 500 companies.
About Brad Perry
As President of DealerSocket, co-founder Brad Perry focuses on transforming vision into reality, relying on his years of experience in the consulting and ASP software industry.
Both men are graduates of Brigham Young University. Jonathan earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Accounting and Spanish, and a Master’s Degree in Accounting and Information Systems. Brad earned a Master’s Degree in Accounting and Information Systems.
|
