Still shocked and in disbelief

[drapp]

We received our new contract proposal from ADP today. The fees more than doubled. We are simply in shock.

I know the DMS topic has been beat to death but we have to do something. I have spoken with an Arkona / Dealertrack dealer and they hate it.

Any suggestions?

[Gerry Laughlin]

Think long and hard before you switch. I do mean this as a slight, ADP might be aware that their competition is still not ready for primetime. Dealing with Dealertrack has been a struggle.

[drapp]

Gerry, did you switch from ADP to Dealertrack?

We have not made the decision, except that we can not afford the quote as presented.

I spoke to R&R late today and plan on meeting with them.

When you look at the whole deal compared to what we are paying today and yes I realize there are a couple "little" new items in there BUT the bottom line is actually closer to triple our current monthly charges.

Ask your dealer if he can afford to nearly triple his DMS expense. Yea, you know the answer to that one.

[Gerry Laughlin]

Dan,
My current store is still with ADP, but my prior store (I still help out a bit) just changed to Dealertrack. I personally would advise doing whatever you can to stay with ADP, and trust me I do not like ADP all that much. If I was to look at another vendor I would at least give Quorum a look. The first thing I would do is talk to the Gilrie Institute at www.paulgillrie.com, the cost savings they can provide when dealing with ADP can be amazing. Julius helped us out. Anyway I am afraid to be critical of Dealertrack since my current store is not on it, but I would be MORE than happy to put you in touch with the parts manager there, she would be glad to share her opinion.
Thanks,
Gerry

[drapp]

I may take you up on the offer.

Already spoken with Julius.

I have done nothing today but contact DSP providers to get sales contacts. Now I think I will sit back and let this sink in for a few days while we decide how to proceed.

After looking at the ADP numbers again and taking EVERYTHING into account the proposal nearly triples our current monthly cost.

[robc]

My personal perference for second tier DMS is for AutoMate. You might see about ADP 1000, but I have struggled a bit with it as well.

Is the current ADP proposal to go to DRIVE servers and what part of the contract jumped the most?

Also, not directed to you, but for everyone to make sure there is an apples-to-apples comparison. One dealership I work with complained of the same type of jump by just looking at the bottom number compared to his current ADP bill. However, the contract proposal also had telephone, CRM, etc. etc. These bills were being paid seperately - so once we added up all the ADP bills and not just the one designated as DMS, we saw that they were actually going down in cost by a few bucks.

[Texastar]

Arcona may be less costly however, it is a daily job dealing with that animal. Our dealership has been on it since May 2010 and it has been a non-stop roll-a-coster for every department in fix operations and accounting. It comes with next to nothing in tech support. Just to name a few issues here. Arcona cannot track get rim to recongnize parts kit pkgs, hence you will not get GM's special pricing on bulk filters and billing out is a pain. Arcona is also SLOW in processing data. It has on several occasions manage to loose complete service repair orders. It has been known to give parts discounting on repair and body shop ro's. I has transmitted duplicate GM orders for no reason. There software upgrades are rolled out before being tested for functionality. I will issue an invoice number when the part goes on order and a new one when it is rolled out in final invoicing. It places the spcl order payments/deposits in an accounting bucket that does not relieve itself when the part is picked up. Also, any cod/retail parts sales will not go on order until the cashier decides to close it. So you have to be on top of these sales. We have an inch thick folder on this outfit. It also doesnt intigrate with snap-on catalog so it works as a stand alone system. You can't create any reports as English statements/RPG/PDA(G) OR 6910 (reynolds). It is unwelcomed by every department by every user. We have agreed that no one would speak/refer to or comment on Arcona after 5PM. Yep, thinks that make u go hmmmm...

[texaslp]

Keep in mind that their first proposal is like sticker price. Start negotiating. It is costly to switch as well.

[texaslp]

I would also add that it doesn't hurt to look at other systems for yourself. It's good to ask other people on the system, but sometimes you have to take that with a grain of salt. Do you know that the person you're asking has spent the time to learn the system, and so on.

[drapp]

Been away and busy with other things for a while. To answer some of the questions posed here:

Yes, ADP will only sell the Drive software at this time. We asked and were told we could not retain the WebSuite 2007 software.

We currently have our ADP server in house along with all the other "equipment." However, the quote required us to use ADP's off site server "farm" with us connecting to it using the internet.

No, ADP's quote did not include the internet service.

No additional services were included within the quote except those items that ADP said were required with Drive.

The quote was supposed to be designed as an Apples to Apples quote as compared to our existing system.

After receiving the quote we realized several items were actually left off the quote that we currently have or that we asked be added. Therefore, the quote is actually lower than it really will be.

We are taking a step back and evaluating our options. We may contact a sales supervisor or our account manager for quote verification. But at this time we haven't made a decision.

Thanks for you input.