TrueCar - DealerTrack (ALG) Relationship: The words of a DealerTrack Employee
I received this email about eight hours ago from an employee of DealerTrack. They asked me that I kept it discreet so I will not be mentioning who it was that sent this to me. It is amazing that DealerTrack's own employees have certain opinions about DealerTrack selling ALG to TrueCar. Does it mean that DealerTrack's own employees are against this deal too? I know that I myself could not work for a company that would allow something like this (no matter how much money I was getting paid). Anyway, here is the email with more inside information by someone whose name cannot be disclosed. Friends, enjoy this as much as I did.
> So the press release reads "DealerTrack sells ALG to TrueCar." Why would DT part ways with their most unique data brand, in an age where data rules all, you ask? Well, actually they didn't. In the "selling" of ALG, DT gets: an equity stake in TrueCar, scores a seat on their board, receives a perpetual/royalty free ALG license, secures a multi year agreement to retain operating duties, and banks a very high stack of millions of dollars. What did they give up other than some future subscription revenue, of which they are going to share in anyway?
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> This isn't a sell your dealership to AutoNation/take the money and run type of a transaction. This is Pops handing off to Junior. Son here's how we do it. This is nothing more than "let's just go ahead and transfer the title and put this thing in your name, wink." DealerTrack had to have anticiapted the outcry of moving dealer data, and this was their way of staying off the battlefield.
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> So why would TrueCar agree to such a one sided expensive deal? Imagine all the financial and lender information that DT has access to, or the amount of data contained in the DT DMS (Arkona), imagine the number of credit applications submitted through their portal each day, the scanned deal jackets, the AAX inventory metrics, TriVin's electronic titles, etc... The amount of data is maddening, it's deafening. But with every one of these keystrokes from these modules and business units comes a corresponding digital imprint, an imprint that is filed and sorted, and sent to the DT data vault for future use.
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> Welcome to the future.
> Many of us have seen A&E's Storage Wars where entrepreneurs will bid for access and ownership to the contents of storage lockers that are in default. Invariably there is a guy in the back of the auction crowd with a funny hat that is always nodding his head and mumbling, "uh hum". Let's call him Scott. And Scott will do whatever it takes, at any cost, to get the keys. He just wants to go in and take a peek around. Here's a check.
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> And whether you think it's your data, or legally it's theirs, or you like the TrueCar business model or you don't, that's up for you to decide. One thing is for sure, DealerTrack just made a truckload of money.
> Zig, meet Zag.
Stan Sher
Slowly but surely TrueCar is getting what they deserve coming to them.
Dec 20, 2011
Stan Sher
TrueCar just had hit some dealers in California calling me and emailing me with internet inquiries. Dealers are calling me thinking I submitted a lead. It might be time for me to get my attorneys against TrueCar and Scott Painter.
Dec 29, 2011
Stan Sher
Trust me. 2% is a BS number. I have had a chance to experience TrueCar for a full week. They are taking over a whole market. A dealership that gets 600 normal leads from their sources (that are not out to hurt them) now gets 1600. 1000 comes from TrueCar and they sell 30-40 cars per month out of it. That is a 3-4% closing ratio when we should be at 10%. I found out calling these leads that the customers are being steered in that direction. TrueCar has done a great job getting in front of the consumers with their commercials and marketing. But when 70% of your leads are 80-120 miles away and they do not want to make the drive no matter what value you give them or how good of a closer you really are you start to really see what a horrible company TrueCar is. If you want to clutter your CRM with garbage and let your DMS be used to extract data that will be used against you then TrueCar is your solution.
TrueCar is not a friend to the industry. TrueCar is worse then cancer.
I spoke to a BDC manager from a NY Chrysler Jeep Dodge dealership. He called me because he was looking to contact his TrueCar rep and when he googled to get contact information he stumbled on my blogs. He actually defended TrueCar saying that he does well with them and they are good. When asking him how he feels about getting the runaround from leads that are 80 miles away he simply responded that he does not waste time on internet leads at all. He follows up with them for 7 days and if nothing happens he just gives up. He did not believe that a lead needs to be managed for 90-120 days. I wonder what training he got. That is not a good BDC Manager at all. I cannot believe that dealers allow things like this to happen.
There is nothing out there that can prove that TrueCar deserves to have a place in the marketplace. I was going to go out and see the operation for myself. But I realized I want nothing to ever do with them after TrueCar started submitting bogus leads with my information to their own dealers. I had 100s of dealers from NJ, PA, and even CA call me to follow up with me because they thought I was an internet lead. These leads came from TrueCar. A company that is supposed to be a partner in helping dealers sell more cars is not only hurting them by taking their data but it is wasting their employees time calling on bogus leads instead of focusing on the real leads that should be coming in. Come on dealers, wake up!!! How can you let this happen?
Jan 4, 2012