Auto/Mate Reviews

Pros

I like Auto/Mate, since it is a strategy of automation of companies with flexibility of the critical processes of a company to maximize efficiency in the organization.

Cons

I do not like Auto/Mate, because it's a bit complex, because it's free, it does not have a lot of integration of applications and can access another after culminating one, it's a bit old, but it works.

Pros

DealerSocket has outdone itself with their fully-loaded CRM. It's simple enough that non-users can jump right in and feel like they know what they're doing, but it's incredibly rich in features that it would take month to learn how to utilize all of them.

Cons

Some features crash or don't work quite often, but it usually doesn't detract from the overall experience because support has been helpful whenever we call them.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Switching to Auto/Mate

Pros

As others have stated. The product was SOLD as being a one stop solution to a lot of our problems. However, we have come to find out the sales staff would lie to close a sale and promised functionality that was not available.

Cons

IDMS: We have been attempting to use IDMS for over a year now and are still running into huge bugs and issues. The most recent being that if a customer has a " ' " in their name then they are unsearchable. We have also been experiening issues with forms coming from the ignite website platform and creating "deals" when it is just a customer asking a simple question.

Another glaring issue with IDMS is that you can not delete a customer from the system. So if you have a customer that was accidently entered twice, too bad, that Joe Smith is now in your system twice forever.

CRM: We tried the CRM for 6 months and spent hours importing data and creating templates. Come to find out that when it came to emailing a customer a vehicle brochure. The brochure was hosted by a completely different team and therefore a vehicle brochure would never lead a customer to your website. The brochure is also not customizable so your logo and brand identity could never be incorporated.

The CRM also allows for custom timed emails to be sent out. These turned out to require so much finessing and time to create for each scenario that in the end a sales person or BDC would have been better off creating an email themselves and tracking it in the CRM opportunity.

INV+: We have been using for years. There have been minor problems when it comes to showing vehicles properly and exporting to 3rd party sites. However, most problems started arising when we made the connection to IDMS....

Pros

Dealersocket offers multiple software packages, from inventory control, used car appraisal to website hosting. This bundling allows for ease of use.

Cons

Customer support is difficult to reach. They have several barriers in place to actually reach a real person. The customer service agent is not always very understanding of an issue, and this can cost alot of money.

Pros

It integrates well into our DMS and website. Dealersocket also offers their own DMS and Web hosting services that work well together, but it still functions great with other providers software.

Cons

The cost was higher than some competitors options. Sometimes the server would go down and we had no access to our customer database. Other glitches that pop up from time to time.

Pros

The only positive to auto/mate is is at 6:00pm I get to shut it down and not have to worry about it till the next morning.

Cons

Everything, website feed integration is a nightmare, cannot print certain forms CDK can. Its just a way inferior product o CDK.

Pros

Allows for more marketing connection with the customer. Online training was great.

Cons

Follow-up and follow-through are extremely lacking. Our sales people needed more on-site hands on assistance and we are unable to get it.

Pros

Dealersocket offers the whole suite of things you might need to help manage inventory, finances, and website related issues. I think what this company excels at over other, similar products is their customer service and innovation. Their customer support is unrivaled. I don't have to wait days or even weeks for them to reply to an issue, most of my cases have been solved within the hour, and if not, it has been purely due to my own company's internal issues (lack of experience with / training on this product).

Cons

While the software itself is easy to use and understand, I think that their web integration is lacking. I do not think this is simply an issue with dealersocket, but with most companies that offer similar products. Dealersocket definitely comes close, but I feel like they need to provide more versatility at least from the customers end.

Pros

I like the fact that I can search my inventory fairly easily. I do like that pictures come up with them as well. The DealerSocket University is much needed. Without that, you would never know how to use it.

Cons

I do not think it is laid out very well. It can be hard to do a simple task like leave a note on a client. It seems very sporadic. The mobile app is actually MUCH easier to use than the actual site itself. If I need to add a customer into my system, I generally use the mobile app for my iPhone

Pros

Appointment system

Cons

Not easy to navigate or set up features.

Pros

After about a three month break-in (learning) period, it was fairly easy to complete a deal in about 30 minutes. That's the only "pro" I can think of. Lots of time spent "chatting" (they don't like to - no, won't - talk to you on the phone) during this break-in period. 95% of the learning was self-taught.

Cons

Customer support - unable to answer the simplest of questions (example - "How much total interest/principal has this customer paid, year to date?" Answer - "Figure it out for yourself."); unable to reconcile the simplest of problems (example - "What is 'non earning principal' and how do you come up with the amount?" No answer.) Support staff are not trained to talk to car dealers in simple, non accountant, non lawyer, layman's terms.

Pros

I have used many different inventory and website platforms, and Dealersocket is at the top of the competitors in both areas. This company is so innovative and constantly working to better the products they have to offer. Not to mention the support for all of the different products is the best I have ever experienced. There is no such thing as opening a case and waiting a week until you have to reach back out again and remind them about it. Everything has either gotten taken care of that same day or as fast as they possibly can. When it is not completed that same day, the support rep reaches out to me to update me on the status. That is very rare in this industry and is like a breathe of fresh air!

Cons

The only complaints I have are the capabilities of the website software and what is able to be changed and created by the dealer. I am very technologically inclined and have many ideas and projects for my websites and I have yet to find a provider that can keep up with my ideas and demands, but DealerSocket comes the closest and will always work with me on an idea and they will try to turn it into a reality for me.

Cons

Everything sounded great when we were talking to the sales rep. Whom we never talked to again. 3 different account managers. Customer Support is no help, everything takes forever to try and get fixed.
It is so bad it is almost funny. Believe every bad review listed here. First off their system does not function properly on any Mac IOS. They do not tell you this when you are signing up, but it is listed on their contract, you better read the whole thing. During the Demo everything looks good, but not once you sign up.

This company is truly horrible. Staff is unprofessional, and uneducated as to the product software. IDMS is filled with bigs and errors, causing it to take twice as long to enter in basic information of working a deal. Contracting customers takes twice as long as previous, more user friendly deal management systems. Documents do not print correctly, leading to having more time spent sorting paperwork. We wasted so much paper and ink!
The mobile app is garbage. Not reliable for scanning and evaluating vehicles at the auction. A lot of the times, MMR does not work, even on desktop. The loading of evaluation of a vehicle is sluggish, so hard to run vehicles quickly, like in an auction. None of the features for working a deal or inventory management work properly and constantly have change screen orientation to get different buttons to work.

Pros

Buy here pay here program and reports are very good. BUT THAT'S IT!! Have plenty of reports and their custom report builder is good. Their CRM (dealersocket) cannot push all of the credit app. info over to their own dms (finance express). Extremely aggravating.

Cons

Their own CRM is not even compatible with their DMS? Go figure. Customer support is by far the worst. Used to be a good product 7 to 8 years ago but then the company was bought out. Went downhill from there. Their reps never call. I have left 5 messages. Never a return phone call. Ever!!Their pricing is by far more than the worth of the product. Anything to do with Dealersocket (IDMS, Dealerfire, Finance Express) is expensive. I finally switched to Frazer after warning Dealer Socket for the last 2 years that I was going to. Hated changing just because of all the customer data that is in there but it was well worth the risk because their product and service is that bad.

Pros

The software itself has a lot to be desired. The CRM is a great tool... but BEWARE if you need additional help. Several times we have called in (we use their DMS, website and CRM) and have been run in circles.

Cons

Their "account managers" are awful at responding to their email or helping you out. Once, we were charged incorrectly for something we had cancelled, and it still took her three months to get them to stop billing us and NINE MONTHS to get a refund. Just got a new account rep - same stories. We are trying to add a product we need, and I have been requesting it for over two weeks. Someone creates a case and another member goes and closes it. The tech support must be paid based on how quick they reach a resolution - which results in a terrible experience for their customers.

Pros

There are so many good things about this system, but the one thing as a service manager I like the most is they have the option for a service department to schedule by technician which is something that no one else does and I don't know why. I hope they never get rid of this feature because there are still many departments out there that like to schedule that way and they show that they care about ALL of their customers by allowing this.

Cons

Really there are none, they could do better on some of their reports but other than that, the dealership I worked for loved this DMS.

Pros

Dealersocket makes it so easy to track things. We all know if you want it to grow you have to track it. They have reports that can be emailed daily weekly or whenever. You are very easily able to change dates and get the data you want for the date ranges. You can filter things out. Easy to set up email campaigns and black bird makes it easy to complete the task. They have a mobile app that it makes even easier to add people to the CRM.

Cons

I wish you could make it possible to add text to follow up campaigns after customer has opted in. I would also like to be able to send more than one email per day to a customer.

Pros

It is very easy to use, once you get the hang of it, it prints out the forms nice and simple with vin numbers for up to three trades, forms can be customized for each dealership. Very simple to set up appointments and for management to look at the appointment boards and see how many customers they expect to come in oh, it also keeps track of the number of phone calls you make, appointments you set an emails you send

Cons

Gives way to many outbound Calls reminders.

Pros

I wish I could find something about it that was better than other CRMs, but I could not.

Cons

We attempted to use Dealer Socket. After a month of BDC agents and managers tearing out their hair, we had to switch back. This CRM is incredibly user unfriendly, from inception through training into real time use. When it was being pitched, we were promised there would be no issues with data transfer. But when it came time, it was left all to us to do.If you've ever tried to upload a database with 60k plus files without your current crm noticing, you'll understand how this is a transfer the new crm needs to shoulder. The system itself has a cluttered desklog view, with inet leads and phone calls looking almost identical to desklog ups. It took far more clicks and movement to other windows to complete the same task as it does for one click in other CRMs, resulting in follow up frustration. The residual values for leases are a nightmare and were never properly set up. After countless emails and time spent on the phone, we realized this system is overpromised, under delivers and costly in the time spent by productive employees engaging in unproductive work. Our issues were blamed on lack of training, lack of knowledge, anything other than a system that's woefully antiquated. We have a fairly fierce, high appointment setting BDC department. Caused our apt to drop considerably.

Pros

A lot of features, including a full suite of CRM, data mining, and more.
Great customer support.
Compatible with a lot of software

Cons

Can be difficult to navigate. Need to think like a software.
Can use an upgrade on how the interface looks

Pros

DealerSocket offers a rich CRM with marketing automation, dashboards, custom websites and more. There are many features and it ends up being more than most can deal with. My use includes supervising the sales process, creating and refining the sales funnel through emails and calls, managing a database of over 6,000 customers/prospects and more. It does it all very well and when it doesn't the support is ready to help.

Cons

It's expensive for smaller dealers, the email marketing could use an upgrade.

Pros

Some of the project team really tried to help manage the issues with the company

Cons

- most features don’t work
- they can’t convert from their old software to their new.
- not intuitive
- missing core necessary data
- system doesn’t support clear required compliance requirements for reporting or storing data
- system functionality is inconsistent

Pros

I don't have ease of access any longer. . . Poor product change has resulted in a completely useless product for the non-Apple device users.

Cons

Can not receive timely notifications as an Internet Sales Manager, which makes it impossible to pderform my position duties. Constantly logged out with every use and rarely receive notifications in a timely manner, which is key to Internet Sales success.

Pros

It's an average CRM that just does the job.

Cons

Cannot delete notes made, no matter how derogatory, racist, or anti-semetic, THE NOTES WILL ALWAYS STAY THERE. Unless you delete the ENTIRE sales opportunity. We've had cars show up in inventory twice, had their solutions team escalate it multple times, just to say "Sorry, we don't know." after 2 months. The customer support doesn't care about the issue itself, they just care about closing the ticket, wether a solution comes up or not. The software has issues, while they try to upsell you more useless stuff that is just as broken. We are stuck with them for now, but I am currently looking for a company that really cares about their clients.

Pros

I wish I could say there was something that we liked but there just isn't. This is by far the most complicated and confusing CRM I have ever used!!!!

Cons

The system is WAY over complicated. I am on the phone with support on a daily basis. No one I have spoken to has ever been in the car business which is why the verbiage, schedules, templates, etc.., don't make any since. I have come to realize that several features of the software don't work correctly so they show you how to work around it instead of fixing it. Example, when a new lead comes in it is labeled as "unqualified", if you call the customer and try to leave a message on VM but there is no VM or its full; when you select "unable to leave message" it leaves the task open. The only way they tell you that you can complete the task is to select "spoke to customer" or "left message" and add a note that says you were unable to leave a message. This is only one small example of the confusion and inaccuracy of this CRM. On average I have to contact someone at Dealer Socket every other day to address a new issue and spend on average about 1.5 hours on the phone. Please save your dealership the headache and frustration and look into other CRM providers.