Rygor Commercials
Mercedes-Benz dealer expands with Autoline
Company Profile
- Established in 1985 - now a leading Mercedes-Benz commercial vehicle dealer.
- Head office is in Westbury, Wiltshire with dealerships in Swindon, Salisbury, Newbury, Reading and Heathrow.
- Employs 250 staff.
- Rygor awarded responsibility for the Heathrow and West London region in 2004.
- In 2008 expanded its Swindon dealership and opened a new site in Reading.
- Sells more than 1,300 vans and 500 trucks p.a. and operates in excess of 8,000 vehicle service agreements.
- Also operates the Mitsubishi Fuso Canter franchise.
- Implemented Autoline in February 2004.
- Runs Autoline revision 8.35, with a 105 user licence.
Frank Hall, IT Manager, based at the company’s Wiltshire headquarters, shared his experiences of switching to Autoline and how the company has progressed with the system.
The choice of Autoline
To set the scene it is important to appreciate that Autoline
is the preferred dealer management system for
Mercedes-Benz (covering both cars and commercial
vehicles) and on that basis Rygor considered that there was
no need to spend time evaluating any other products on
the market. Frank said, "In a nutshell, Autoline is a
complete integrated package. Everything is now
CRM-driven, everything is processed by Autoline and our
branches are now all looking at the same data. Whilst initially
we preferred some aspects of our previous system, it did not
have the same level of integration that Autoline provides."
Going live
"Once the decision to take Autoline was made, we pushed forward with the implementation. Initially, as with any new system there were challenges with the lack of familiarity and as might be expected we experienced some staff wanting to revert to the old system. Nevertheless, our type of business necessitated a go-live on all sites on the same day and by working closely with the ADP team, we achieved that goal. There was a little system downtime and catching up to do after Autoline was switched on and we were soon up and running."
Frank attends both the ADP and Mercedes-Benz User Groups and through these channels there is an effective communication process via Stuttgart and ADP headquarters in Hungerford. "The User Groups are very valuable in that we can discuss system enhancements, particularly for manufacturer-specific areas, it is an ongoing programme. If collectively we can see the benefits of our ideas and suggestions, we’re able to put a case forward to ADP for inclusion in new releases." he said.
Functionality for commercial vehicles
Although Autoline is well established as a car-orientated system, ADP is also fully committed to supporting the many truck dealers who use it and recognise the differences in their type of operations. The company has invested a lot of time and resources in adding commercial vehicle functionality to Autoline.
Furthermore, ADP appreciates that trucks are high
investment business assets and any down time for repairs
or servicing means lost revenue for the operator. Unlike
cars, dealer contacts are usually made direct with the
operators and not with the drivers and it is therefore a
different type of trading relationship with greater
responsibilities to fulfil by the dealership in supporting
their customers.
Frank continued, "With commercial vehicles, inspections are required every six weeks and our old system was not set up to organise this. When a problem occurred, customers often claimed that it ‘wasn’t their fault as they didn’t receive a reminder that an inspection was due’. Autoline can now take care of that for us. The system fits in very well with our business culture; unlike some car dealerships, all of our operations work shifts up to 10pm - as customers bring their vehicles in to us after their working day has finished and in fact the Heathrow dealership runs a 24 hour shift. To make things as run efficiently Autoline also provides the all-essential integration with Mercedes-Benz communication systems."
Learning to get the best value from Autoline
To begin with, Rygor staff had varying opinions of Autoline and whilst some would admit to missing some of the old manufacturer-specific interfaces, others adapted well to the new system - notably through being able to make use of the dealership’s purpose-built training facilities. To build up system knowledge, Frank attended the majority of the Autoline training courses to understand the system’s capabilities. "Our onsite training facility helps to ensure that our staff make the most of Autoline’s functionality and learn about upgrades as they are installed. It’s an ongoing process and we continue to schedule courses including sessions led by Mercedes-Benz staff.
On a personal note, the Ad-Hoc Reports and Enquiry tools are particularly good. I am also fortunate in the assistance I receive from Mercedes-Benz who from time to time send their own report formats to their dealers relating to the latest upgrade. We’ve also invested heavily in training for CRM, a key aspect of the system. Periodically, Mercedes-Benz will inform us that they are promoting a certain vehicle to a specific market and concurrently the Autoline CRM tools enable us to carry out our own parallel marketing initiatives tailored to our customers."
An important development is that the management team are now able to check which vehicle is being worked on by which engineer, at any one time and at any of the dealerships. Furthermore, the problem of parts becoming obsolete has also been dramatically reduced, as Autoline now enables Rygor to carry a reduced stockholding.
Taking the hosting route
In 2008, Rygor needed to expand capacity due to its growing business and so decided to move to a hosted solution and now use a remote server located in the ADP Data Centre in Bristol. "The decision to go hosted changed the dynamics of our system investment," explained Frank, "We are renting server capacity rather than having to make a large capital investment in a server which would obviously need system reviews and upgrades from time to time. We felt that the hosted solution was the best route for Rygor. The resources can be expanded and upgraded as and when its necessary and the process can be managed by ADP rather than us. There are significant benefits on a day-to-day basis in terms of system management. For example, when we were managing our own server some technical issues weren’t always immediately visible to us, yet now, with the hosted solution, the position is very much improved. We have much greater visibility and ADP is on hand to react. It’s more fail-safe and back-ups are guaranteed. Hosting was a good business decision and makes life a lot easier."
Internet support - anytime, anywhere
"Although we still log a number of priority calls by phone, we make great use of the ADP Internet Call Logging service. If I’m not near an office computer, the beauty of Internet Call Logging is that I can log on from anywhere and know exactly what’s going on. My ambition is to be an ‘ADP Superuser’* which will enable me to resolve more issues without contacting ADP. The benefits of this are twofold, firstly, we will not be waiting for an ADP support analyst to look at the problem and secondly, we will be able to secure a reduction in our support charges." said Frank.
*an acceptance by ADP that a user has the required skill to deal with most first line issues.
Final comments
"As a business tool, Autoline is very good, it’s streets ahead and anyone in the management team can see what’s happening at any one time. I’m very happy with the system, so I would definitely recommend it and I’ve had a number of other commercial vehicle dealers come in and have a look at our system." said Frank.
To reinforce the position, Tim Stacey, Rygor managing director, commented, "I have seen significant advantages of Autoline particularly in the daily reports that are generated by the system. In challenging economic times the need to be on top of your key operational activities like workshop efficiency, parts, service and sales enquiry levels are key to understanding what is happening in the business. Reports which give us this information are available to our managers at the touch of a button. The versatility of the system also allows us to offer improved communication to all our customers. Sales staff have learned to use the system to diarise all customer contacts helping to ensure that their time is used as effectively as it can be. I appreciate that no system is perfect, but we have come a long way with Autoline. Given that the system continues to progress and evolve, I am confident that we will obtain even more value from Autoline in the future."