Keeping the dealer data accurate is paramount to ensure that Aimbase is functioning at its best. Whether you are using Aimbase for lead management, owner satisfaction surveys or both, dealer data is relevant.  

Dealer Data and Lead Distribution

For leads dealer data dictates the following:

• Whom a lead gets assigned to.
  • Subsequently, for whom a dealer receives HIT notifications.
• Whether a dealer's leads are eligible for lead rerouting.
• Whom within a dealership is notified of a lead assignment. 
• Whom within a dealership is responsible for following up with a lead.
• What details about the dealer are displayed on a manufacturers "find a dealer" tool.

Lead Assignment

There are a number of different methods available for automatically routing leads to dealers. For nearly all of those methods the details held on the dealer record play a key role. 

Depending on the lead routing rules you've dictated for your brand, the data points below will have more or less importance. The important thing to keep in mind is being familiar enough with your dealer data and what your lead routing logic is to know how to identify possible issues. 

Key Details to Consider:

Dealer Type - Most of the time your selling dealers will be Standard dealers. The only exceptions to this rule is if your install has been configured to accommodate other options by request. An example of how/why other types are used is to control results on a dealer locator. Maybe you have some dealers that sell and service your product. In that scenario you may have a Standard Dealer and a Sales and Service Dealer. If this is the case, then your web provider is able to specific the type of dealer a consumer is looking for when they lookup the closest dealer on the locator. More complexities can be added here, but essentially this value is used to allow for additional filtering from various APIs. 

You will also always see a Default Dealer type. This is used to note to Aimbase which dealer to associate to a lead or prospect record when there is not an actual dealer that meets the criteria to be assigned to it.

Dealer Address - It might seem obvious to say it is necessary to keep these fields up-to-date, but it is important to know why.

The dealer address fields are used to calculate the latitude and longitude values you see below. When you are utilizing radius lead routing, these values are what Aimbase uses to determine which dealer is closest to a lead, and therefore which dealer to assign to it. Some mistakes made with this field are typing the postal code incorrectly, formatting issues when typing in County Roads and/or Routes, and most commonly, using PO Boxes in the Address1 field. The Address1 field must always be a physical address. PO Boxes should only ever be placed within the Address2 field. 

Brand Assignments - If your install utilizes multiple brands, then a dealer must be associated to the brand(s) for which it is meant to receive leads. If a dealer sells products that fall within a specific brand, that brand must be added to the dealer record in order for it to be considered when Aimbase determine which dealer should be assigned to the lead. 

Territory Assignment - If your lead routing rules include specific areas of responsibility for your dealers, then you'l need to ensure that the territories assigned to the dealers is correct. In the screenshot below, you'll notice that there are two links referencing Territories. Both have the ability to associate a territory to a dealer, but the logic for each section varies slightly. 

If a dealer carries one or more brands, but it's area of responsibility is the same for all brands, then use the Territories link.

If a dealer carries more than one brand and it's area of responsibilities vary depending on the brand, use the Brand Territories link. This option allows you to create a distinction between what territories get assigned for which brand.

Product Assignments - The necessity of these assignments is less common, but if you are utilizing product specific lead routing it won't function properly if these assignments are not maintained well. As new model years role out, you will need to ensure that the latest model year's products are associated to the dealers meant to sell them. 

Re-route Eligibility

The concept of re-routing leads to the next dealer in line when a lead goes unviewed is a newer concept in many industries. If it's being used within your install, it is vital to understand different variables in Aimbase that can impact these business rules. One of these variables is whether not a dealer has rerouting enabled. The default settings for dealers in most cases is that they are eligible for leads assigned to them to be rerouted if a lead is not viewed. You can prevent leads from being routed away from a dealer when leads go unviewed by updating the value on the "Reroute Disabled Away" field. When this value is changed to Yes, all leads assigned to a dealer will permanently remain assigned to that dealer.

Dealer Lead Assignment Notification

There are several methods of notifying a salesperson when a lead gets assigned to his/her dealership. One of the most common is email notification. It is important to be familiar with the contacts associated to each dealer location as these can change often. There are two different methods of seeing which contacts are assigned a to dealer location. 

1. From the Dealer grid, click into a dealer. From the dealer details page, click Contacts. From this page you can see which contacts are associated to the location, if the email address is setup to receive notification automatically, and which notifications (contact types) those are. From this page, you can also create new contacts.

2. You can also access the Contacts grid to see all contacts associated to dealer locations. This page differs for a couple of different reasons.

• It allows you to see all contacts that are notified on behalf of activity for a dealer regardless of the hierarchy level of the contact. That is to say that you are able to see which manufacturer level contacts are associated to each dealer as well.
• You filter but several different criteria to view different sets of data. 
  • Ex: You can filter by dealer number to see the contacts for a specific dealer location. 
  • Ex: Filter the grid by email address to see who is being notified for multiple dealerships.
  • EX: Filter by contact type to see all Lead To contacts across your organization.

Contact Lead Assignment Notification

If you're using Aimbase for lead automation, the most important dealer contact type is the Lead To contact type. The Lead To contact type is what indicates to Aimbase that a contact is assigned to a lead. This means that the email address associated to the Lead To contact type is the only email address that will trigger a lead as viewed. Be sure to confirm that email addresses with Lead To contact types are correct/valid email addresses, and that they below to individuals that still work at each dealer location. 

Other contact types that are important to consider are Activity: General Interest, which notifies a dealer when a prospect has revisited the website. The Daily Unopened Lead Alert is another to be aware of. It will remind you the next day after a lead is assigned if it has not yet been viewed.

Accurate Dealer Details

If your brand website is utilizing the Aimbase dealer locate API, then the data associated to the dealer via the dealer details page is what will be used when displaying the resulting dealer on your dealer locator. Some manufacturers choose to display specific details about each location such as website, phone number, an email address the consumer can reach the dealer at, etc. You'll want to be aware of which values your website displays, and make sure that you enter a value on all dealers for these fields. 

Note, that entering an email address on the dealer details page does not automatically mean someone from the dealership will be notified of activity within Aimbase. The dealer contacts mentioned above will still need to be setup.