ProMax Dealer Updates

Training Spotlight of the Month - Service Follow-Up

Last month we rolled out a new feature that had been requested by many dealers: Service! 

January's spotlight is focused on setting up Service Follow-Up in your ProMax system:

• Create Service Follow-Up in addition to Sales activities
• Add Service statuses
• Attach a Service BDR to Service Follow-Up
• Use our turnkey Service Follow-Up schedule
• Manage Service appointments and turned down ROs

 Click here for information on free classes

to learn about this new feature.

 

Check back every month for the newest Training Spotlight and free online classes that highlight tools you already have in your ProMax system and may not be using to their fullest potential.

 

ProMax version release - 2013.12.18.2 December 19, 2013

 

This will be our last production post before Christmas, and we'd like to wish all of our dealers a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Our offices will be closed Christmas Day and New Years' Day in observance of the holidays.

 

Version Release Highlights

• We did some more work on Service Follow-Up to improve how follow-up is applied retroactively.  To get free training on the new Service Follow-Up feature, visit our website.  [Item 158102]

• We added a number of new fields to the Owner Base grid: E-mail Address, City, State, ZIP, Phone, Sales Rep 2, and Sales Manager.  We've also added the ability to export the data.  [Item 82454]

• We did some maintenance to our Proposals to ensure Accessories prices are being calculated properly.  [Item 157416]

• When deleting an employee, a warning will now pop up if the employee is still configured in Lead Delivery Activity Monitoring to receive texts or e-mail inactivity alerts.  This will prevent former employees from ever receiving inactivity alerts.  [Item 157639]

• We updated the sort ordering in Inventory so that regardless of which column you sort by, the secondary sort order will default to Make, Model, and Style.  [Item 156165]

• We fixed a bug that was affecting the E-mail button on Instant Screen.  [Item 152923]

• We added a "BDR" column to the Manager Dashboard Unsold Prospects tab.  [Item 141178]

• Users can now be set to "Can Edit Security Deposit" on Lease deals in Admin User Access.  [Item 107462]

• On the Manager Dashboard Lead Mgmt. & Results Report we increased the width of the first column to prevent the name of the Lead Source from being cut off.  [Item 149979]

• Deleting a Status in Admin and selecting a new Status to transfer those customers to will now create a note on the Customer Workscreen.  [Item 155732]

• We updated the Spotted Vehicle / Stips Report so that you can now navigate to the Inventory record of used as well as new vehicles.  [Item 156424]

• We added the ability to vary the Acquisition Fee by Term for a vehicle.  Each vehicle defined for a Tier in a Lease Lender now has the ability to specify the amount of the Acquisition Fee for each Lender defined lease term.  Requesting an Acquisition Fee for a Term takes precedence over all other Acquisition Fee calculations.  [Item 156098]

• Tax on Acquisition Fee and Gross Receipts Tax now obey default Lease Settings.  [Item 153007]

• An Unwind note is now created when a Delivered Vehicle is unwound.  [Item 153646]

• We added a new checkbox option in Admin Desking Default Lease Fees to "Cover 1st Payment with Additional Lease Cash".  [Item 150139]

• We corrected an issue with Route One submittal call back icons not always displaying in the Prospects Log.  [Item 153439]

• Deleting a record from an Inventory Report will now remove it from the view without having to rerun the report.  [Item 155942]

• We updated the functionality of communications variables in Word documents to prevent default times and dates from appearing when these variables are left blank.  [Item 154255]

• We fixed an issue with some fields on the Guest Information Sheets not always printing correctly.  [Item 153563]

Attention Michigan Dealers!

 

Important Michigan Sales Tax Change

There is a change to Michigan sales tax that will take effect on Sunday December 15th and will allow taxes to not be calculated on the first $2000 of a trade.

In order for your dealership to take advantage of this while calculating deals in ProMax there are a couple of changes that need to be made to the tax configuration:

1. Go to Admin Tax Rates and set “Sales Tax Method” to “Tax Trade Difference”.
2. Click on State Options to bring up the “Allowable Trade Credit” popup.
3. Enter "2000" and click "Save".

 

ProMax version release 2013.12.5.4 December 5, 2013

 

Version Hotfix

• New Service features have been activated for all dealers.  [Item 143051]
• We corrected an issue with Word in Communications.  [Item 157983]
• We fixed a bug that was causing .jpg images to not display properly in e-mails.  [Item 157962]
• We corrected a rounding issue with Forms variables.  [Item 157982]

ProMax version release - 2013.12.3.1 December 5, 2013

 Service Follow-Up Is Here!

One of our most requested features is now available in ProMax... Service Follow-Up! 

The first place you'll notice it is on the Customer Workscreen where we've added two new fields for every customer: "Service BDR" and "Service Status". 

You can now designate a Service BDR in Admin User Access and assign customers to them.  Service BDR information (including Name, Title, Phone, and E-mail) is also available in Forms variables.

Service Statuses can now be created and used to trigger follow-up.  You can create your own statuses and follow-up or use our turnkey Service Follow-Up schedule.

For more information on how this great new feature can help your dealership, or for help with setup, call our Training Department at 800-322-9034.

 

New ProMax Websites Now Have Stock Photos!

"Stock Photo, actual color and options may vary"

This feature is now turned on for all of our New Dealer Websites, and displaying stock photos on vehicles is the default setting. You have the option of displaying stock photos for All Vehicles, New and Certified Used Vehicles Only, New Vehicles Only, or not at all:

The stock photo database goes back over 20 years, and covers around 99% of vehicles released in that timeframe.  

Whenever actual photos of a vehicle are loaded into ProMax, any stock photos previously assigned to that vehicle will be removed from your site.

All stock photos contain the text "Stock Photo, actual color and options may vary".

For regular updates about the New ProMax Dealer Websites, check out our new ProMax Dealer Websites blog.

 

E-mail Improvements

Over the next several months, we're going to be focusing a lot of our energies on improving e-mail in ProMax.  Here are the first wave of upgrades, some of which you may have already noticed in ProMax:

• Your e-mails should now be arriving faster than before.  We also increased the number of e-mails that can be received at one time.  Previously, ProMax could not deliver large batches of messages to your inbox at once, causing delays.    Your inbox can now receive up to 25 times more messages at a time than it used to.

• We've added a CC and BCC option to the e-mail writer.  Now you can Carbon Copy and Blind Carbon Copy colleagues on any e-mails you generate.  You can also add variables to the subject line of e-mails.  Not only does this make composing mass e-mails much easier, personalized subject lines will dramatically improve your open rates.  

• Previously, when you forwarded a message with attachments, the attachments would not be included in the new message.  This has been fixed.  

• PNG graphics are now supported in ProMax e-mail!  You can embed .png images in messages you create, and view .png graphics on incoming messages without errors occuring. 

• We fixed a bug on e-mail drafts that would delete previously entered e-mail addresses when you selected someone from your Contact List.  We also addressed some spacing issues in HTML e-mails to improve the look of messages.

 

Other Version Release Highlights

• We addressed some compatibility issues with the new Internet Explorer 11, including Instant Messaging and web comment fixes.  [Items 154443 & 156538]

• We updated the Dupe Lead settings on Instant Auto Credit App leads to eliminate the possibility of a Co-Applicant overwriting an Applicant if both came up as a dupe lead.  [Item 155813]

• We expanded your ability to include Hard and Soft Adds at any point in the lease deal process.  [Item 153340]

• We fixed a bug that was affecting several Proposals.  [Item 153426]

• We improved the process for making mass status changes to the Prospect Logs to prevent errors form occuring.  [Item 156738]

• Admin Lender Guidelines now allows for decimal places in lease mileage adjustment percentages.  [Item 155280]

• We corrected an issue with signature pad signatures sometimes affecting Privacy Notice settings.  [Item 153488]

• We improved the navigation to Desking search screens.  Now, when you navigate away by clicking on a payment or vehicle and then go back to the search, you are returned to the same place in the results rather than back at the top.  [Item 142497]

• We implemented a fix to prevent errors on unavailable photos on the Alt Choice Proposal.  [Item 156489]

• We corrected an issue with the "Last Delivered" Communications variable that was sometimes selecting the wrong vehicle for customers with multiple deliveries in the system.  [Item 153957]

• We added an option for dealers in the state of Michigan that limits the Allowable Trade Credit when Sales Tax Method is set to Tax Trade Difference.  [Item 155287]

• We updated Texas State Tax and VIT calculations to prevent a rare rounding error from occuring.  We also addressed some minor rounding issues with Forms variables.  [Items 141503 & 155915]

• Service additions.  [Items 143051 & 156363]

• E-mail improvements.  [Items 1920, 34942, 98006, 156550, 156557, 156891, 157060, 157067, 157069, 157070]