Arkona Provides CRM to AskPatty.com

Arkona, Inc., a dealer management system vendor selling on-demand products for new car franchise, independent and powersports dealerships, has endorsed AskPatty.com, Inc., an automotive Web site for women.

Ask Patty provides a turn-key sales and marketing certification program to dealerships in order to attract, sell, retain and keep loyal women consumers, in sort of a Car Talk for women.

The agreement between Ask Patty and Arkona is supposed to provide dealerships with "more comprehensive sales and marketing packages" and "an improved method of reaching out to female consumers," according to Arkona officials.

"We recognize the important role that the Internet plays in the purchasing process," said Dave Jenkins, Vice-President Marketing, Arkona, Inc. "The Ask Patty program not only increases a dealership's exposure but will also help improve its Web site positioning in the search engines."

As part of the agreement, Ask Patty will make available its full marketing program, dealership training, and certification to Arkona dealers. The Ask Patty agreement further augments Arkona's line of marketing tools for dealers, Arkona officials say, one which already includes Arkona's CRM and eMailSync products and the Arkona Allegiance customer loyalty product.

On the www.askpatty.com site women can get advice on car purchases, maintenance, and other automotive related topics. The site's new Chrome features are designed to provide women with "even more tools to assist them in the shopping and buying process," site officials say.

This February Arkona announced Arkona Reflections, what company officials called "the latest in new age digital imaging and document retrieval solutions for dealerships."

The Reflections offering integrates with Arkona's ASP-based dealer management system (DMS) and its customer relationship management module (CRM).

There are few industries that suffer more from the lack of integrated document management systems than the automotive retail market, Arkona officials say, "as evidenced by the daily document shuffle that occurs inside a dealership."

David Sims is a contributing editor for TMC (News - Alert) Net.  For more articles please visit David Sims' columnist page.

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