TMCnet News
ARKONA Announces Automotive CRM Solution; Dealership Selling and Customer Information Processes StreamlinedSALT LAKE CITY --(Business Wire)-- Jan. 27, 2005 -- ARKONA Inc. (OTCBB: ARKN), the emerging leader in dealer management solutions for automobile and powersports dealerships, today announced the development of a new customer relationship management (CRM) solution developed from the ground up by ARKONA and a core of its dealer clients. The ARKONA CRM solution's underpinnings are based on and designed to take advantage of the existing features of ARKONA's widely accepted Internet-based dealer management solution. The new CRM solution will be shown at the National Automobile Dealers Association convention in New Orleans, Jan. 28-Feb. 2, 2005, and will be generally available this summer. "ARKONA's new CRM is a great example of how vendors and dealerships should work together to create sales and productivity solutions for dealerships," said Carl Swope, dealer principal, Swope Automotive Group. "As a member of the dealer advisory group and a beta-user of the product for the past several months, ARKONA has achieved a major breakthrough in developing a customer relationship and sales force automation solution that is fully integrated with their DMS. With its enterprisewide focus and sophisticated analytical tools, ARKONA's CRM enables each department in the dealership to participate in the sales process, while providing a management tool to assess productivity at a fraction of the complexity and cost of current offerings." The focal point of ARKONA's CRM offering is to have customer information easily accessible, in real time, in one place, and to deliver on what dealers say they want in a CRM application: accessibility, flexibility, simplicity, and complete integration with their dealer management system. "ARKONA has been highly innovative in developing a fully integrated CRM product that highlights sales force automation," said Steve Nickelsen, managing partner, Nickelsen Partners, LLC. "Not only have they attained the highest level of integration between the CRM and DMS, but they have also incorporated features critical to every dealer including cross-enterprise comparison, showroom traffic control, and prospect performance analysis." ARKONA's New CRM Includes -- Customer Contact -- Data acquisition, customer/prospect contact history, and customer value -- Daily Work Plan -- Customer and prospect follow-up activities refreshed daily, appointment scheduling, customer and prospect lists, DNC compliance, survey management -- Showroom Management -- Sales process management for leads, appointments, demos, appraisals, offers, and deals with form generation for process control -- Showroom Analysis -- Real-time analysis of showroom sales process statistics -- Active Prospect Analysis -- Prospect status for key sales process indicators -- Prospect Performance Analysis -- Advertising analysis and prospect source, performance, and disposition analysis ratios for salesperson and sales teams -- Database Marketing -- Renewal management, flexible customer follow-up scheduling, database cleansing, and follow-up phone, e-mail, and letter generation "Our solution is not a clumsy, watered-down derivative of a third party's product. Rather, we have developed an easy-to-use CRM solution that dealers require to be effective, along with a reporting functionality that helps management assess and grow their business -- all without requiring expensive and risky investments in software, hardware, or personnel," said Rich Holland, president, ARKONA Inc. "Total integration between the ARKONA-developed CRM and our proven DMS allows our 500+ dealer clients and 12,000+ users to seamlessly automate business processes and generate additional value from existing customer information." About ARKONA Inc. Founded in 1996, ARKONA is a public company and a leader in automotive and powersports management solutions. ARKONA's Dealer Management System also leads the market in technologically superior e-business solutions for automotive dealers that fully integrate back office systems with a retail Web presence. In this market ARKONA is the premier Application Service Provider (ASP). For more information, visit the ARKONA Web site at www.ARKONA.com. This release may contain forward-looking statements as well as historical information. Forward-looking statements, which are included in accordance with the "safe harbor" provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, may involve known or unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the company's actual results and performance in future periods to be materially different from any future results or performance suggested by the forward-looking statements in this release. Such forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this release. The company expressly disclaims any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements found herein to reflect any changes in company expectations or results or any change in events. |
