Dealers are always looking for new ways to reach prospective car buyers, and when a company comes along with a product that will bring people to your showroom floor, dealers are anxious to jump on it.
Of course, the service isn’t free. In fact, it’s $299 or $399 per car sold, with the higher of the two amounts when it’s a used car.
You don’t sell a car, you don’t pay. Or do you?
For one, they aren’t going to call you up at the end of the month and say “Hey, did you sell any cars to the people walking in holding a TrueCar report?” They are going to need access to your DMS. Whether you realize it or not, your DMS is a goldmine of data. It’s got phone numbers, email addresses, and all kinds of stuff you’d never want your competitors to get their greedy little hands on.
The fact is, TrueCar should have access to only the data required to analyze the ratio of people who came in via the TrueCar process, and whether they purchased.
What I would like to know, and what dealers should band together and ask is, what data is being utilized, and if such data is used in a way that may be considered a conflict of interest.
I would request in writing that your DMS provider disclose to you anyone who has access or has requested access to your data, and provide the names and phone numbers as well as a copy of the contract you signed that authorized them to do so. If you’ve authorized it, I would consult a lawyer immediately.
Dealers need to understand that access to their DMS should be restricted to internal use only and any company that requests access should not be permitted to store such data, sell, publish or in any way distribute it to other partners.
