BEAVERTON, Ore.— AutoAp, a mobile-focused automotive software development company, has announced the launch of its Dealer Recall Management (DRM) service, an automated method providing automotive retailers daily recall updates for new and used vehicle inventory.
Before the DRM service, dealers would need to manually check their entire vehicle inventory for recall status daily, relying on government and manufacturer websites for their information, officials said. However, this information is often inaccurate, incomplete or not up-to-date. A recent review of the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) data base by AutoAp found that up to 30% of safety recalls in their database had one or more errors. As a result, dealers are often unaware that they have vehicles on their lots with open recalls needing repair and can unwittingly sell those to consumers.
The number of vehicle safety recalls has soared in recent years. In 2013, there were approximately 36 million vehicles on the road with open recalls. More than 63 million vehicles were affected by safety recalls in 2014 — representing 25% of all U.S. registered vehicles — and this number is expected to climb even higher this year.
“Recalls have dominated the news headlines in the past year, as they go up in number and attract high-profile lawsuits,” said Mark Paul, CEO of AutoAp. “No dealer I know wants to knowingly sell a vehicle with an open safety recall. Doing so would create a negative customer experience and can open dealers to liability.
“With the DRM service, dealers can cost-effectively monitor their inventory for open recalls and know the safety recall status of their entire inventory — every day, increasing their customers’ safety and reducing their liability,” he added. “Our Dynamic Recall Management service also enables them to generate warranty revenue and can help optimize service and warranty repair operations.”
AutoAp’s DRMs corrects the errors in NHTSA’s data through a proprietary software process and easily interfaces with dealer inventory software to identify vehicles that face recalls. The service also provides daily recall status reports on all vehicles, consumer reports dealers can use to communicate and document the vehicle recall status to consumers, and an easy-to-use dashboard that reduces the time to verify the safety recall status of all their cars and trucks.
For dealers, monitoring the safety recall status of every vehicle, every day would require significant staff time and could cost dealerships up to $40,000 or more, annually. With the DRM service, the entire process can be reduced to less than 15 minutes per day and at a fraction of the cost.
In addition, dealers can use the DRM service to create revenue opportunities and to increase customer comfort level with vehicle purchases with consumer reporting. Recall warranty work is usually covered by the manufacturers and provides franchised auto retailers with profitable repair work. In addition, AutoAp provides dealers with in-store and online “Safety Recall Certified” marketing assets to help them differentiate themselves, showing that their vehicles are checked every day for safety recalls. This helps give shoppers peace of mind when making a vehicle purchase.
