While some keys are only misplaced, to be found later. That does you no good. When you have a fresh up walk in the front door and ask to see a car and you can't find the key –The key is checked out by a coworker, and no one knows where it is. And once you find the key, you must wander the lot hitting the alarm blindly searching for the vehicle. 

 Most stores guess — no one really tracks this unless it’s already a fire. And most GMs are almost never told when this happens because what manager wants to tell on themselves to their boss?! A lot of stores will charge lost keys to the deal, or to the salesperson. So, you are losing gross for no reason. Or you are charging a sales guy – who will spend the next 2 days searching instead of selling. 

 Instead of costing your store gross, or using the time of 2 sales members, a porter, and a manager to locate a key/car, you could just open an app and see the location of both. 

Everyone has thought of using Air Tags to track keys or vehicles. A few dealerships have even tried it on a small scale. There are issues with scaling this.

Whenever we do at install at a dealership. We will set aside every key we find that no longer shows in their inventory. These are keys that were in a desk when the car was sold. No one could locate the key at the time of delivery, and they were recut. This is proof your store has been wasting money and time.

We don’t really have a way to track them. At best we know who checked out the key last. But it could get handed off several times after that.

The most common “fixes” for the problem are billing the car deal the cost of a key replacement. Which means 5X a month you are costing your store gross on deals. Since several managers are paid based off this number, this is not ideal. The second “fix” is to charge the salesperson for the key. If you are being charged $400 for a key replacement, are you going to spend the whole week distracted trying to find the key or focus on selling cars and making the store more money. I think we know the answer to this...

Most stores (if they use a key machine) will see who checked it out last. That key may have been checked out 3-4 days ago. Since then, a salesperson may have checked out 30-40 keys. So, now they must search through multiple vehicles, desk, etc. To find one key. A lot of times you have 2 salespeople involved. The one who needs the key/car now to show. The second salesperson who the key is still assigned to. Others involved are the manager that must run the report on keys checked out to the salesperson. And a lot of the time a porter is involved to try and help the sales team find this key, while the sales members try to continue selling.

The amount of time TrueSpot saves is the real product. Locating a key says a couple hundred dollars. But, making everyone at the dealership more efficient produces thousands each month.

If 1 in every 5 keys gets misplaced. And on average, each employee involved in the search will waste 30-60 minutes searching. Typically, you will have the salesperson that the key is checked out to. There is a salesperson that tried to check out the key. The manager has to run the report on all the keys checked out to, the salesperson in the last couple of days. And the porter that will be enlisted to help search.

If you took every employee and gave them all that time back each time this happened, how much extra production would you get from your team? You can locate a key/car in seconds. On average, management at dealerships are interrupted 8 times per day to answer questions about keys and vehicle location. TrueSpot gives them all that time back and eliminates the distractions and headaches.

Misplaced keys affect every department at the dealership. It can slow down the process or even bring it to a halt. Every time that happens it costs the store money. Additionally, it costs the dealership its reputation. The number one factor affecting CSI scores is extended waiting times.

There are enough testimonials to show anyone on the fence why TrueSpot makes a difference. The strong retention rate is a strong indicator of the ROI TrueSpot provides month after month, and year after year.

At best most dealerships have a limited view of key location. They may have a sense of accountability but lack true location. That is why dealerships just “charge the sales guy: for the key.

What if every sales guy could see where the key and car were when selling? They would have to ask, “Who had it last?” or “Where is the key now?” That means managers wouldn't be getting asked 8-times per day about them. So, they would be taken away from working deals. This means more deals can get worked, sold, etc.

Industry average is $150-500 per key depending on the brand. High-line stores can be doubled.

The small number related to cost is the hard cost to replace the key. The larger cost is all the time your staff waste each month searching for keys and cars. 40% of staff say they waste time each day related to

Dealerships don’t usually know a key is missing until a sales team member goes to check it out, and it is not available. From there they approach the last person who checked it out. If they don't know the location, next a sales manager will run a report on the KeyTrak machine to see what keys they have checked out since it went missing. So, they could go look to see if it got left in one of those cars. If it is busy, they may ask a porter to help with the search. You now have 4 team members searching instead of doing their job.

If time and productivity have value at your store... You could have located that key in seconds, not distracting several other staff members. The ROI is simple.

When a key is lost, there is a hard cost. Replacement key, recutting, and reprogramming. Most likely you will need to reprogram both keys, so the lost one is still not usable. Parts will charge for most of this, along with the labor to pay an employee to do the work. All the time wasted is harder to quantify. If 4 team members (example above) wasted time searching... What is it worth? Did it cost a sale? Did it affect efficiency and profitability? Each store will have to start assigning value to this.

On average the hard cost is between $300-500. More for Luxury dealers. But time, energy, and lost efficiency is where the dollars really start to add up.

Every dealership has some sort of system. From keyboards to key machines that cost thousands of dollars. Does your current system provide accountability? To take it a step further, does it solve your daily problems with locating keys and cars efficiently?

Every dealership using TrueSpot immediately sees the change in efficiency. If you would like to ask some clients, we can provide you with references. The average time to locate a key/car for a dealer NOT using TrueSpot is 30-60 minutes on average. Dealerships with TrueSpot are under 10 Minutes to locate and retrieve both the key and car.

This can be custom to the store, but it is usually one of a few places if they even know.

Use this story/answer provided. As you pitch tracking keys bring up this story and walk through how it will change with TrueSpot.

Several dealerships, especially in the Northeast US, struggle with space. So, they typically have several locations where vehicles live. This causes delays in all processes.

TrueSpot works with several dealerships that have multiple locations. Now they can see the exact location of the key, and the exact location of the car. They do not have to drive to multiple locations searching for the vehicle. They will know exactly where to go on the first try.

Every dealership knows this story. Or they have wandered out on the lot looking for a vehicle sitting on the showroom floor. Even worse they may start setting off the alarm trying to find it.

Open the TrueSpot app. Search the stock and locate the car. Don't waste valuable time searching, when you could be selling.

Customer came in on a busy Saturday. Waited to be seen. Then asked to see a car. It took the salesperson 20 minutes to try to find it. By the time they did and pulled it up to the front door. The customer grew impatient and left. “If they wanted my business, they would have treated me better.” or “I don’t want to do business with someone who can even handle the basics.”

Any staff member could have located and pulled the car up within 5 minutes. Losing a car deal costs how much...? If the average copy on a car deal is $2000. You just lost that. $2000 would cover TrueSpot for months...

Several dealerships with parking garages use TrueSpot. Wasting time walking each level to locate a car is a huge waste of time.

Open the app, search the stock. See which level, and what part of the level the vehicle is on. How much time did you save? Sell cars faster. Work on cars faster. Every department can benefit from this.

• KeyTrak – We offer key and car location on the key machine in a basic format.
• Keyper – We provide check in and out logs in our app and dashboard from their machines.
• DMS – All major players. We can pull in data like Stock, Vins, Year, Make, Model, etc. Most provide an API file that we can port.
• Inventory Feed – All major players. We can pull in data like Stock, Vins, Year, Make, Model, etc. Most provide an API file that we can port.
• Merchandizing Feeds – All major players. We can pull in data like Stock, Vins, Year, Make, Model, etc. Most provide an API file that we can port.
• Passtime GPS – We pull in their GPS Car location to our app and dash.
• Connected Dealer Services – We pull in their GPS Car location to our app and dash.
• Apex GPS – We pull in their GPS Car location to our app and dash.

It is not a GPS solution. The tech is called LORA. It is a real-time location service. It allows you to track a key, car, dealer plate, etc. Anywhere on your dealership lot. Or if you have multiple lots, you can track anywhere on those lots.

TrueSpot has a NOC (Network Operations Center) monitoring the network at all times. TrueSpot also has staff monitoring and updating clients when gateways go down, or even the whole network. They will reach out to the client anytime there is an issue to address. There is no additional cost with this, it is included in your monthly subscription. This is available as long as you are a TrueSpot client.

TrueSpot does offer reporting. We have some common reports several dealerships use. Reports like an Idle Vehicle report, a Test Drive report, and Recon exception reports. With all the location data - TrueSpot can build any report you may need/want. If we have the data, we will help build the report you need.