Friday, 8 February 2008 – Sydney – Infomedia today announced that the Company has signed an agreement, on a non-exclusive basis, with General Motors Corporation (GM) for the supply of its Superservice MenusTM service quoting system.
Under the terms of the agreement, Infomedia will offer Superservice Menus to General Motors dealerships, representing the brands of Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, GMC Truck, Oldsmobile, Pontiac, Saturn, H2, H3 and Saab. GM is the world’s largest automaker and in 2006, 9.1 million GM cars and trucks were sold globally under a total of 12 brands1.
Declining margins on new cars has meant dealerships have needed to look to other areas within their business for sales growth. Trends in the vehicle servicing market represent a number of opportunities for dealers who use Superservice Menus. Service and parts sales now contribute a larger part of the average dealership’s sales than ever before (11.9% in 2006 vs. 11.7 % in 2005)2. Also, the median age of cars on the road has increased to 9.2 years, meaning that there are more cars outside of their warranty period and requiring more regular servicing.
Speaking ahead of the National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA) convention in San Francisco this weekend, IFM North America’s Vice-President Mark Kujacznski said, “With Superservice Menus, dealerships are able to improve customer satisfaction as well raise their bottom line.” He went on to say that “NADA is the largest gathering of automotive dealers in North America and we expect a great deal of interest in the product at the event”.
At its most basic, Superservice Menus allows service departments to quickly and accurately provide customer quotes in their service departments. However the product also has simple tools which assist service advisors, who often aren’t natural sales people, to upsell other services and high profit margin accessories, thereby increasing the value of the service and adding to the overall profitability of the dealership.
The version of Superservice Menus for GM will be made available to dealerships as either a monthly CD/DVD, as a Datapak via their Dealer Management System (DMS), or delivered via the Internet.
The launch of Superservice Menus for GM represents Infomedia’s first North America customer for Superservice Menus. With over 13,000 GM dealers in North America3 alone, Infomedia is positive about the growth potential for the product. The Company also continues to work with other automakers within North America to introduce Superservice Menus into their operations.
Infomedia’s Superservice Menus is currently sold to 10 automakers in more than 20 countries.