The organisations share data across their respective Stockbook and Portfolio 3Sixty platforms. The former conducts “an Amazon-style search of a large portal of stock”, according to Chris Stott, SalesMaster’s managing director, which comprises new vehicles available for sale, “inbound” models in transit from factories, those in production and used examples.
Paul Bennett, Autofutura’s director of business development, said the latter service analyses “marketing offers and promotions from the manufacturer, the finance company and likely discounts from retailers”.
Customers are informed that they are “in potentially the best position” to replace their vehicle with a similar model and at a similar rate. Bennett also said contracts are typically reset to the original term and, though it cannot be guaranteed, the same deposit would be carried over wherever possible. The software attempts to match the outgoing vehicle as closely as it can, but it also has the capacity to offer equivalents from rival manufacturers when set up to search multiple brands.
“It will automatically match, in a binary fashion, engine size, transmission, specification and fuel consumption – as many elements as possible. We look to have a 100% match, but the client can say ‘Build me opportunities for resolicitation that have a minimum match level of 89%’, for example,” Bennett explained.
Though the companies have historically targeted dealers, manufacturers and their associated finance arms, Stott claimed they had seen “an increase in awareness from the leasing industry”, while Bennett said the service could be adapted to corporate customers.
“There is no reason why a forward-thinking lease company could not adapt the same profile and use of our platform to help them accelerate repurchase. For example, if you’ve been driving a 3 Series for 16 months and there’s 12 months left on the contract, it could be that your leasing company says to the customer ‘Are you cool if we flip this deal and provide you and your driver with the same specification of vehicle – but a new one – and simply extend the term back to the original 24 months?'” Bennett said.
“For a leasing company, we’d probably say ‘How many contracts have you got under management?’ and they’d say ‘We’ve got 100,000 contracts on our book’, so we’d charge a one-time set-up fee of X and a monthly contract-under-management fee of Y,” Bennett concluded.