The Goal: Improve Profitability and Reduce Cost
Chicagoland Automotive Group is a well-established dealership network with a strong sense of loyalty across its workforce. Many team members have been with the company for decades. That kind of longevity is an asset but can also make change more difficult to implement.
One of those loyal team members is Steve Camp, general manager, who has been with the dealership group for 23 years. He has also been a loyal user of Reynolds solutions for 30 years. When Chicagoland set out to improve their daily processes, they started by examining their software utilization.
Their key objectives were clear: to increase sales, reduce costs, and improve profitability. To accomplish these goals, they knew they needed the right mix of tech solutions. But with long tenured staff across departments, any changes had to make day-to-day tasks easier, not more complicated. Fortunately, Chicagoland found what they needed and started seeing real results.
First Stop: Solution Review and Consolidation
Management discovered that one of the primary problems was redundancy. With multiple departments often using different products for the same task, the cost wasn’t just financial; it caused operational inefficiency, inconsistent training, disparate reporting, and lost visibility across teams.
To move forward, Chicagoland made the decision to merge and pare down their technology to standardize processes. The Reynolds and Chicagoland teams worked together on a complete technology utilization review of all Reynolds and outside vendor sources to see which solutions were providing value and how they could improve performance.
“Reynolds was really a partner with us on this. We looked at what tools we were using and what products needed to be removed or added. They helped us align everything.”
A Hands-On Partnership: The Innovation Center
Like Advanced Service, ServiceSnap 2.0 caught the attention of the Chicagoland team at the Innovation Center, and they were inspired to introduce it across their stores to further improve service.
Chicagoland’s service team is now able to take photos or videos of needed repairs and instantly show or send the visuals to customers. Customers can then approve work digitally, making the process faster, while improving communication and overall satisfaction.
“We liked that Service Snap 2.0 has a great customer interface. Now, we can instantly show customers products and quickly take them to the service desk to finish up the order,” said Camp.
The docuPAD® System
As a longtime user of docuPAD, Chicagoland made it a priority to get the most out of their system and improve utilization across stores, and it paid off.
“We reviewed our docuPAD utilization reports and then worked with the Reynolds customer support team in our stores to help us focus on menu presentation and the sales tools,” said Camp.
By improving utilization of their docuPAD system, Chicagoland was able to see an eight percent increase in their finance income, which was $1.3 million dollars in one year.
1.3 million
dollars in one year in their finance income.
ReverseRisk®
Access to dealership data is crucial for making any business decision. Chicagoland gained visibility into the performance of their entire group by combining all their data – across employees, departments, and even stores – into a single, powerful reporting tool.
When Chicagoland launched ReverseRisk, they saw an immediate improvement in their CIT time and RO days open metric. Forecasting became easier and sharing that data was quick and automatic.
“I would absolutely recommend all dealerships use ReverseRisk, it’s one of the best tools I use. It’s improved our business dramatically,” said Camp.
Beyond Software: The Power of Support and Training
For Chicagoland, change didn’t just come from buying new software — it came from the partnership.
“Reynolds is incredibly collaborative,” said Camp. “We were able to dive deep into our business model and tools moving forward and realign them so we could all go in the same direction together.”
From dedicated support reps to ongoing training and resources, Chicagoland knew they weren’t navigating this journey alone; they had the Reynolds Support Team.
“We’ve been working with the same Reynolds support person for 10 years. His team is phenomenal.”
Amplify: Reynolds Retail Summit
After their Innovation Center visit, Chicagoland leadership attended the Reynolds Retail Summit for in-depth product discussion and strategy review with stakeholders.
“I spent 30-40 minutes with stakeholders for each product. At one point, I had six or seven Reynolds executives asking me for feedback,” Camp explained. “You could tell they really cared about what I had to say. Amplify, Reynolds Retail Summit, absolutely impacted my decision to do business with Reynolds.”
