Eleven vAuto Customers are Named Recipients of DealerRater’s 2011 Dealer of the Year Awards

DealerRater and vAuto announced that eleven vAuto customers received DealerRater’s 2011 Dealer of the Year Awards. Of DealerRater’s total award recipients, vAuto customers represented one-third of the winners, which included the overall 2011 Dealer of the Year – Russell & Smith Honda of Houston, Texas. These results demonstrate a significant relationship between vAuto’s Velocity Method of Management and higher Customer Service Ratings on DealerRater.

DealerRater’s Dealer of the Year awards are given to car dealerships located throughout the United States and Canada that have the highest PowerScore™ in their brand category as well as one dealer who’s PowerScore outranks all others. The PowerScore is determined using a Bayesian algorithm that factors the dealership’s average DealerRater user rating and the total number of reviews written about the dealership on DealerRater’s web site during the previous calendar year.

“The significant overlap of this year’s award recipients with vAuto customers points to a relationship between vAuto users and customer service ratings on DealerRater.com,” said Chip Grueter, president of DealerRater. “Advertising a fair price from day one and reducing the typical adversarial negotiation process can result in happier customers and, therefore, higher service ratings on DealerRater.”

vAuto is the nation’s largest provider of Internet-based, used vehicle inventory management systems. The cornerstone of vAuto’s Velocity Method of Management is that decision makers know a used vehicle’s real-time supply, demand and price sensitivity metrics when making stocking, appraising, and pricing decisions in their local market. The vAuto system has evolved into a suite of solutions that increase transparency, including RealDeal, an innovative price validation and delivery system. RealDeal.com is the industry’s first live and objective price check on pre-owned vehicles.

“There is a new way to be successful in the used car marketplace based on Velocity,” says Keith Jezek, vAuto’s president. “The superior scores for vAuto dealers supports that the Velocity strategy achieves both profitability and customer satisfaction. RealDeal also gives dealers a powerful way to prove their pricing to shoppers, and when shoppers feel confident with their price, more deals are closed. Increased transparency is a key success factor in driving customer ratings.”

About vAuto

Headquartered in the Chicago suburb of Oak Brook, IL, vAuto also maintains a research and development center in Austin, TX. vAuto’s innovative “Live Market View” technology allows dealers to manage their used-vehicle inventories based on actual supply-and-demand for their specific market. Today, more than 3,000 dealerships across the country use vAuto’s pricing, appraisal, stocking and merchandising systems. Dale Pollak, vAuto’s founder, is the author of two books featuring best practices and strategies for the used car department, Velocity: From the Front Line to the Bottom Line and Velocity 2.0: Paint, Pixels & Profitability. vAuto is a wholly owned subsidiary of AutoTrader.com. Additional information about vAuto is available at www.vauto.com or call 877-828-8614.

About DealerRater

DealerRater was founded in 2002 as the first car dealer review website worldwide. With more than 300,000 people joining the DealerRater user community each month, DealerRater is fast becoming the world’s #1 online resource for anyone seeking third-party information on automobile dealerships. DealerRater features more than 38,000 U.S. and International car dealers, 250,000 user reviews and over 1,000,000 classified ads. DealerRater attracts more than 3 million consumers every year who visit the site to search for car dealerships, read current reviews, write their own descriptive reviews, and find car deals – all for free. Car dealers are rated on the criteria of customer service, quality of work, friendliness, price and overall experience. In addition, DealerRater offers qualified car dealers a Certified Dealer Program as a reputation management tool to help them grow their online presence and achieve higher SEO rankings across the Web. Today, over 3,000 dealers are members of DealerRater’s Certification Program. For more information, visit www.DealerRater.com or call 800-266-9455.