NEWS AND INFORMATION FROM ONECOMMAND

1. Strat­egy and Com­pany Mission.

At OneCom­mand we con­tinue to pro­vide a sophis­ti­cated Cus­tomer Mar­ket­ing and Loy­alty Automa­tion Plat­form™ that uti­lizes lead­ing edge tech­nol­ogy and lever­ages our AutoIn­tel­li­gence™ prod­ucts and tech­niques.  This plat­form enables us to deliver the right mes­sage, at the right time, to the right cus­tomer, through the right com­mu­ni­ca­tion chan­nel. We’ve been focused on devel­op­ing the OneCom­mand plat­form and our AutoIn­tel­li­gence™ solu­tions because they are really our secret sauce; our intel­lec­tual prop­erty.  So, that is our mission.

As for our basic strat­egy, first and fore­most, we opti­mize our core offer­ing to ensure deal­ers and/or OEMs receive impact­ful com­mu­ni­ca­tion tools that lead to high response rates, increased sales and ROs, increased dol­lars spent per RO, lower mar­ket­ing costs and enhanced owner loyalty.

Sec­ond, we pride our­selves on deliv­er­ing cre­ative, rel­e­vant, and best prac­tice mes­sag­ing. It’s not just about pro­vid­ing the deal­ers or OEMs with another com­mu­ni­ca­tion tool – it is really about pro­vid­ing best prac­tice mes­sag­ing that enhances the rela­tion­ship between the OEM/dealer and its prospects/customers. We spend a lot of time think­ing about that because on one hand there are the com­mu­ni­ca­tion tools and on the other hand there is the mes­sag­ing that goes along with the tools.  They have to be opti­mized and syn­chro­nized to deliver the ulti­mate value.

Third, we think about how to expand the Plat­form to deliver best-in-class prod­ucts and ser­vices that sup­port the evo­lu­tion of the rela­tion­ship between the OEM, the dealer, and the con­sumer. So, if we think back to Call­Com­mand (which is what the com­pany was called ini­tially), we started with voice, then we went to email, then we pulled in direct mail and text. So we are con­stantly ask­ing our­selves, how do we extend the Plat­form and develop it, hence deep­en­ing the rela­tion­ship between the dealer and con­sumer? We recently just announced a cou­ple of new prod­uct offer­ings – one of them is called Newslet­ter­Con­nect, which helps deal­er­ships and OEMs stay in front of the cus­tomer each month, in turn enhanc­ing the rela­tion­ship with their customers.

Lastly, OneCom­mand is increas­ing our focus on our Client Sup­port Team. I think this goes back to my core DNA that client ser­vice is para­mount to any orga­ni­za­tion. We strive to deliver indus­try lead­ing sup­port to ensure that each prod­uct is fully uti­lized and tai­lored to meet the deal­ers or OEM’s spe­cific needs. This approach takes the bur­den off the deal­er­ship, low­ers their mar­ket­ing costs, and dri­ves bet­ter response rates in their Sales and Ser­vice Departments.

2. Mar­ket­ing Objec­tives and Oppor­tu­ni­ties for 2013 & Beyond.

Well, it always starts with the client in mind.  It doesn’t do us any good to develop
ser­vices, prod­ucts, or processes if they don’t help our clients. So, our fun­da­men­tal objec­tive, whether it is mar­ket­ing, prod­uct devel­op­ment, sales or ser­vice, it always starts with the client in mind.

Over the course of the last few years, we’ve been laser-focused on apply­ing sig­nif­i­cant effort in under­stand­ing the needs of our cus­tomers. This has allowed us to really deliver a more scal­able, high-quality prod­uct, along with ser­vices that have con­tin­u­ously increased our cus­tomer sat­is­fac­tion. We’ve actu­ally increased our cus­tomer sat­is­fac­tion by over 300%. You’re prob­a­bly ask­ing, how does this tie into mar­ket­ing? Well,
under­stand­ing your client’s needs ulti­mately leads to higher reten­tion rates, higher
refer­rals, more ref­er­ences and renewals. To me that is a core fun­da­men­tal for marketing.

Next, we are focused on sim­pli­fy­ing our mes­sage. As a com­pany some­times we talk in our own lan­guage and what we really need to do is talk in the lan­guage our deal­ers and OEMs under­stand. We spend a lot of time think­ing about the rel­e­vant voice that needs to deliver the real world mes­sage to our OEMs and deal­ers. Through­out our years of expe­ri­ence, we have gath­ered excel­lent cam­paign ana­lyt­ics, devel­oped best prac­tices and increased deliv­ery opti­miza­tion. The next step is help­ing deal­ers under­stand at a glance when, why and how they should com­mu­ni­cate with cus­tomers, remov­ing any uncer­tainty. Then we can truly com­mu­ni­cate the value of our solu­tions, which will
res­onate with the dealer or OEM and show the real ROI that is meaningful.

Also, we know that we have to focus on build­ing rela­tion­ships and part­ner­ships with the OEMs, dealer groups and deal­ers. It is not just about being a ven­dor. We want to be viewed as an exten­sion of the team that really is in line with their busi­ness objec­tives. If we do not help them achieve their busi­ness objec­tives, then we can’t exist as an
orga­ni­za­tion. We don’t want to be just another ven­dor; we want to be a true busi­ness partner.

Lastly, we have really but­toned up our recruit­ing, inter­view­ing and hir­ing processes. We are aggres­sively recruit­ing and hir­ing top tier sales and client rela­tions tal­ent. When I joined the com­pany in 2009 we com­pletely reengi­neered this process because we
real­ized that if we wanted to be world class, we had to have world class peo­ple. We go through a team inter­view process to ensure every­body we bring to the table can deliver value to our OEMs, dealer groups and dealers.

3. What is your assess­ment of the auto­mo­tive mar­ket & the indus­try right now?

I think even though we have seen the aver­age age of vehi­cles on the road increase, the indus­try is def­i­nitely com­ing back. In 2012 every­body was expect­ing that the indus­try would sell over 14 mil­lion vehi­cles; I think we will meet or exceed that esti­mate.  The OEMs are pro­duc­ing great prod­ucts, the dealer net­work has weath­ered the storm and depend­ing on the impact of the “Fis­cal Cliff”, we may see a very strong 2013.

From our per­spec­tive, we see that the OEMs, dealer groups and deal­ers are focused on the most impor­tant asset, their cus­tomers. They’ve invested in solu­tions that enhance the rela­tion­ship between the OEM and con­sumers, and between the deal­ers and
con­sumers. That means build­ing a healthy, friendly pipeline with prospects and nur­tur­ing them through the buy­ing process. Then they really work to build those rela­tion­ships to enhance the consumer’s ser­vice expe­ri­ence and get them to come back into the ser­vice drive — all the more extend­ing cus­tomer loyalty.

We feel that the deal­ers have made a sig­nif­i­cant invest­ment and are very laser-focused on their cus­tomer base, def­i­nitely more so than I saw in the past. It is really refresh­ing to see this customer-centered world hit the auto­mo­tive sec­tor. I am very impressed with what the OEMs have done with their prod­ucts, and I am very impressed with the way the deal­ers talk about their cus­tomers, mak­ing sure they main­tain a pos­i­tive rela­tion­ship and ulti­mately grow their mar­ket share. Every­one in the indus­try has done a
won­der­ful job.

4. What do you con­sider OneCommand’s most sig­nif­i­cant accomplishments?

There are actu­ally four accom­plish­ments that come to mind.

First is Call­Com­mand. OneCom­mand really helped fos­ter and cre­ate an indus­try of
cus­tomer loy­alty using dig­i­tal solu­tions to drive sales, owner loy­alty, repeat pur­chase, etc. You know, I think about what this com­pany was doing with tech­nol­ogy before I joined and how it has really mor­phed, they laid a nice frame­work for us to deliver high value ser­vices to our dealers.

Sec­ond, we were very inno­v­a­tive and we have done won­der­ful things here at
OneCom­mand. I am very proud of this orga­ni­za­tion for their qual­ity focus, specif­i­cally around prod­ucts and ser­vices. It is very strong and our mar­ket is rec­og­niz­ing it and
rein­forc­ing that our Plat­form is best in class. I am so proud of how the peo­ple here really take a lot of pride in what they do. When I left the energy space and was look­ing to see what was next for me, I was really wowed by OneCom­mand – the peo­ple and their
will­ing­ness to fight for the auto indus­try when the mar­ket was dif­fi­cult in 2008 and 2009, as well as their com­mit­ment to improve our prod­ucts and ser­vices. So, I am very proud of the accom­plish­ments that we have made here.

As an out­come of that sec­ond point, qual­ity of prod­ucts and ser­vices, we have been able to cel­e­brate record growth with the num­ber of deal­ers and OEMs who have signed up on our Plat­form. We actu­ally have one OEM that has an 85% sat­u­ra­tion of our
solu­tion into their deal­er­ships. This is pretty phe­nom­e­nal given that a num­ber of years ago it was very dif­fi­cult to get co-op dol­lars for a dig­i­tal solu­tion that enhances owner loy­alty and sales dri­ven tools.

OneCom­mand is also very much an inno­va­tor in tech­nol­ogy. We con­tinue to make huge invest­ments in our tech­nol­ogy and not just in the cus­tomer fac­ing area. We are
spend­ing a very sig­nif­i­cant amount of money right now on the back­end infra­struc­ture. My phi­los­o­phy is to always use tier-one tech­nol­ogy. What we are try­ing to do is really ensure high avail­abil­ity, reli­a­bil­ity, and scal­a­bil­ity. These are pri­mar­ily ‘unseen’ ele­ments, but they’re so incred­i­bly important.

Lastly, we are mak­ing sig­nif­i­cant invest­ment to rethink and reengi­neer the client
expe­ri­ence. We look at the Plat­form and processes that we have invested in over the years and try to fig­ure out how can we sim­plify it and make it more intu­itive, eas­ier for the OEMs and deal­ers to use. They have their deal­er­ships to run, right? They need to sell cars, they need to finance cars, they need to ser­vice vehi­cles, and they need to get parts. They don’t need to be bogged down by a sys­tem that is not intu­itive and easy.  They need a plat­form and ser­vice orga­ni­za­tion that makes their job eas­ier. We really want to spend more time under­stand­ing those require­ments, mak­ing it eas­ier for our clients to use our solu­tion.  Some of that will be through ser­vices, and some of that will be through tech­nol­ogy, but nonethe­less we are really spend­ing time try­ing to lis­ten to our clients.