2005 NADA: Cobalt Helps Dealers Unlock Customer Value across the Automotive Retail Process

NEW ORLEANS--Jan. 2, 20059, 2005--At the National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA) Convention in New Orleans, The Cobalt Group today made public its fully integrated solution to seamlessly manage the entire automotive retail process. The Cobalt family of automotive retail solutions helps dealers unlock customer and vehicle data from their DMS (dealer management system) and leverage every opportunity to drive dealer revenue.

"We talked to dealers all across the country and asked them what they wanted from an automotive solutions provider," said John Holt, The Cobalt Group's president and CEO. "Again and again they told us they want one single vendor to help maximize the profit of their customer base from the beginning to end of the automotive retail process."

Cobalt's automotive retail solution spans the breadth of automotive retailing, including prospect marketing, lead generation, lead management, call management, showroom management, deal management, and relationship marketing. Cobalt's solutions seamlessly drive customers through the dealership process, and center on the customer experience to maximize satisfaction, profits and loyalty.

Cobalt CRM

Cobalt's Prospector(TM), the industry's most advanced CRM (customer relationship management) and showroom management solution, helps dealers, dealer groups and manufacturers use their customer information to increase revenue. Prospector offers automated follow-up, data mining and campaign management tools; real-time showroom control; sales desk management tools; and multiple, configurable reports to help build profitable relationships throughout the customer lifecycle.

Prospector has been augmented with powerful new features and performance enhancements and an expanded ability to integrate with dealer management systems. In the first half of 2005, Prospector will be integrated with other Cobalt products--Lead Manager(SM) Customer Central and Cobalt Desking--for a seamless user experience and comprehensive lead and deal management capabilities. Cobalt's integrated suite of CRM products and services helps dealers gain a clear view of all prospects and customers, as well as how their employees handle them across the retail process.

Cobalt's Desking Solution is fully integrated with Prospector and gives sales managers unprecedented control over every deal. Cobalt desking lets dealers quickly create deals and manage multiple deals simultaneously. Cobalt desking helps dealers increase their first-pencil closes and customer satisfaction by creating profitable deals that meet the needs of consumers.

Cobalt's Lead Manager

Customer Central is the industry's top Internet lead management tool. Lead Manager Customer Central captures all leads, from any source, and helps dealers respond quickly and professionally. It allows unprecedented flexibility in managing and routing leads, while collecting valuable customer information and closely monitoring sales staff performance.

Cobalt's Media Tracker(TM) is a call management system that helps dealers track the ROI of their advertising campaigns and evaluate the inbound and outbound call handling performance of their sales staff. Media Tracker now includes significant outbound calling upgrades including a broadcast message manager for automated outbound call campaigns, Do Not Call protection, and outbound call tracking for sales people.

Cobalt Online Retailing Solutions

The foundation of Cobalt's online retailing solutions is Cobalt Nitra(TM), which accelerates the development, integration and deployment of automotive retail Internet marketing programs. Nitra's unparalleled speed, reliability and usability provide dealers with a rock-solid foundation that draws buyers to their sites, generates leads, and brings consumers into their dealership.

Cobalt's Site Reporter measures the effectiveness of a dealer's website with an unprecedented combination of reporting tools. Site Reporter's user-friendly dashboard gives dealers an at-a-glance view of the most important trends and performance of their websites to maximize their investment in their online program. The solution provides dealers with information that allows them to adjust their online storefront quickly and easily, to best attract, retain and close more customers.

Cobalt's Next Generation Inventory Services provide a detailed, consistent presentation of dealership inventory while offering a compelling, flexible display that meets automobile manufacturer (OEM) requirements. Online shoppers can see the depth of a dealer's inventory coverage with the highly configurable inventory browser that displays up to 14 photos per vehicle. Inventory services display close matches when there is no exact match for the consumer's search, and enable consumers to calculate payments.

Dealix Lead Generation

With Cobalt's acquisition of Dealix Corporation, the industry's leading provider of high quality Internet sales leads and technology, Cobalt is now uniquely positioned as a consolidated provider of dealer, manufacturer and third-party leads. Combined with Cobalt's industry-leading automotive retailing solutions, this comprehensive lead generation capability gives dealers a powerful and complete retailing platform that will increase vehicle sales and help them maintain strong relationships with prospects and customers throughout the vehicle buyer lifecycle.

For more information about how Cobalt can help dealers implement a comprehensive business strategy for finding and keeping customers, contact Cobalt at 866-439-2258 or email sales@cobaltgroup.com.

About The Cobalt Group

The Cobalt Group is North America's leading provider of automotive retailing solutions. For a decade, Cobalt's exclusive mission has been to help automobile dealers and manufacturers leverage online retailing and customer relationship management (CRM) technology to increase their effectiveness and profits and to enhance the car-buying and ownership experience for their customers. Cobalt provides automotive retailing products and services to more than half the automotive dealerships in the United States, Canada and Mexico and is endorsed by more than two-thirds of the world's major automotive manufacturers. Cobalt has also received six consecutive annual endorsements from the National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA(R)).