Demo Plate Control • Key Control • Mobile Asset Management

Today’s automobile dealership is a complex business. Management faces daunting challenges to operate sales, finance, fixed assets, human resources, inventory and regulatory requirements successfully. Smart executives take advantage of an ever-increasing variety of products and services made available to them by suppliers specializing in specific areas of expertise such as sales training, finance, human resources, security, loss prevention, insurance, and specialty equipment.

Even with all of the energy now being devoted to keeping a dealership running smoothly there are still some areas of day to day operations for which the appropriate solution, product or consultant has not yet been found. One such area is the use and control of dealer demo tags, a statutory requirement in most states, and long regarded by most dealers as a problem without any good solution.

Efforts have been made over the years by individual dealers to govern demo tags in a variety of manners ranging from:

Furnishing every salesperson with an never ending supply of tags in order to ensure that the unavailability of a demo tag does not compromise the continuity of the communication established between a salesperson and their customer. This solution results in the dealership owning far more demo tags than necessary. The dealer incurs higher acquisition and insurance costs, greater management requirements and added liability exposure. These are issues that managers as well as financial and insurance consultants find troublesome.

Requiring salespeople to sign demo tags out and in, which, while reducing the overall number of tags required (a plus for managers, financial and insurance people) interferes with the flow of the sale and requires the time and attention of an employee. Signing tags out and in takes time that should and could be used more productively. Further, this method, as many dealers are finding out when doing dealer tag inventory checks, is not a foolproof system for controlling use and access to dealer tags.

Some dealers believe that by charging a large deposit to the salesperson the  tag will not be abused or lost. However, a large deposit virtually insures that a prompt lost or theft report, which limits the dealer’s liability, is less likely to be made. Until a report is made, the liability associated with that demo tag remains with the dealer and not the person using or possessing the tag. Prompt reporting of lost or stolen tags is a very big issue with insurance providers.

While the problem of demo tag control appears intractable, there are solutions. The solutions take the form of dealer demo tag control systems and there are a number of providers in the market today.

One such provider is M-Tech, a company that is specializing in dealer demo tag control systems. M-Tech manufactures and markets the Securitag System. This “Smart Box” has been solving demo tag access control problems for nearly twenty years.

M-Tech’s biggest supporters are the dealers, managers and salespeople using the product. It is gratifying to be given such a vote of confidence.