Largest privately-held marketing services agency offers optimized service capabilities for nation’s automotive dealerships
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Chicago, IL — April 2, 2008 — Aspen Marketing Services, the nation’s largest privately-held marketing services agency, today announced a partnership with Xtime, the leading provider of service CRM and scheduling solutions for automotive dealerships. Aspen’s existing multichannel automotive CRM capabilities, Identify! Plus and AppointNet, will be bolstered by Xtime’s Web-based call center platform to provide automotive dealers with fully integrated, best-in-class CRM solutions.
“Aspen’s partnership with Xtime is a win-win for both parties and for the entire automotive dealership community,” said Patrick O’Rahilly, Chief Executive Officer of Aspen. “By integrating Xtime’s capabilities into Aspen’s current automotive CRM offerings, this new partnership provides dealers with the opportunity to make sure a customer’s telephone call never goes unanswered.”
The Aspen-Xtime partnership combines Aspen’s existing call-handling and backstopping capabilities with Xtime’s world-class scheduling and service management applications. The partnership will impact more than 500 automotive dealerships, including major dealer groups such as Group 1 Automotive, and will bring the total number of dealerships Aspen services to more than 5,000 nationwide.
“Aspen’s Identify! Plus coupled with Xtime’s appointment scheduling and menu software are key to helping us manage inbound phone calls and shop scheduling,” said Wade Hubbard, Vice President of Fixed Operations, Group 1 Automotive. “By combining these two products, we have strengthened our ability to deliver a consistent, positive experience for our customers and improve productivity within our dealerships.”
This is the second major automotive announcement for Aspen in recent months. In October, Aspen acquired Newgen Results Corporation (Newgen), a nationwide provider of integrated, multichannel CRM solutions for automobile dealerships and manufacturers.
About Aspen Marketing Services
Founded in 1986, Aspen Marketing Services is the largest privately-held marketing services agency in the United States. Headquartered in West Chicago, IL, with offices in Atlanta, Detroit, Los Angeles, Dallas, New York City, Phoenix, Morristown, NJ, Rosemont, IL, Chicago, San Diego and Tampa, Aspen Marketing has more than 800 employees nationwide. Aspen Marketing offers an extensive array of integrated, best-in-class services including Direct Marketing, Consumer Promotions, Event Marketing, Public Relations, Digital Marketing, Hispanic Marketing and Database Analytics for clients such as General Motors, AT&T, Honeywell, Motorola, HP, Georgia-Pacific, Mutual of Omaha, Kraft Foods, JVC and Omaha Steaks. www.aspenms.com
About Xtime
With over 1,000 dealerships enrolled, including all of AutoNation and Group 1, and with over 4 million appointments booked since 2005, Xtime is the leading provider of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and web scheduling solutions for automotive service departments. Xtime’s ServiceCRM™ software combines consumer web scheduling, call center automation, advanced shop control and certified, real-time DMS integration into a complete and unified solution for automotive service departments. By integrating these features into an easy-to-use and affordable system, Xtime gives automotive dealerships the ability to create, schedule and manage more service appointments per day, increasing profitability through increased customer-paid service. Privately held, Xtime’s investors include Draper Fisher Jurvetson, RPM Ventures and Innovacom. Xtime is based in Redwood Shores, California and can be reached at (650) 508–4300, or www.xtime.com.
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Media Contact:
Neal East
Xtime Inc.
(650) 508-4331
