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Supporting Upstart Dealer Partners Through the CDK Global Outage
The recent cyberattack on CDK Global has temporarily disrupted dealership operations for its 15,000 customers across the U.S., affecting many of our dealer partners and pushing them back to manual processes. To help our dealer partners continue working through these challenges, we’ve quickly developed and implemented a number of workaround solutions for our Upstart Auto Retail online, in-store and vehicle financing products.
Supporting Online Operations
Most Upstart Auto Retail Online customers continue to have their consumer-facing products fully functional. While CRM access to leads is temporarily unavailable due to the outage, we’ve implemented workaround solutions that allow our dealers to continue to access online submitted leads:
- Continued email-based lead flow: All of Upstart’s Online customers can still receive incoming leads from Upstart CTAs on their dealer websites, as we’ve switched to a standalone CRM integration. Dealers can see all online leads in Upstart’s Command Center tool and reach out directly as needed. This manual outreach ensures dealers can continue engaging with potential customers.
- Lead tracking and follow-up support: Dealers have access to Upstart’s Command Center tool, allowing them to view a comprehensive list of online-submitted leads and manage customer follow-ups efficiently.
Supporting In-Store Operations
- In-Store functionality: Upstart’s In-Store solution remains operational. Dealers can collect customer information during the sales process, value trades, access essential forms and save that information within Upstart. This helps with maintaining important sales operations within the showroom, enabling dealers to continue serving their customers.
- Desking support in Upstart: While desking is unavailable through Eleads during the current outage, dealers can still use Upstart for desking. Operating without the DMS integration means dealers will have to manually validate the price, tax, and incentives, but it will allow them to have a functioning digital workflow without the need to revert to a foursquare.
- Integration with DealerTrack and RouteOne: Through Upstart In-Store, dealers can push information directly to DealerTrack or RouteOne, where financing and DMV paperwork can be completed. This workaround allows for the necessary documentation and financing process to continue.
Supporting Upstart Lending Operations
Upstart’s lending solution continues to work properly, and dealers have been given a workaround and support to manually verify final pricing typically received from CDK DMS. Our instant rehashing, digital document collection, and econtracting allow dealers to continue to sell and finance cars during these times.
Ongoing Support and Training
Finally, to help our dealer partners navigate these temporary changes, Upstart is providing detailed instructions, training materials and video tutorials. Also, our Dealer Success and Dealer Support teams are on hand to offer assistance and ensure that every dealer can leverage our tools effectively during this period.
While we hope for a swift resolution to the CDK incident, we are prepared to support our dealers through any extended disruptions. For further assistance or more information, dealers can reach out to us at dealersuccess@upstart.com.