Your dealer quotes a customer outdated pricing, not realizing a new discount structure took effect last week.
Another dealer places an order for a part that’s no longer compatible with the latest engine design, resulting in a frustrated customer (and a costly return).
Another dealer is unaware of a critical safety recall.
These scenarios play out every day for manufacturers who rely on fragmented systems to communicate with their dealer network. Dealers waste hours hunting through email chains and spreadsheets for the latest pricing guides, product specs and announcements. They work from different versions of the same document, leading to misquotes and incorrect orders. And, when they can’t find what they’re looking for, they call your office.
This communication breakdown builds over time. Ordering errors and returns eat into your margins. Missed sale opportunities damage dealer relationships and customer satisfaction. And delays in relaying critical information can even expose manufacturers to reputational and legal risk. The root of the problem is an ineffective communication channel. Pricing may live in one spreadsheet while product specs live in another. Updates go out via emails that go overlooked. There’s no single “source of truth” dealers can rely on for accurate, timely information.
But there is a solution—a centralized dealer portal that works by consolidating all critical information and communication in one hub. With a dealer portal, manufacturers can:
- Provide dealers with 24/7 self-service access to the latest pricing, product information and brand assets
- Push important announcements directly to dealer dashboards, with read receipts to ensure visibility
- Integrate real-time order configuration and submission, eliminating errors from incompatible part selection
- Personalize dealer views to show account-specific pricing and relevant regional promotions
- Establish a clear audit trail of all communications and updates
Why Dealers Miss Updates in Manufacturer Networks
When a manufacturer issues a high-priority update regarding a recall or pricing shift, the information often fails to reach the right person at the right time. This can happen for several reasons:
- Version conflict: Dealers may have a saved price list (as a PDF, spreadsheet or in another format) to their local desktop. When a manufacturer sends them an update via email, it may not be saved or used to update the previous version, leading to quotes that fail to match the final invoice.
- Information inaccessibility: When dealers have price lists, product specs or other information saved in scattered places, they spend a lot of time trying to hunt down what they need. This leads to manual error when matching information from one place to another (or phone calls back to your team to sort things out).
- Missing context: A part number may be correct, but, when ordered, it may end up being incompatible because of a missing specification that the dealer didn’t have readily available (like a product configuration), leading to costly reorders and delays.
- Missed updates: There is continuous information flowing back and forth between manufacturers and dealers. Recalls and service alerts, promotions and specials, pricing and new model updates. When it is all sent in individual emails, something is bound to get missed.
Actionable Steps to Streamline Dealer Communication
Implementing a dealer portal is the most important step you can take to improve communication and ensure your dealers stop missing updates. That’s because a dealer portal uses several features to bring immediate value to your dealer / manufacturer relationship, like:
Targeted Announcements Dashboard
- Ensures critical information is seen by placing updates directly in the dealer’s path the moment they log in
- Reduces dashboard clutter through geographic and role-based targeting, meaning dealers only see information relevant to them
- Enforces deadlines and data accuracy by using visibility timeframes that automatically expire promotions or notices once a window passes
- Establishes clear records of accountability via read receipts and audit logs so manufacturers can see exactly who viewed an update and when
- Saves manufacturer time by reducing follow-up calls confirming and verifying information
Rowes Rakes Overhauls Dealer Communication with Volano’s Announcements Dashboard in Dealer Portal
Rowse Rakes, a leading manufacturer of hay rake equipment, mowers, dirt scrapers and bale haulers, is proof of how a dealer portal improves manufacturer-dealer alignment. Prior to using Volano’s Dealer Portal, keeping their nationwide dealer network informed and aligned was a constant challenge.
Now, they have a centralized hub for sharing critical updates, ensuring every dealer has the latest information at their fingertips. This includes communicating time-sensitive pricing changes, reinforcing key ordering deadlines and sharing important product updates.
For Rowse Rakes, this streamlined communication has significantly reduced manual effort and eliminated confusion, while helping dealers serve customers more effectively.
“Dealer Portal has been well received by our network. It doesn’t matter if we’re in the office or not, our dealers can still look up a part, review pricing and place an order,” said Lisa Hilder, Rowse Rakes Controller.”
Digital File Library and Repository
- Saves hours of staff time each week with a centralized hub where documents are uploaded once and accessed by all, reducing one-off emails
- Improves dealer efficiency through “pinning” features that allow users to save frequently used documents to their personal dashboard
Configuration-Aware Parts Catalog
- Minimizes ordering errors by filtering parts based on a machine’s exact configuration
- Decreases costly downtime for end-users by ensuring the correct part arrives the first time
- Reduces administrative workload by allowing dealers to look up compatibility without calling in
Integrated Quoting and Order Pads
- Protects profit margins by linking live quoting data directly to the final invoice, ensuring promotions haven’t expired between the quote and the order
- Increases dealer autonomy through real-time visibility into specific pricing tiers, volume discounts and active promotions
- Improves accuracy and customer trust by ensuring the price quoted to a customer is the price that appears in on the final invoices
- May reduce overhead – Rowes Rakes was able to reduce order-processing staff by 50%
Automated Warranty and Rebate Claims
- Accelerates reimbursement by replacing manual spreadsheet workflows with automated tracking and verification
- Reduces manual entry errors through validation rules that flag invalid serial numbers or missing fields before submission
- Enforces program consistency by automatically calculating tiered incentives (for example, moving a dealer from 5% to 7% rebate once a purchase threshold is met)
- Provides transparency by allowing dealers to track claim status and incentive thresholds
Configuration Guardrails and Validation
- Helps prevent invalid orders at the source by utilizing strict rules to block incompatible parts or options from being saved
- Maintains manufacturer control while offering dealer flexibility through defined pricing thresholds for quotes
- Minimizes returns and rework by building technical context directly into the ordering process
Reporting and Analytics
- Helps identify failure patterns in specific product lines to inform engineering and quality control
- Optimizes performance by tracking rejected selections, returns and announcement views to identify bottlenecks in your network
- Supports financial accuracy for compliance and reporting on warranty reserves and costs
How to Choose a Dealer Portal for Manufacturers
Volano Software’s Dealer Portal combines these comprehensive features with the flexibility to meet your needs and dealer network. We’ve built our Dealer Portal to be a comprehensive platform designed to address the unique challenges of complex manufacturer networks and it’s backed by a team who is passionate about helping you optimize every aspect of your dealer operations.
Whether you’re looking to boost sales, improve efficiency or simply ensure your dealers stay on top of every update you send out, Volano’s Dealer Portal provides the foundation for a high-performing dealer network.
Contact us today to learn more about our dealer portal.
