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Russell & Smith Ford car lot

We were having a lot of issues. Keys were lost, cars were mysteriously driven, cars mysteriously disappeared, and we never could get control of the situation because we didn’t know what had happened until it was too late. Like other dealerships at the time, we had a keyboard system in the middle of the shop, and that was very unreliable.

We first tried a mechanized, pegboard-style system, where a sales rep had a peg key and would put the peg in place when they took a key out of the system. As I understand it, the salespeople figured out how to compromise it 10 minutes after we bought it. So that obviously did not work very well.

You cannot compromise KeyTrak the way the other systems can be compromised. KeyTrak is fairly absolute. You put your fingerprint on the reader, you are the one who took the keys.

Getting keys tagged and stocked properly as a process has helped a lot. But the best thing is, KeyTrak has pretty much ended our stolen car problem. We have not had a vehicle stolen since KeyTrak was installed. Our insurance company likes that.

Our people who are in constant customer contact like KeyTrak a lot. Mostly, everybody is appreciative of the reduction in time spent locating keys. Because of KeyTrak, we don't have customers standing around, becoming impatient because a sales rep cannot find the keys to the car.

Dan Chernault

Former CFO, Russell & Smith Automotive Group