Dealerware Integrates with Toyota App to Enhance Rental Experiences

Toyota customers can now enjoy a simpler vehicle rental experience thanks to Dealerware's integration with the Toyota App, which also saves time and money for Rent a Toyota fleet managers.

With the integration, Toyota customers have a mobile tool for managing their rental reservations. The Toyota app allows customers to create, modify, and cancel reservations for dates, times, and specific vehicles. This data will be visible in Dealerware, assisting dealership staff in preparing for and fulfilling customer reservations.

When customers arrive, fleet managers can use Dealerware's 60-second mobile contracting workflows to keep customer check-in and check-out processes fast.

Dealerware also enhances the control and visibility of rental fleets for dealership fleet managers. Real-time data on vehicle status and maintenance needs helps Rent a Toyota fleet managers minimize customer wait times and maximize vehicle utilization.

"Dealerware's integration with the Toyota App creates a faster, simpler, and completely Toyota-branded booking experience for customers renting Toyota rental vehicles directly from Toyota retailers," said Matt Carpenter, CEO of Dealerware. " We are grateful for the opportunity to work with Toyota and their retail network to elevate customer experiences across the U.S."

Besides the enhanced rental experience, Dealerware offers dealerships flexible pricing tools that allow them to adjust rental rates based on vehicle model, customer need, or demand. These options for dynamic pricing let dealerships optimize revenue generation while delivering the right vehicle for each customer's needs.

Dealerware Integration Case Study

Chris Kari, dealer principal at Kari Toyota, is already reaping the benefits of the Dealerware integration. A short time ago, he had an idea to earn more from his service fleet by offering dealership rentals but knew he needed a tool to help him. 

He explains, “We were already in the Rent a Toyota program and had seven cars in the fleet, but they weren’t being used much. They were just a convenience for service customers, and that’s an expensive convenience. So, I thought, let’s make some changes and try to see if we can make some money with these cars."

The plan was to expand the fleet. But before he could add cars, Kari said he needed a better system for writing rental contracts. The team's loaner contracts were paper-based, which made for a slow process and complicated access to important information.

Fortunately, Dealerware had just been approved as a Rent A Toyota vendor, and once he watched a demo of the Toyota app with the Dealerware integration, he knew he had found the right tool for his small team.

“I needed something that is easy to use and basically walks you through every step. That’s what Dealerware is versus some of the other systems that are so complicated,” Kari said.

That simplicity meant the service team at Kari Toyota didn’t need to grow to support the new dealership car rental program. Kari could expand the fleet to about 20 cars, and Dealerware’s tools for custom rental pricing let them keep rates competitive, respond to changes in demand, and even offer discounts on longer-term rentals.  

Kari says diving into dealership car rental has definitely been worth it.

“We used to be losing money on fleet cars, and since we started this two years ago, we’ve had a 1,200% increase in revenue, and the rentals are covering the cost of the loaner cars and bringing in profit,” Kari said.

“The rental program has helped us sell deeper into our incoming vehicles, too,” he added. “Pretty much every car that we get is sold before it arrives, so now our sales team can offer rentals to people so they can see what a car is like, and maybe put their name down for an incoming order.”

“Keep it simple. As simple as possible.” That’s Kari’s advice to other dealers interested in exploring dealership car rentals. For Kari, using Dealerware helped the program grow without straying from simplicity.

“That’s why we went with Dealerware in the beginning, because some of these software programs that come out are so complicated that it takes a lot of training to get people set up, and then they don’t want to use them because they’re too complicated,” he said.

“Even though Dealerware started as a loaner car platform, it works well for car rental fleets,” he says. And since it is so easy to use, we knew it was a good tool for us.”