Toyota Promos Get Smart

Have you ever been bugged by an email coming from your local car dealer, advertising a new special offer for brake pads, even if you have just had them replaced a day or so ago? That's no longer going to happen, if you are a Toyota customer.

The Japanese manufacturer is planning to make the most from the advancements in technology and plans to introduce a service-reminder program which will give customers a heads up only to promos relevant to them.

Once you bring your car in for an oil change or regular check, your data will be processed so that the dealer knows why you came. This will help the distributor to skip your email address in case it wants to promote a product you just bought or a service from which you just benefited.

Toyota says the new program will take into account the type of car you drive, the mileage and so on, so that the offers sent to you are the most relevant.

"Many customers get inundated with direct mail coupons, phone calls and e-mail," Dave Camden, Toyota vice president of dealer operations, was quoted as saying by Autonews. "The question is how we take the customer from purchase to service to repurchase. We wanted to minimize the fluff they get. This will be strictly for their vehicle at that point in time."

The new software has been under development with Toyota for the past two years, with most of the dealership network to receive it this month. It will be supplied by two vendors, under two names: Aspen Marketing (NexTouch) and Gulf States Marketing (Atom).