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Mitsubishi Motor Sales of America Inc., which reported a 26.7% sales drop in June compared with the same month last year, is trying to help dealers improve customer service by getting them better information faster.

The Cypress, Calif., division of Mitsubishi Motors Corp. is slowly moving its 500 U.S. dealerships to a Web-based system from Systemware Inc. that lets car dealers access reports on warranty repairs, billing information, and the status of parts they've ordered. Dealers can see whether they're hitting sales targets and submit the financial statements required to ensure that "dealerships are operating efficiently and above board," says Judy Furnari, director of business systems for the division.

The browser-based tool replaces the company's client-server system through which dealers log on and download the day's reports. "The system puts more information in the hands of our retail partners, allowing them to react quicker to the marketplace and be more responsive to consumers," Furnari says.

Improving customer relations is vital for Mitsubishi as it struggles to recover from last year's recall of 1.52 million cars after admitting it had hidden customer complaints from government regulators for 20 years. In May, Mitsubishi Motors reported its worst fiscal-year loss ever.

Systemware's tool draws dealer information from Mitsubishi Motor Sales' legacy applications running on mainframes running IBM's OS/390 operating system, reformats it for the Web, and stores the data in a central repository. Dealers have access only to the reports that pertain to their business. Before year's end, Mitsubishi plans to let dealers search for invoices, shipping status, and other information related to new cars.

While Mitsubishi wouldn't comment on the cost of the software, Systemware executives say a similar deployment would cost around $500,000.

Also, the E-commerce division of Mitsubishi Corp. has signed a reseller agreement with Kinzan Inc., which builds and hosts company extranets for distribution channels. Kinzan's software lets manufacturers share information and business apps with distributors. The manufacturer manages the extranet, but each distributor is given its own Web site to customize and manage. Pricing is based on the number of users; the average deal costs $300,000 to $600,000 a year.