I was reading Automotive News this week and on the front page was an article lamenting that auto dealers are having a hard time keeping their dealership used car inventory stocked to acceptable levels. Cars at the auctions are scarce and prices are up to $2000 more than they were just months ago. Want an alternative means of going after cars for your used car inventory? YOUR OWN SERVICE DRIVE!
With the auto dealer CRM system from Autobase, you can see which customers are hitting your service department at what mileage point they and you can isolate marketing to go after these viable and potential clients to trade their vehicles to restock your used car lot.
Examples I have seen are: going after 2 to 3 year old, in warranty vehicles and the 70 to 80k vehicles for the budget lots. What's the down-side? Worst case, You'll drive floor traffic in this post "cash for clunkers" vacuum.
by Shawn Belles
I am thinking of purchasing a new vehicle. It has been awhile since I have looked at someone's new car inventory, and have to admit that I have never really done so the ‘traditional’ way. Sure, I have gone through the steps with an auto dealer, but have never bought from one directly. The sales process seemed too drawn out and painful to participate in. I have never met someone that enjoyed buying a vehicle -- aside from test driving :)
So I found a way around it. It just so happened that my husband had a friend who bought vehicles at auction. Problem solved. No trudging to the dealership only to sit for about 2 hours while a salesman ran back and forth to talk to a manager. No feeling uncomfortable because you didn’t know if what you were being told was truthful. And finally no pressure to make a decision right now!
What is wrong with this picture is that the attempts to buy a vehicle prior to finding my auction buddy were all done at stores WITHOUT Autobase or any Automotive CRM for that matter. Since I ate, drank and slept using Autobase CRM at dealerships for about 2 years, I found that the process became stream line and fun when used properly. It was the first step in starting a relationship with someone that you may come to rely on over the course of your life.
In today’s market, technology, primarily Automotive CRM, has helped ease the pain of a car buyer. CRM is making the car buying experience enjoyable instead of dreaded. Oh and did I forget to mention it makes the sales process faster, efficient, and easy for the salesperson, manager and dealership as a whole? You can’t afford to live without Automotive CRM in today’s market. If not for your customers for yourself!
by Sheena Lee
Autobase CRM gives you instant visibility when your dealership sales consultant marks a customer as a "lost sale". We know we aren't going to win them all, but all is not truly "lost."
First, immediately second voice the prospect. Once a lost sales is flagged in your auto dealer CRM, someone other than the sales consultant should call and do some fact finding. This deal is still warm and could be revived. Find out if they actually took delivery from someone else's new car inventory after all. If so congratulate them. See if they have time to answer one simple question; "What was the one reason you did not purchase a vehicle from us?". As you make these calls you may find a pattern that if corrected could help you sell more vehicles. Common answers are: "I did not receive enough for my trade" or "You did not have the vehicle in stock."
Surprisingly, you may find out your sales consultant did not follow up or did a poor job of qualifying. I had one sales person that did not present lease options and insisted the customer only needed purchase numbers. That same customer leased a vehicle from a competitor. The sales person was ashamed to tell me. I could now work to skill-elevate this sales person so we could learn from our mistakes.
We'll consider another way that "lost sales" are truly opportunities tomorrow. Stay tuned!
by Shawn Belles
I was reading an article in an automotive magazine by Mark LaNeve, GM’s Vice President of Vehicle Sales and Marketing, about a test program that GM is currently running with eBay and I started wondering: "Where is Internet Lead Management (ILM) headed?"
The article tells how potential automobile purchasers will be able to go to gm.ebay.com and browse the inventory for all GM dealerships located in California.
Not only will these Internet shoppers be able to see the new car inventory, but they will be able to compare prices, determine the value of their trades, chat with automotive sales experts, and even utilize eBay’s “Buy it Now” feature. A whole new approach to the common understanding of an automotive dealership.
Internet Lead Management (ILM) will continue to evolve in ways no one could have imagined years ago. Whichever way it turns, strong auto dealer CRM software should be supporting the ILM effort -- right on the cutting edge. Things are moving fast and this is no time for an auto dealership to be left behind.
by Johnny Ohl
I’m a car guy, if it’s got an engine I’m instantly in love. I’m sure my gear head roots will be a common theme on many of my blog posts moving forward. Maybe it is because of my love for cars that I find myself actually sympathizing with several tons of metal, while I watch some of the YouTube videos of guzzlers having salt and sand pumped through their veins until their hearts seize into a hunk of scrap.
Aside from my emotional response to the activity of disabling these vehicles, the fact remains that Cash for Clunkers could pose a challenge to the Used Car business. After all, the act of disabling clunkers is in fact depleting the countries inventory of used cars (especially trucks and SUVs) by destroying perhaps millions of vehicles. Moving forward, many dealers may be in for a real treat, when attempting to match prospects to used vehicles.
Automotive CRM, namely the dealership sales software from Autobase, utilizes Want List functionality, an extremely valuable tool that assists auto dealerships to instantly and seamlessly match an existing prospect in their database, to a vehicle in the car dealers inventory list. Once Autobase CRM matches a prospect to a vehicle, an email will be dispatched to the salesperson notifying them of the pending match possibility. This Want List functionality is a built-in tool included in your Autobase sales solutions.
With imminent challenges in locating used car inventory, Auto Dealer Software and lead management can be used to keep track of deal opportunities.
by Zach Thompson
Raise your hand if you are growing tired of listening to people blame some negative situation or scenario on the economic recession. Sure, it’s no secret that it’s a challenge out there right now (especially for auto dealerships), and moving your new and used car inventory isn’t as easy now as it has been in the past. So, it’s time to think (or should I say sell) outside of the box. There are a lot of placed to get great ideas ... here's one.
Every Saturday morning a group of automotive enthusiasts meet at a local coffee shop in Indianapolis (not far from the Autobase headquarters) and share stories and chit-chat over some breakfast. We call it Cars and Coffee. As it turns out Cars and Coffee isn’t something that is specific to Indianapolis, in fact, many cities around the U.S. have similar meetings where self proclaimed car guys can share their stories.
At this morning’s event, I arrive to see two gentlemen standing next to one of those new Camaros. I approach them and we have a great dialog about each other’s rides. We bantered for awhile, and the conversion turns to what each of us did for a living. As it turns out, both of these gentlemen are salesman at a local car dealership, who caught wind of Cars and Coffee, and came out to see what it was all about. More interestingly, the dealership they worked for use the auto dealer CRM software from Autobase to sell more cars, grow customer loyalty, and increase service revenues. What a great way to “sell outside the box” -- connecting with the local automotive enthusiasts! Let people know you are out there and market creatively!
by Zach Thompson
I had an auto dealer lamenting to me that he was having a hard time finding viable used vehicle inventory. Units at the auctions were rising in price and what was available was slim. His pre-owned sales were suffering.
We started discussing alternatives to auctions. Using his automotive CRM system (in this case, it was Autobase CRM), we were able to run a search of his Service RO’s and find loyal service customers who were driving vehicles with mileage between 30K and 36K. We put together a dealership marketing strategy to send out a permission-based digital marketing campaign letting these customers know he needed their vehicles in trade. 1/3rd of these customers were loyal to service but had never purchased a vehicle from the dealership. This was a great CONQUEST opportunity.
Thinking outside the box, he then searched Autobase CRM for closed RO’s in which customers had been into service in the last 90 days with over 90K on their vehicles. He then had his sales staff reaching out to these customers. Timing was perfect as CASH for CLUNKERS was just ramping up...
by Shawn Belles
I once heard a very wise but very old and somewhat physically infirm man say that he tried to stay mentally young by learning something new each day. He said he greeted each new day dawning as a learning experience.
After ten years with Autobase, I try to learn something new about our auto dealer CRM software or our organization each day. Funny thing is that no matter how familiar you think you are with Autobase, I have no problem finding things I didn’t know (and invariably, I always seem to wish that I had found them earlier than I did!)
If you are looking for a good source document to help you keep abreast of capabilities and functions of Autobase, a good place to start is the product release notes that are generally published to all users a few days ahead of the actual release. Now, it's possible that you may discard this documentation or store it (with every intention to revisit it, but somehow you never do); but by doing so, you will have missed a great deal of highly beneficial information. In fact, it's possible you have already missed several opportunities to put the information to good use.
Here are some nuggets for today from our product documentation. For instance did you know that:
- Users have the ability to search by email address in the Internet Lead Management (ILM) side of the software?
- Salespeople will now have the Search functionality in the ILM?
- Users with multi-store access will now have the ability to sort and view leads for individual stores in the ILM?
- CARFAX integration is now available through the Inventory and Appraisal screens?
Now you know more than you did a moment ago and if this had really made you smarter, you made a note on your planner for tomorrow to look at four more items. Keep this up and by the weekend you should be smokin’ .. and so will your sales team when you show them what you know!
by John Champeau
We all look for ways to get though our day-to-day tasks quickly. Between all the clients that are coming into the showroom and adding and/or updating customer records in the dealership CRM, it’s easy to feel that all the “pointing and clicking” is dragging you down. We can't speak for other automotive CRM solutions, but there are many shortcuts within the Autobase CRM that can help speed up the process, from accessing your e-mail to adding clients.
Anytime you see a single letter underlined in a phrase within Autobase CRM, it signifies a shortcut. Hit the letter on the keyboard that is underlined on the screen, and it will take you directly to that part of the program.
Let’s walk through a few steps in the Add a Client process. From the main screen, notice the ‘A’ in Add a Client is underlined. Click the ‘A’ key on the keyboard. Now you will notice that the different Client Types have short cuts as well. Click ‘F’ for Floor Traffic, ‘N’ for Next, and you are on your way. Below is a list of other helpful Autobase shortcuts:
F1 Autobase Help
F2 Save
F3 Notes
F4 Client Info
F7 Search
F8 Letters
Alt-B Bulletin Board
Alt-C Card Ex
Alt-E Email
Alt-I Inventory
Alt-P Change Password
Another way to save time while navigating through Autobase is by taking advantage of the type-o-matic lists. When a list automatically pops up (i.e. Make, Model, Color, or Advertising Source) is type-o-matic. If you type the first few letters of the item you wish to select, Autobase CRM will select it automatically, eliminating the scrolling though seemingly endless lists.
Sometimes there doesn’t seem to be enough time in the day to get everything done that needs to be done; use these short cuts to help gain some of that time back.
by Colleen Persic
If you analyze the data in your CRM system are 90% of your leads from the internet and not the phone? In the Autobase CRM, Internet Leads and Phone Leads are treated equally and the goal for each CRM entry type is the same ... GET THEM IN THE STORE!
Have prospects stopped calling? Look at the “calls to action” in your advertising. Are all of your ads driving people to your website instead of the phone? Is motivating your prospects to jump on the Internet to search your inventory always the best thing to do? What about the thousands of people that drive by your expensive piece of real estate every day? With their cell phones in hand and often in use, can you goad them into calling right then and there, or are you encouraging them to go home and search your inventory through pictures and words?
After driving past a few dealerships near NADA headquarters this week, I couldn’t help but notice that not one of them used any signage to post a TOLL FREE number to call. Every effort was made to remind the consumer of their World Wide Web address where they can browse 24/7 without any sales interaction. This encourages them to not only shop our store, but every other store on the planet. Too bad. Of those thousands of cars with all of those people with all of those cell phones, somebody needed a new car that day.
I encourage you to start filling up your CRM database with true phone prospects and get your staff trained to professionally get them in the door .. and get them in NOW. Tell the customer to TURN AROUND and you will have their favorite car warmed up or cooled off – ready for a test drive. Put some emotion back in the sales process and remove some of the research stirred by the web.
Three things to consider...
1. Use toll free numbers so you can truly manage inbound phone traffic from advertised numbers. All calls from toll free numbers can be routed as leads directly into your Auto Dealer CRM system.
2. Post a specific number for your drive by numbers so those calls can be handled differently. They just drove by your store – GET THEM TO TURN AROUND!
3. Train a few specialists or your entire team to handle phone calls properly ... teach them to be EXCITED again. Use the technology to listen and grade the effort of your staff. Continue to monitor and improve.
Remember, don’t let the WWW be your ONLY source of leads. Put a spiff on true phone leads and start having fun again. Why grind out 15 emails and replies with a consumer when they just drove by your store 2 hours ago?
The mere thought of “Customer Relationship Management” (CRM) is enough to raise the blood pressure of some auto dealers. While this response is due much in part to souring experiences with some CRM providers, many are frustrated from confusion over the concept itself, and the plethora of “so-called CRM providers” isn’t helping.
Anymore these days, nearly EVERY prospect is an Internet customer -- that is, they begin their search for their next car or truck on the Web. And so, the focus (perhaps even the rage) of auto dealerships is all about Internet leads, from the sites and sources providing those leads to the Internet lead management (ILM) system used to work them.
Powered by Compendium Blogware