Dealership Lead Management

Every now and then I drop in and see what's going on with the guys at www.drivingsales.com. They've built a pretty good resource for dealers, whether it's the networking, their newsletter articles, or the vendor ratings.

Vendor ratings can be a tricky animal. There are those few dealership sales and service managers who can't give a bad review and perhaps a few more who couldn't give a good one if they tried -- these, of course, are the exceptions. One the whole, though, you have to look for the trend, especially when higher numbers of reviews have been posted.

I am so pleased to watch the number of reviews grow on this site. And though we have not yet broken down our dealership technology into automotive sales software, business development products, dealership lead management, marketing solutions, etc ... we have seen 58 auto dealer professionals reach out (48 more than the runner up!) to give their honest opinion about us. And what have they said?

With 95% recommendation, the original CRM (since 1988) is still by far the one helping more dealers to drive more traffic, sell and service more vehicles, build more customer loyalty, and make more money. Thanks, Autobase customers! We appreciate the loud vote of confidence in the middle of the marketplace!

I overheard a conversation the other day at an auto dealership between a sales person and a sales manager that went something like this ...

    "Where did your customer go?”

    “They left.”

    “Why did they leave?”

    “They wanted a used car that we did not have.”

    “OK, after all, used cars are hard to find right now.”

I immediately went over to the Sales Manager to make sure I had heard him correctly. He reiterated his frustration -- their used car inventory was so low.

No used cars? Go get them. Where? How many past buyers are back in the market? A good Renewal Log from an automotive CRM with strong dealership lead management provides you with an extensive list of potential trades. How many used cars have been through your service bays in the last month? Any good Service Log provides the dealership with another list of potential trades. Dealership sales management should be working these logs every day, for in them are possibly all the used cars they could ever ask for. The dealer spends thousands to get used car customers in the door. So if you don’t have the car ... use the dealership CRM to GO GET IT!

Submitted by Western Region Personal Service Team