Your dealership can have the best software on the market, but lack the necessary habits; you can be the most convincing and dedicated salesperson, but lack the right tool. In both cases you’ll get the same results:
- Missed opportunities
- Low leveraging of your sales force’s potential
“Using a CRM is not just implementing software at the dealership; the real potential is revealed when it is fully exploited so as to build a relationship with your customers that allows you to offer them a better sales experience, to engage with your prospects and, above all, to sharpen your instinct to detect sales opportunities in a smarter way.” Julia Chirife, Marketing Manager at Autologica.
Ho Do Successful Dealers Leverage Their CRM?
Sales Process
Software
A CRM helps track the sales processes, stage by stage, so as to know what is the path followed by each potential customer. In addition, the best CRMs have complete prospect forms so that the salesperson can record what the prospect wants, what the vehicle will be used for, the prospect’s hobbies and daily activities, their family members, etc.
All this information becomes a strategic ally to offer each customer the ideal vehicle.
Culture
Salespeople and managers tend to think that a CRM is an imposition o gain more control over them, and so they shut their eyes to its benefits.
A change in perspective is achieved when the sales team understands that a CRM is a fountain of information that, correctly used, can indicate who to call, when to do it, and what to offer in order to close the deal.
“When the contact database lacks data, the sales team has no option but to call the entire database and hope for a lead. For a salesperson it is much more efficient to call only those leads with which there is are real possibilities of closing deasl.” Julia Chirife, Marketing Manager in Autologica.
To make the most of the CRM, sales staff must complete every field of the prospect form, and use each call to grow the database with that potential customer. Registering all the information in the CRM is a must because it is one of the most important resources of the dealership.
The correct use of a CRM can help a sales team increase their efficiency; managers can monitor departmental KPIs to stay on top of things.
Customer Retention and Loyalty
Software
Successful dealers use their CRM to send automatic emails to their customers with:
- Satisfaction surveys
- Reminders for programmed maintenance services
A correctly used CRM helps increase the dealership’s contact frequency with each customer, automatically.
Culture
“We have found that there are dealers who carry out customer satisfaction tasks just to avoid bad publicity or to stay ahead of OEM audits. However, we should consider that keeping good relations with customers increases profitability… dealers with the best customer service are the ones that tend to increase their market share.” Julia Chirife, Marketing Manager at Autologica.
Complaints should never be ignored, so it is essential that you train the sales staff to do what it takes to change the perception of an unsatisfied customer , and record in the CRM each action taken. It is important to establish processes and habits that help fulfill the dealership’s customer satisfaction policy.
Sales Opportunities and Lasting Commercial Relationships
Software
Modern CRMs calculate when each customer should be called for their next service, using as reference information such as their last workshop visit and mileage. With this information the system automatically creates a task and assigns it to the salesperson so they call the customer and offer the service their vehicle needs. This type of strategy is called Service Marketing.
“Today, not having a Service Marketing process and system means that the dealer is lagging behind competitors who have implemented this strategy. The benefits are infinite and the ease of implementing Service Marketing is quite high.” Julia Chirife, Marketing Manager at Autologica.
Culture
The main reasons to apply a Service Marketing strategy are, on the one hand, to automatize aftersales calls so that the sales staff can get ahead of customer needs and call them to offer exactly what they need, and on the other hand, to convince customers to keep bringing their vehicle to our workshop and stay away from the competition.
Autologica CRM is a modern and innovative DMS that lets dealers quickly adopt best practices.
