Gone are the days when people searched for their perfect car in showrooms.
Now, they simply explore online. They study their options and then make a decision or cement a previous one.
Suppose, a person wants to buy a car. To compare options, they will browse through a cluster of websites. They will examine the reviews, watch videos and take suggestions from their friends.
But, there is always a dilemma.
Buying a car is a decision that requires giving money upfront. An organization that wants to make a sale will have to engage the buyer first. They will have to clear their buyer’s dilemma and earn their trust.
How would you do that?
Automotive Customer Relationship Management (CRM) technology helps you to establish that trust before your competitors.
It is quite evident, the product in itself cannot establish that relationship with a buyer.
But, your sales team can!
The one who connects with the buyer first gets this opportunity!
Automotive CRM empowers your sales team to gain such opportunities.
So without further ado, let us start learning more about the Automotive CRM.
What is Automotive CRM?
Simply put, Automotive CRM is a technology that helps to streamline your sales process in the automotive sector.
It accomplishes that by bringing all your teams, processes and channels together, increasing your overall operational efficiency.
Marshall Lager, Research Principle at G2 also shared his views on the Automotive CRM.
He said, “Automotive CRM helps the organization to identify and follow up with prospects, record their preferences, provide warranty service, and maintain the relationship post-sale until the customer is ready to buy again.”
Marshall added, “Once a customer is in the CRM system, they are part of a sales process that is designed to fast-track likely buyers through the sales pipeline. It also continues to entice more reticent shoppers with occasional contacts and tailored special offers.
Now, let us elaborate further.
Automotive CRM explained
In the automobile industry, your website generates substantial traffic. You capture many leads daily but, your sales numbers are dismal.
Automotive CRM makes your life easier. It establishes a streamlined sales process which helps to realize a rising sales graph.
A Step by Step Approach
1. Lead Capture
Automotive CRM captures leads from all your channels. Be it your website, social media, advertisements, even from offline channels.
2. Lead Tracking
The software tracks every visitor, their interests and how much time they spend on a particular page. Consequently, you know your website visitors as actual people, instead of just “traffic.”
3. Lead Segmentation and Distribution
Automotive CRM segments your leads based on your buyer’s interests and their location and then distributes them among your sales consultants. Your team receives a notification for the same.
Sales consultants can now start their process at the earliest.
4. Lead Scoring and Prioritization
In the background, the software will assign a lead score based on your prospect’s activity on the website. For instance, if they are seeing the pricing page, the lead score will be high. It will prioritize the lead accordingly.
This creates a streamlined sales process for your team and increases their efficiency.
5. Track Sales Conversation
For every lead, the software will track the entire sales conversation. It will then generate a report for the same. This report serves as a valuable input in understanding your leads.
It divulges exclusive opportunities for you to connect with your prospects, based on their specific interests.
6. Dynamic Forms
In the first conversation, your sales team jots down every detail which helps them to understand your prospect’s expectations. Suppose, your prospect is interested in buying the Mercedes S Class. Your team will ask different questions to them when compared with someone who is looking for a lower-priced model.
Automotive CRM transforms this process into a targeted approach with dynamic forms. When the prospect shares his interests, the sales consultant will input it in the form. He will see only those questions that are formulated for that specific model.
It makes their work simpler and efficient. Now, sales consultants would not have to ask any questions that are unrelated to your prospect’s interest. This ensures that the team is working according to predefined parameters.
7. Multiple Follow-Ups
A successful sale requires multiple follow-ups. CRM ensures that your team would not miss any of them. It alerts your team with notifications, emails and text messages.
With CRM, your team is well-connected to your leads for their entire journey.
8. Identify Up-sell and Cross-sell Opportunities
Post successful sale, Automotive CRM also helps in identifying the cross-sell and up-sell possibilities. For example, I bought a car from your dealership.
CRM will automatically notify the insurance team that I might be interested in buying insurance for my car.
9. Unified 360 Degree View
Since all these reports are integrated into Automotive CRM, you can easily track the complete buyer’s journey. This will help you in crafting future dealership marketing campaigns that can engage your prospects more effectively.
Now, let us magnify further.
Automotive CRM says no to Lead Leakage
You capture many leads from your website, social media, events, and exhibitions.
In the conventional method, one of your employees assigns the lead to your showroom at the buyer’s location. Before assigning, he checks whether the car model is available there or not.
This is a tedious job and human error is always a possibility.
When thousands of leads are generated daily, manually assigning them is next to impossible.
You might be wondering:
How can you ensure that there is no lead leakage?
Automotive CRM distributes your leads to different dealerships and showrooms automatically, based on your prospects’ interests, locations, and several other variables.
Simultaneously, the software creates tasks for your sales consultants. It informs them via text message, email and mobile app. This constantly keeps your team on their toes.
Which is great, isn’t it!
You can ensure that there are no such leads that are mishandled, or simply missed.
Your company can also view the overall reports of the leads that are assigned to different showrooms and dealerships in one place.
Segment leads intelligently & distribute them
Segmenting and distributing your leads can be a real puzzler.
It is quite certain that you cannot use the same sales methods for all your leads.
Automotive CRM takes this burden off your chest. It converts more leads to opportunities with its targeted nurturing capabilities.
Suppose, your prospect is interested in buying a car. You would engage him differently than someone who wants to buy a new part or an accessory.
After segmentation, Automotive CRM will distribute leads among your sales teams based on their availability, buyer’s interest, location, and several pre-decided parameters.
Now your sales team can loosen up and let the CRM worry about segmenting and distributing your leads.
Automotive CRM captures all your interactions with the vehicle buyer.
The software tracks every single activity and interaction with your prospects.
Phone calls, test rides, email or text interactions, or communication through any other channel – everything is tracked and recorded. You always know the status of the lead and direction of the conversation.
It provides you an excellent opportunity. It helps to move the conversation forward by understanding your prospect’s reactions.
Understanding your prospect’s reaction is a small thing. But, small things are the ones that matter the most.
It allows you to connect with the emotions of your prospect and synchronize your methods accordingly.
Customize lead qualification criteria and prioritize tasks for your sales team
Next-gen automotive CRM examines every lead and assigns them a quality score. Your sales team can monitor this score and approach qualified lead first.
With automatic prioritization, every effort from your sales team will have a higher possibility of conversion.
You can define what a high-quality lead means to you (in terms of sources, car type, location of the prospect, etc.), and then prioritization happens accordingly.
Engaging high-quality leads will increase the probability of a successful sale. Now with a high conversion rate, your team would be brimming with confidence. You know it. A confident and efficient team is a boon for every business.
Automotive CRM provides efficient field sales tracking
Now, let us say a person has shown interest in a certain model of a car. He wants a test drive. Your field sales consultant provides him a test drive but, the prospect did not buy the car. Why? What went wrong?
Did he come for a test drive but was not engaged properly? How would you identify the problem, and put an end to it?
A completely mobile Automotive CRM addresses this problem in the most practical way!
Salesperson can use the Automotive CRM app on their mobile. They can ensure that every inquiry is tracked and recorded.
Let us take a situation.
A prospect has come in for a test drive. Now with his mobile Automotive CRM, the salesman checks in with the time and location.
GPS will then track the route of his drive and will finally note the end time. Your prospect’s digital signature and comments can also be uploaded to verify the ride.
Hence, the headquarter can easily track how many test drives were taken and how many were converted into sales.
If not converted to sales, what was the reason? Comments given by the prospects will be a solid answer to this.
Now you can easily assess the areas that need to be improved and can increase your conversion rates accordingly.
Increases cross-sales, upgrades and service revenue for your dealership
Repeat sales are important – they give you high retention rates and CLV. You know this already. But, how do you actively increase them?
You do it with Signals.
Your next-gen automotive CRM would actively identify up-sell and cross-sell opportunities, and alert your teams of the same.
Marshall shared a very interesting thought.
“A good car can last ten or twenty years, or even more, so why do consumers replace them every four or five years — or even more often? “
“New cars keep getting made and sold because of the power of marketing. That means coordinating campaigns in multiple channels to keep prospects coming in.”
The CRM Software notifies the sales team when there is a possibility of an upgrade. Salespeople can then engage the buyer and check whether they want to upgrade their vehicle.
Suppose, your team sells a vehicle. Now, Automotive CRM can also notify the insurance team to engage the buyer with various types of insurance. This is a cross-sell opportunity that you cannot miss.
Automotive CRM makes sure that you don’t miss it!
Automates service reminders to customers and consultants
After a successful sale, it is important to maintain the trust of your buyer. This will help you to maintain a long term relationship and hence more opportunities will arise to make future sales.
You can maintain this relationship by engaging the buyer with vehicle maintenance schedules. Automotive CRM will notify the buyers with reminders of their upcoming servicing dates, automatically.
Your sales consultants will not have to call every customer for a service reminder. Now, if the service date is missed. CRM will alert the sales consultant to follow-up with the buyer and check the status.
Marshall Lager summarizes the Automotive CRM with his riveting perspective.
He says, “There’s more at stake than just consumer purchases. Many dealerships, especially larger ones, handle fleet sales and maintenance for rental agencies or the local police. Automotive CRM handles B2B as well as B2C situations.
Marshall explains further, ” Car dealers must maintain relationships with manufacturers as well as customers, so some kind of back-end integration — partner management and/or ERP — is necessary. “
“For instance, a Ford dealer who has poor relations or poor communication with Detroit will often disappoint customers because of late delivery, cars with the wrong features, or inability to arrange good financing. It might seem strange that something so unprofessional could happen with big-ticket items, but businesses are made up of people, and people can be petty or just lazy.”
A next-gen Automotive CRM can realize your ambition of getting high bookings and sales with a fraction of the effort that your teams are currently putting in. It will also help to maintain healthy relations and communication with your partners and customers.
So, let’s change your reverie into reality. Book a personalized demo here.
