Unlock Your Dealership’s Full Potential with These Essential Fixes
In today’s competitive automotive market, reaching and engaging prospective car buyers is crucial for staying ahead. Traditional marketing tactics often fail to capture their attention, resulting in missed opportunities and decreased sales. Here are six signs your marketing efforts might be returning lackluster results—and how to fix it!
1. Missing Shopper Insights and Poor Segmentation
The Problem: Your dealership likely has tons of data. But how do you bring all that data together and create unified customer profiles that are actionable? Without a single source of truth, it’s difficult to deliver personalized, automated campaigns that speak to what shoppers truly want. When you lack the insights needed to create segmentation, you can’t speak to what they want on a personal level.
The Solution: Imagine unifying the data from your dealership’s website with exclusive, first-party insights from Kelley Blue Book, Autotrader, Dealer.com. A customer data platform, or CDP, brings your dealership’s most critical shopper data together from multiple sources to create unified, actionable profiles When you have access to these shopper insights, you can create more personalized and targeted messaging. Plus, with AI-driven automation, you can build smart audience segmentations that sync your data across multiple channels, delivering enticing, relevant 1:1 offers to boost engagement and enhance the accuracy of your marketing.
VinSolutions’ Automotive Marketing Platform (AMP) uses Cox Automotive’s CDP to enhance your customer data with exclusive insights. AI-driven automation provides real-time shopper insights, smart audience segments, and personalized marketing campaigns for deep customer engagement.
2. Inefficient Processes
The Problem: Manual workflows introduce delays and are prone to errors, frequently leading to delayed or inconsistent communication with potential customers.
The Solution: Implement technology to automate your workflows and enhance efficiency. By automating mundane tasks such as email marketing, lead nurturing, and follow-ups, you streamline processes, guarantee consistent and prompt communication, and free up your team to focus on closing deals and fostering relationships.
3. Disconnected Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Systems
The Problem: A fragmented CRM system leads to disjointed customer experiences and missed sales opportunities. If your CRM doesn’t integrate seamlessly with other tools, vital customer data can get lost or overlooked.
The Solution: Invest in an integrated CRM solution that consolidates customer data and provides a unified view of each customer interaction. VinSolutions’ Connect CRM, a pinnacle of automotive CRM software, integrates seamlessly with various marketing and sales tools, enabling a cohesive strategy. An integrated CRM ensures that your team has all the necessary information at their fingertips, leading to more effective customer engagement and higher satisfaction rates.
4. Generic, Non-Personalized Marketing Messages
The Problem: Generic marketing messages fail to resonate with potential buyers, making your campaigns less effective. Customers expect personalized experiences tailored to their needs and preferences.
The Solution: Use data analytics and AI-driven segmentation to create personalized marketing messages. Develop buyer personas based on customer data and craft targeted content that speaks directly to each segment’s needs and interests.
5. Poor Vendor Support and Collaboration
The Problem: Lack of support from your marketing technology vendors can hinder your ability to maximize the potential of your tools and strategies. Without hands-on guidance from industry and marketing experts, your marketing efforts may fall short.
The Solution: Choose vendors that offer comprehensive support and collaboration from professionals who are well-versed in the automotive industry and marketing practices. VinSolutions, for instance, provides hands-on support and training from experts with at least ten years of automotive experience to ensure you get the most out of their CRM and marketing tools. This support, from dedicated experts who truly understand the industry and are committed to helping you reach your goals, can lead to better implementation, ongoing optimization, and ultimately, more successful marketing campaigns.
6. Inadequate Tracking and Measurement of Campaign Performance
The Problem: Without proper tracking and measurement, it’s challenging to determine the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns. This lack of insight can lead to wasted resources and missed opportunities for improvement.
The Solution: Implement tools that provide detailed tracking and measurement of your marketing efforts. Look for a partner who offers robust reporting features that allow you to monitor campaign performance in real time. Regularly analyze these reports to identify what’s working and what needs adjustment, ensuring continuous improvement and better ROI.
Conclusion
By addressing these six signs that your marketing might be holding you back, you can transform your dealership’s marketing strategy and unlock its full potential. Investing in data-driven insights, automated workflows, integrated CRM systems, personalized messaging, strong vendor support, and thorough performance tracking will set your dealership on the path to success. Embrace these solutions and watch your engagement and sales soar with the right automotive CRM software.
Ready to take your marketing to the next level? Contact VinSolutions today to learn how our innovative tools and expert support can help your dealership thrive.
Reach your customers faster and get more from your marketing with Automotive Marketing Platform.
Ensuring that your service scheduling technology meets the needs of your customers, your service team, and your dealership is crucial for maintaining customer satisfaction and profitability. Below, you’ll find a comprehensive list of questions to help assess your current service scheduling technology.
Key Consideration 1: Your Customers
Is there digital-to-in-store continuity for customers?
Answer: Ensuring that your customers experience a seamless transition from online interactions to in-store visits is essential. Implementing scheduling technology that provides a consistent and integrated experience from digital booking to in-store service can effectively achieve this.
Can I streamline the customer experience and reduce check-in and wait times?
Answer: Efficient check-in processes and reduced wait times significantly enhance customer satisfaction. Assess whether your technology allows for quick, hassle-free check-ins and minimizes the time customers spend waiting for their service.
How do I create a more individualized experience for service customers?
Answer: Personalized customer experiences can lead to higher satisfaction and loyalty. Our scheduling system uses customer data to offer tailored services and recommendations based on individual customer histories and preferences.
How can I make the service process easier and more convenient for my customers?
Answer: Convenience is a key driver of customer satisfaction. Evaluate if your technology enables features like online scheduling, text reminders, and easy communication options to make the service process smoother for your clients.
How can I improve the service experience to increase customer satisfaction and retention?
Answer: Improving the overall service experience can boost customer retention. Consider if your scheduling technology helps capture customer feedback, streamline follow-up communications, and provide exceptional service that keeps customers coming back.
Key Consideration 2: Your Service Team
What’s the best way to maximize my team’s productivity?
Answer: Maximizing your service team’s productivity is critical. Determine if your scheduling technology helps optimize technician assignments, manage workloads, and reduce downtime.
How do I know it’s the right scheduling tool for my team?
Answer: The right tool should align with your team’s needs and workflows. Ensure that your scheduling system is user-friendly, integrates well with other tools, and supports your team’s day-to-day operations effectively.
How can I ensure that all service-related calls are answered in a timely fashion and my team isn’t overwhelmed with too many calls?
Answer: A surge in calls can overwhelm your team and affect service quality. Check if your scheduling system includes features like automated call handling, online appointment booking, and efficient call routing to manage call volumes effectively.
Can I help my staff to organize their day and be more efficient?
Answer: Organized staff members are more productive. Assess if your scheduling technology provides tools for daily planning, task management, and real-time updates to help your team stay organized and efficient.
Is there a way to identify and capture more recalls?
Answer: Effectively managing recalls is vital for customer satisfaction and safety. Ensure your scheduling system can identify recall opportunities and streamline the recall process to capture more recalls and enhance service operations.
Key Consideration 3: Your Dealership
How do I address poor scheduling practices that result in inefficient ROs?
Answer: Inefficient repair orders (ROs) can negatively impact your dealership’s profitability. Evaluate if your scheduling technology helps eliminate poor scheduling practices, leading to more efficient ROs and better resource utilization.
Should I expect a good return on investment from my scheduling technology?
Answer: Return on investment (ROI) is a crucial factor in any technology decision. Examine whether your scheduling system contributes to increased revenue, lower operational costs, and a positive ROI for your dealership.
How do I give my customers the service experience they expect?
Answer: Meeting customer expectations is key to success. Ensure your scheduling technology provides the features and functionality required to deliver an excellent service experience that meets or exceeds customer expectations.
How do I know if my current scheduling solution is outdated?
Answer: Outdated technology can hinder your dealership’s efficiency and competitiveness. Regularly assess if your current scheduling system is keeping pace with industry trends and technological advancements to ensure optimal performance.
Is there a better way to recapture previously declined services and generate additional revenue?
Answer: Recapturing declined services is a significant revenue opportunity. Evaluate if your scheduling technology can effectively track and follow up on declined services, helping generate additional revenue for your dealership.
After reviewing these key considerations, you might find that your current service scheduling technology needs an upgrade. To see how Xtime Schedule can revolutionize your service operations, book an Xtime Schedule demo today. Experience firsthand how cutting-edge technology can enhance your customer experience, boost your team’s productivity, and drive profitability for your dealership.
Every dealer can tune up their customer-relationship skills. That’s because consumer behaviors are always evolving. Shopping and buying experiences are vastly different today than they were even a few short years ago. So, too, are the ways consumers interact with your dealership.
Let’s help you master the basics of CRMs so you can manage better customer relationships. We will explore the following topics:
What is a CRM?
Why is a CRM Important?
Benefits of a CRM
What is an Integrated CRM?
How to Use a CRM?
What Makes a Good CRM?
What CRM is Right for Your Dealership?
What is a CRM?
A CRM, short for customer relationship manager, helps businesses of all types and sizes to manage interactions with existing and prospective customers. It’s software technology that keeps track of conversations, contact information, time between contacts, and even the subject matter of the conversations themselves.
Think of a CRM as a central hub for managing relationships for your business. It gives sales teams the resources and information they need to reach out to customers, grow relationships, and ultimately close more sales and bring more customers back—all within one convenient tool.
Different CRMs come with different capabilities and options. Some are more user-friendly and intuitive to use than others. Some provide helpful reminders and feedback to help you stay connected to your customers and track the success of your efforts. Some even come equipped with artificial intelligence (AI) to help you understand more about your customers’ interests and motivations, so you can give them a more personalized experience.
Why is a CRM So Important?
As a dealership, people are your most important asset and improving relationships with people is your top priority. Thankfully, a CRM can help you prioritize your employees and your customers by giving them a single tool to make their shared interactions simpler, efficient, and effective.
A CRM helps you manage customer relationships through the following basic functions:
Record Contacts: Keep track of every detail of every contact you’ve ever made, such as names, numbers, email addresses, and even social media handles.
Manage Communications: Track all customer outreach by communicating directly through the CRM.
Track Metrics and Forecast Sales: Maximize profits with a bird’s-eye-view of your sales and marketing strategy, utilizing powerful reporting to gauge the success of your campaigns and outreach efforts.
Understand Shopping Behaviors: Gain valuable insights into each customer’s shopping behavior, including which vehicles they might be interested in and their readiness to buy.
Automate Workflows: Streamline your customer outreach with notifications and updates about who you should contact and how and when you should contact them.
Of course, prioritizing people also provides plenty of benefits for your dealership. Managing relationships more efficiently improves productivity for your team and helps them close more deals faster. This boosts efficiency across operations and improves profits for your dealership.
Benefits of a CRM
Beyond the benefits of a CRM, it’s critical to focus on how a CRM can optimize the way you run your dealership. While a CRM might be used somewhat differently between dealerships, its overall benefits cannot be overstated. In fact, a CRM might be the most important tool you use daily.
Stay Organized
First and foremost, a CRM helps you to keep your customer information organized. It can compile information about your customers, including the reasons they reached out to you (or you reached out to them), and give you a single view of each customer. This helps you to know the best next steps to take with each customer to grow relationships and close more sales.
With a single, organized view of each customer, a CRM also allows your team to see previous conversations with every customer, so you can reference conversations that took place days or even years ago. This gives your team a holistic view of each customer, so they can be equipped with all the information they need to give your customers a great experience and keep them progressing down the path to purchase.
With all the customers you encounter, both online and in your store, a CRM can be a lifesaver. It prevents customers from falling through the cracks and helps you stay on top of your relationships.
Streamline Customer Communications
Instead of having to import, look up, piece together or (gulp) remember important customer information, a CRM streamlines the entire process. It presents every last detail you need to know about your customers in a single, easily accessible view.
If a customer calls in, reaches out online, or shows up in-store, you can quickly look up their entire history with your business to (literally) get on the same page and give them a better experience.
A CRM also streamlines your ability to proactively reach out to more customers, more effectively. With helpful reminders about who should be contacted and who hasn’t been contacted for a while, a CRM can help you stay on top of every relationship and prioritize those who might be closer to making a purchase decision. It gives you recommended next steps to take with your customers, saving you time and improving the efficiency of your customer outreach efforts.
Build Better Relationships with Customers
At the end of the day, a CRM helps you to build better relationships with your existing and potential customers. All the technology, all the data, all the convenience, all the organizational and streamlined CRM features come together to help you manage and nurture better human relationships.
Knowing more about your customers helps you to customize their experience. It helps you to consistently reach out to them to keep your dealership top-of-mind and ensure their needs are met. Knowing more about your customers helps you to strengthen relationships with existing customers and show new customers that you’re on top of every last detail. Knowing more about your customers helps you to show your appreciation for them, so you can build trust and create customers for life.
What Is an Integrated CRM and What Does It Facilitate?
Most CRMs offer dealers the data and information they need to reach out to customers and manage relationships. But many dealers lack the time and resources to aggregate that data across their multiple dealership tools.
Fortunately, some CRMs integrate dealership tools and sales processes automatically to deliver a single view of every customer – across multiple touchpoints and departments. This kind of CRM can empower your dealership to turn raw customer data into real insights (and insights into sales).
This not only reduces duplicate data entry and the need to constantly enter information into a dealership database, but it also gives you actionable, aggregated insights across your various technology platforms.
For example, an integrated CRM can align your used car inventory with your customers’ wish lists, so you can reach out to customers with specific offers that pique their interest, drive sales, and improve inventory management.
You can also integrate your CRM with your dealership’s website to pick up every online deal right where the customer left off. This integration allows you to streamline deals, improve the customer experience, and provide a single record of real-time shopper activity.
If you’re trying to bring in more sales or service customers, your CRM can integrate with your DMS and service department software to consolidate data and increase sales and service opportunities with repair order alerts.
How To Use a CRM?
While every CRM is slightly different, there are a few general rules and best practices that you can implement to help you get the most out of your CRM.
Keep a Good Record of Customer Information and Interactions
Make a record of every customer interaction, whether online, on the phone, in-store or otherwise. Be detail oriented with all the information you record. Track every call, every car discussed, every salesperson involved, etc. The more information you can record, the better you’ll be able to facilitate the customer’s shopping experience moving forward.
If this seems daunting, you’re in luck. Some CRMs will automate much (if not most) of this process—automatically recording information about customers, topics of conversations, and small but important details about your interactions that can inform future conversations.
Let Information Guide Your Next Steps
With all the detailed information you (or your CRM) have recorded, you can let information be your guide in managing your customer relationships.
Perhaps your CRM shows that a customer signed up for your newsletter online. That gives you the opportunity to reach out and start a conversation about a recent newsletter topic in your first conversation.
Maybe your CRM shows that your customer hasn’t come in for service in quite a while. Let that information be your guide in inviting them to come back to your service department. You may even choose to send them a service discount coupon to provide a personalized incentive.
In some cases, your CRM will automatically give you recommendations for what to do next, removing the guesswork of sometimes complex customer interactions. It can tell you who to reach out to and when to reach out, based on past interactions, recorded data, and data-driven insights.
Personalize All Interactions
Today’s customers expect a personalized car shopping experience. Based on the information stored in your CRM, you can give customers exactly what they want.
For example, if a customer browsed a blog article on your website about a specific car and then viewed similar inventory pages, the right CRM can help you put two and two together to inform your next steps and your conversations to personalize their experience pursuant to their interests.
If a customer calls in asking about inventory availability on a specific make and model, when they arrive at your dealership unannounced, you can be ready to respond to questions and browse buying options without having to be reminded or get caught up with the customer.
With a combination of customer history and car preferences in your CRM, you can give every customer the personalized experience they expect.
What Makes a Good CRM?
What makes a good CRM is probably different for every dealership, but there are a few common tools and capabilities you should look out for when selecting a CRM.
Artificial Intelligence
As consumers spend more time shopping, purchasing, and researching their options online, they leave behind valuable clues about their preferences. These clues can inform your insights, even tell you what they’re interested in and when they’re most likely to buy.
A CRM that comes equipped with artificial intelligence can give you these valuable insights and help you to know when to reach out to your customers with personalized offers, even before they’re ready to reach out to a dealership (maybe your competitors), accelerating the path to purchase and improving their experience.
Automation
Your dealership has enough to do without having to manually record every last detail about every customer relationship—yet that’s exactly what you should do if you want to give your customers the kind of personalized experience they expect.
With automation, your CRM can do much of the heavy lifting for your dealership. It can record the big and small details about your customer interactions and provide clear next steps for who you should contact and what you should talk about.
Integration
Speaking of reducing manual labor associated with managing your customer relationships, the right CRM can bridge the information gap between your dealership technologies to ensure that you have all the information you need in one centralized CRM location.
An integrated CRM can combine data from your sales team, your service team, your website, your digital retailing, and more to ensure that you always have the most current information about your customers and that your customers always get the best shopping experience when interacting with anyone at your dealership.
What CRM is Right for Your Dealership?
Your CRM is as personal to your dealership as it will be to your customers. Evaluate your dealership’s needs, consider the needs of your customers, and find a CRM that will be beneficial to both.
Know the needs of your staff, who will be operating your CRM technology, and what resources they will need. While you’re doing your due diligence, take time to evaluate your CRM provider too. Get a feel for whether your prospective CRM provider will be a good technology partner—willing to assist you with questions, needs, concerns, and strategy as you continue to manage your technology and your personal relationships.
If your dealership is ready to get back to the basics of building better customer relationships, consider the benefits of switching to VinSolutions. VinSolutions Connect CRM includes all the latest features you want in a CRM, plus unmatched access to Cox Automotive’s car shopper data. To learn more about Connect CRM, visit VinSolutions.com.
See what Darryn Persaud, CMO of Comply.law, had to say around the hot topics on consumer data compliance, cyber threats and the steps to take to minimize risks.
Featured Guest: Chris Kerr – Chief Revenue Officer, Clarivoy shares examples of how dealers can develop a measurement and value strategy in their marketing efforts to deliver insights that will drive actions to help dealers sell more cars and maximize ROI.
Featured Guests: Micah Tindor, Senior Director of Strategy KBB ICO and Noah Lee, Director of Multi-Solution Product at Cox Automotive give their take on the F.I.E.R.C.E strategy from an Ops and overall Dealer Marketing and Business strategy.
Maintaining seamless communication with customers is paramount in the automotive industry. Enter the game-changer: automotive sales CRM mobile texting technology. Dealerships can foster stronger connections with clients while also significantly improving the customer experience and deftly navigating major compliance risks. This VinSolutions Performance Management discussion on Texting Best Practices explains why utilizing mobile text messaging in your sales CRM strategy is a must for modern dealerships. When used correctly, text messaging enhances customer interactions, and helps your business avoid major risks ensuring compliance and success.
Enhancements and Benefits of Mobile Texting Technology
Preferred Communication Channel: Mobile texting technology allows your dealership to communicate with customers in real time, through a channel many prefer. When your salespeople follow up on leads, appointments, and dealership visits directly from the CRM via texting app, this communication is instant, compliant & recorded in your dealership’s CRM database.
Access to Critical Information: Using a CRM texting app provides quick access to essential data, including inventory details, customer records, and conversation histories. Sales representatives have instant access to information that enables a more personalized, and authentic, conversation.
Opt-In/Opt-Out Compliance: To receive texts, customers must first opt in – and customers who opt-out can no longer be contacted by text. Using a trusted and official CRM texting technology will ensure compliance by automatically managing opt-ins and opt-outs.
Photos and Videos: Salespeople can easily send images of vehicles and features via your texting solution, enhancing customer engagement and providing a visual context.
Text Opt-In and License Scanning: By using a CRM mobile app for texting customers and license scanning, dealerships can verify compliance while streamlining processes.
Major Risks and Pitfalls of Unsanctioned Texting
Legal Vulnerability: Customers who opt-in to receive texts are technically agreeing only to receive texts from a specific third party (your dealership). When employees use their personal cell phones for texting, they become the “4th party” rather than the intended third party. This puts both your automotive dealership and the employee at risk of lawsuits. Federal regulations, such as the CAN-SPAM Act tend to be strict, and privacy laws vary across states.
CRM Effectiveness: If salespeople communicate outside your CRM, it becomes challenging to manage opportunities effectively. Your dealership’s automotive CRM is designed to track interactions and create additional sales opportunities. Without proper tracking, these opportunities may slip through the cracks.
Unauthorized Use of Customer Data: Allowing your salespeople to conduct business via their personal phones means they carry the dealership’s book of business in their pockets. Assigning unique numbers within the system ensures better tracking and prevents unauthorized use of customer information.
Activity Breakdown: Managers can review activity breakdown reports to ensure that salespeople are utilizing your texting technology effectively. This helps track follow-ups and maintain compliance. Moreover, these interactions can become part of your performance KPIs.
Ready to learn more? VinSolutions CRM with automotive text messaging makes texting customers as easy as texting friends. VinSolutions Texting has full MMS messaging capabilities and a full conversation history stored in the CRM so dealers can keep track of conversations in a single view. Learn More.
Featured Guests: Elizabeth Stegall, Sales Director at Autotrader and Kelley Blue Book and Matt Holling, Senior Director of Ecommerce Excellence at Cox Automotive give their take on the F.I.E.R.C.E strategy from a Dealer Sales and overall Ecommerce strategy.
New opportunities for fixed ops professionals to achieve rapid growth though digital technology, transparency, and convenience.
As a fixed operations professional, it’s crucial to understand your challenges and opportunities so you can implement strategies that keep profits growing and customers satisfied. Here are some tips to tackle the takeaways from the latest Cox Automotive Service Industry Study.
Rapid growth creates a big opportunity for you. Consumer spend for automotive care is expected to surpass $400 billion in 2025. We’ve already seen a 50 percent hike in service sold from 2021 to 2023.
Tip! To service more cars faster, embrace digital transformation and leverage technology solutions that get ASRs sent by your team and approved by the customer with the tap of a phone to improve efficiencies.
Battle for Share of Service Visits
Dealer market share is now 30 percent, which represents a significant decline from a 35 percent share in 2021. You may be losing ground to the chain retailers and quick lube.
Tip! Stand out from the competition and increase share of service visits by prioritizing transparency and personalization.
Transparency comes from easy-to-understand and consistent information about services, pricing, and service history, and builds confidence and trust in you.
Personalization demonstrates you know your customer and are committed to them and their service priorities. Use your data to greet customers by name, understand their preferences, and tailor communications and offers specific to them.
Fight Rising Costs
We’re all feeling the pinch of rising costs right now. Compound that with the perception dealership service is less affordable than its competitors, and you have a challenge you can’t afford to sleep on.
Four out of five reasons your customers may not return are cost related:
Not a convenientlocation
Total cost is unreasonable
Dealer will overcharge
Unreasonable labor charges
Unreasonable parts charges
Tip! Offer service financing to create convenience for your customers and show you care about their day to day need while ensuring cash flow for your dealership.
Overcome Frustrations
Nearly half of dealer customers were frustrated with their service experience according to the recent service study. Convenience was a common theme as one of the top drivers of the dissatisfaction, manifested through difficulty scheduling an appointment and the time investment for maintenance repair or completion.
Tip! You guessed it, go digital. Utilize your service technology to make the service process easy – and fast – from scheduling online to approvals and payment with a tap of a phone.
You’re a fixed operations professional taking the time to understand what’s crucial to your customers and drives efficiency for your team. We’d love to partner with you to help you navigate challenges and smash your goals.
VinSolutions CRM turns customer data into insights, and insights into sales. It’s an invaluable sales tool that your team should be using everyday—but are you always using it correctly?
This webinar will teach managers about the most important things they should do – and not do – to get the most from VinSolutions. Host Joe Webb of DealerKnows Consulting will take you through the high-powered features in VinSolutions and show you how to set up your sales team for success.
You’ll learn:
How to utilize custom statuses and rules to improve the customer experience and sell more cars
How to perform a 1-on-1 and Save-a-Deal meeting using VinSolutions reports
The simple elements within customer profiles that both help and harm communication with prospects
