STREAMLINING CAR DEALERSHIP OPERATIONS WITH AUTOALERT’S CRM
“The biggest thing to me is that everything is in one tool. I have desking, I have data mining, and I have a CRM. The synergy between the conversations is kept in one place. It makes it a lot easier. ”
– Stu Berkely, GM at Middletown Honda
Basic CRM Platforms Don’t Cut it in an Integrated World
In the current automotive landscape, dealership software requires a strategic vision and data-driven decision-making baked into their car dealership operations. As a company with a reputation for perfecting the art of building modern solutions in the automotive software space, AutoAlert recognizes that continuous innovation of our platform cannot be achieved without a deep understanding of how all components work together or without decades’ worth of data.
AutoAlert has a suite of products that all provide tremendous value on their own; however, the collaboration of those tools can drive incredible advancement. The lasting benefit is an exceptional customer experience that AutoAlert CXM cultivates through enhanced integrations between our solutions.
How is AutoAlert CXM More Beneficial Than Just a Dealership CRM?
The digital world offers capabilities we didn’t have 10 or 15 years ago. The amount of data intelligence we can draw from today is astounding, and using that information allows us to redefine processes. However, building a collaborative platform goes much deeper than just integrating code.
AutoAlert’s platforms eliminate data roadblocks by securely collecting data from numerous sources and bringing it into one place for analysis. Hence, the user gets a complete picture of each customer’s behaviors daily.
AutoAlert CXM recognizes customer patterns that provide you with the intel needed to increase purchase and service frequency by offering customers (already in your database) benefits that fit their needs at just the right time. It connects the dots that otherwise wouldn’t if your data mining, marketing, and CRM platforms are incohesive.
Basic CRMs facilitate communication between your dealership and customers, but if your dealership’s CRM needs to be integrated with all dealership tools, this creates siloed information. Disconnected information produces confusing customer messaging, leading to low response rates, lost sales and service opportunities, and a poor customer experience.
These days, customers expect a seamless, personalized, and beneficial experience. AutoAlert’s CRM platform is built with the infrastructure needed to allow for synergies between software tools, your employees, and your customers to effectively differentiate your dealership from the competition.
How is AutoAlert CXM Communication Different From Other Automotive CRMs That Have Been Around for Years?
For many dealership CRMs, most communication with the customer is time-based and driven by a scheduler. The emails are impertinent to the customer’s vehicle lifecycle and, often, miss the mark on relevancy.
AutoAlert CXM provides a personalized customer experience that transfers from online to the store and includes follow-up communication after the sale. Dealers are given the tools to deliver the right message to the right customer at the right time, but this ability starts at the department level. Technology-driven internal communication processes set the stage for producing relevant messages and the best time to communicate with your customer.
Reasons Why a Basic CRM Doesn’t Cut It:
1. It relies on Outdated, Unreliable Data Entry
Traditional CRMs rely on manual data entry, and if data is entered in a way that all staff can understand and take action on, it becomes useful. It can lead to consistency within your database. Staff may need standardized processes or user-friendly interfaces to input data effectively.
2. Failure to Build Relationships or Foster Customer Loyalty
Customers today expect personalized interactions and tailored solutions. Basic CRMs may need more sophistication to analyze customer behavior and preferences correctly. As a result, they need to improve in nurturing relationships and fostering customer loyalty. With a comprehensive understanding of individual customer needs and preferences, dealerships can avoid alienating their customers and losing out to competitors who offer more personalized experiences.
3. It Doesn’t Present a Clear Path of Action
Basic CRMs often need more functionality to provide actionable insights or recommend specific courses of action. With intelligent automation and predictive analytics, dealerships may be able to identify opportunities for engagement or anticipate customer needs. This makes it difficult to proactively address customer concerns or capitalize on sales opportunities, ultimately hindering growth and profitability.
4. It Actually Might be Hurting Relationships
Basic CRMs may contribute to a transactional rather than relational approach to customer interactions. Focusing only on sales numbers or generic marketing campaigns can push customers away and damage trust. Instead of fostering meaningful connections, they may come across as intrusive or impersonal, ultimately damaging long-term relationships and diminishing customer loyalty.
Advanced data analytics hands your staff the tools to safeguard your customer relationships, which can’t be done with a CRM alone.
It starts by knowing what your customers want when they want it and providing exactly that—not just random birthday cards. There are no guesstimated upgrade offers on the anniversary—just positive interactions for great experiences with your dealership.
How Can You Ensure Employees are Showing up The Way You Want?
Your employees are key in the relationships customers have with your dealership. They create the impression that customers have when they think of your brand.
How do we develop a tool to support the need to keep employees engaged with their dealership’s mission? Much like the relationship with your customers, communication is the key to maintaining employee engagement and satisfaction.
Today’s workforce demands open communication and fluid collaboration with their peers. The first goal is to create a platform that encourages communication, inspires collaboration, and drives operational efficiency. Even minor adjustments in employee communication and how they collaborate greatly impact how they feel when they come to work daily.
Business News Daily breaks down why businesses should include a CRM platform in their overall operations – “The benefits of a CRM include increased sales, detailed analytics, automated sales reports, and better customer retention. CRM systems can also help improve internal communications so your entire team is on the same page when it comes to each lead and customer.”
How can you keep employees engaged long-term?
A team of engaged employees won’t stay engaged long-term without personal success. AutoAlert’s dealership CRM, AutoAlert CXM, arms them with new tools and heightened intelligence to provide customers with the best overall experience, creating better sales opportunities.
AutoAlert CXM has automated processes and assigned tasks to update dynamically based on customer and employee behavior. These processes are already built into the platform and customized for your dealership’s needs.
The most exciting part of the AutoAlert CXM platform is the algorithms running in the background that make the data smarter daily. Every transaction feeds our algorithms, so the tool performs better at predicting behavior. Imagine how powerful it would be to arm your dealership’s staff with the same level of intelligence every time they interact with a customer.
For example, when a BDC Agent picks up the phone to call a customer, they will have the background information about the person they are calling and exactly what the conversation should be about. Or, when a salesperson ups a customer on the lot, they know what drove that customer to the dealership, putting them at an advantage from the get-go.
Success creates employee satisfaction, and AutoAlert CXM sets your staff up for daily success.
What is the big-picture benefit of AutoAlert CXM that propels overall success?
Dealerships typically have a portfolio of vendors handling different aspects of the business, most of which don’t communicate with each other. It’s no wonder the customer experience can be so fragmented and disjointed. This is why integrations among all the verticals contributing to dealership management are vital.
CRMs were, and are, great for what they were designed for, but a basic CRM is too limited to deliver alone and needs to be expanded in an increasingly competitive market. AutoAlert CXM offers dealerships the single solution they will require to synchronize dealership communications, both online and in-store, on one screen, on any device, and it is fully integrated with all AutoAlert tools and features.
This is the time to leverage data that predicts customer behavior and manages your dealership’s interactions for a streamlined car dealership operation that creates positive customer experiences and keeps business coming back for years.
