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3 Must-Have Features to Redefine Your CRM

Hexagons with CRM icons
Article Highlights:

  • Learn how to redefine your CRM to anchor long term success.
  • Understand the impacts automated processes can have on your team.

Your CRM tool is effective at helping your salespeople follow up with customers, but that’s not enough.  “Customer relationship management” is dealership-wide and it’s ongoing.  Your CRM tool can be used to improve teamwork between sales and service departments, deliver better customer service, and increase customer retention.

Does your current CRM tool deliver these types of results?

If you answered no, here are three must-have features that will redefine your CRM tool and help you experience results:

  1. Single System with Automated Data Entry

How often does your team waste time updating the CRM or tracking down information they need for a deal? Hubspot says 72% of salespeople spend up to an hour per day on data entry alone. Imagine giving your team a CRM solution that automatically updates information, updates communications based on previous results, and tracks every sale all in real time. Couple that with mobile access to customer information, dealer-defined sales steps, and test drive routes, and your team will never waste time looking for information or updating the system again.

  1. Automatic Prioritization of Prospects and Tasks

According to CSO Insights, 45% of sales reps need help figuring out which prospects to prioritize. Using a CRM solution that automatically prioritizes prospects, tasks, and events based on a customer’s likelihood to buy ensures salespeople are always working on the hottest opportunity. Instead of a “Happy Birthday” message first on their to-do list, the customer who test drove a vehicle yesterday will be ranked higher in priority. Rather than manually working through their “hot sheet” and sticky notes to prioritize their day, the system does it intuitively.

  1. Intelligent Data

Think about the amount of data living and multiplying inside your dealership’s four walls, or rather, your CRM. Hundreds of customers equals thousands of unique data points. To keep a strong grip on these customers, the right CRM will have a built-in, intuitive and intelligent predictive analytics engine. Fueled by transactional data, behavioral data, and demographic data, the engine analyzes and compares every customer, profile, and transaction to pinpoint who is going to buy, what they’re going to buy, and when. This extra fire in your CRM allows you to disrupt the buying cycle, move aging vehicles off your lot, and add sales you didn’t know you were missing.

Looking Ahead

As the automotive retail industry continues to evolve, your dealership must not only keep up, but try to get ahead. By redefining CRM with a tool that encompasses these functionalities, your dealership will be one step closer to long term success. Your team will work more proactively and efficiently, sell more cars, and capture more revenue.

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Director, Product Planning, CRM and Variable Ops, Reynolds and Reynolds

Ed Pontis was Director of Product Planning at Reynolds and Reynolds for CRM and variable operations solutions including FOCUS, docuPAD®, Desking and more. Ed was previously a director in a large international consulting firm, bringing in leading practices from these segments to Reynolds.

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