by Bryan Anderson
Founder, Autobase, Inc.
Look around. You have a great showroom. You advertise through various media, which is evidenced in part by the people walking into your store. Question: what happens when they walk out? While any dealer with a pulse would prefer that customers leave only after taking delivery, many look to their CRM and good old-fashioned salesmanship to get that customer back in and signing papers.
Now think of your website – your “virtual showroom.” So it’s a great website. It has all the bells and whistles that create an engaging experience for your customers over the Web. You may promote it through search engine marketing (SEM), which is evidenced in part by the number of Internet customers sending leads through your virtual showroom. Question: what happens once they log off?
Like many, you might respond, “That’s why I have an Internet Lead Management (ILM) tool.”
ILM does a good job of capturing, routing, and categorizing your Internet leads. Many ILMs facilitate follow up and take the initial steps to work those leads toward the sale. Yet by itself, ILM alone lacks the capabilities to follow (and therefore manage) the customer across your business.
For example, an ILM may demonstrate its ROI by reporting on possible matches between its customers and those in other dealership systems.
But does ILM tell you:
· that an Internet lead is currently in the showroom and working with one of your salespeople?
· how long he’s been there and who he’s been with – all before you give him a price?
· that even though he was a previous “lost sale” three years ago, he came in for service twice over the past 36 months?
· that he just shopped your sister store two hours ago?
Many of you who can testify to the benefits of an ILM; however, let’s recognize where its capabilities begin and end. Since ILM cannot deliver a total view of your customer – wherever he happens to be in the sales cycle – it only makes sense that it is fully-integrated with a CRM that can.
“OK, that makes sense,” you may think. “But my ILM has CRM capabilities.”
With the growing importance of Internet marketing, the strongest ILM tool will grow out of a strong CRM and not vice versa. Think about it. Your customer data – the information needed to market, close, and keep your customers for life – is the lifeblood of your business. And the engine that houses, manages, and drives that data – your CRM – is the central nervous system for your marketing and sales efforts. CRM can never be an add-on to an ILM any more than it can be an add-on to an inventory program or a digital marketing system.
So, what’s the answer? Well, consider your two “showrooms.” The ILM that works your virtual showroom and the CRM that drives everything else must work as one solution. Beyond the tremendous cost reduction you’ll enjoy, your customers simply cannot live in two separate databases if you want to maximize business. With ILM and CRM working together, 1 + 1 = 3.
