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3 Must-Have Features in Your CRM

Article Highlights:

  • Give employees full mobility and dealership-wide connectivity.
  • Improve accountability among salespeople.

As vehicle profit margins shrink, your dealership needs to increase revenue to stay successful. This means selling more vehicles more profitably, scheduling more service appointments, and increasing customer retention.

According to Tech News World, a customer relationship management tool is the key to success throughout your dealership because of its versatility. Your CRM tool is the central hub for all customer information and data, your marketing efforts, and your sales team’s daily activities. It can be used to deliver improved teamwork between your sales and service departments, better customer service, and increased customer retention.

Are you able to deliver those types of results with your current CRM tool?

If your answer is no, it’s time to consider a new CRM solution that includes these must-have features:

1. Dealership-Wide Connection

Using one complete CRM that leverages the same database as your dealership management system (DMS) will increase dealership efficiency and accuracy. By connecting all of your departments, from sales to service, your employees only need to enter information once. This eliminates duplicate client information, data entry errors, and wasted time.

How much more effective could your marketing and follow-up calls be with accurate emails and customer information?

2. Mobility

CRM app that is fully connected to the DMS and lets salespeople start the sales process on the lot while never leaving the customer will improve efficiency and offer a better customer experience.

Nucleus Research found a mobile CRM increases sales force productivity by nearly 15%. With a mobile app, salespeople can click-to-call customers, view customers’ client profile, search vehicle inventory, and start the deal directly from their smart phone.

The result? A sales process that is quicker and more efficient leaving customers with the high-quality experience they expect.

3. Employee Accountability

When an employee’s manager holds them accountable for their performance, they are two and a half times more likely to be engaged in their job.

The right CRM solution incorporates accountability into every-day functions. Whether it’s connecting to your phone system to ensure customer information is automatically entered into the CRM, or preventing salespeople from marking tasks as complete that really weren’t, the CRM is the place to start for employee accountability.

By holding your employees to a higher standard, you create a workforce that’s simultaneously more positively engaged and more productive.

Looking Ahead

As the automotive retail industry continuously changes, your dealership must prepare for future challenges. By ensuring your CRM includes these three must-haves, you can be confident your tool will leverage future industry evolutions, and you can be confident your dealership is prepared for long-term success.

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