I was recently talking to a dealer about how to handle his "No longer owned" vehicles in his CRM. I was surprised to learn that his CRM didn't have this feature. In my opinion, having a CRM with the ability to automatically Inactivate Vehicles, is one of those features that is a must have.

DealerSocket has 4 ways we recognize a vehicle as “No longer owned” (inactivated) on individual customer records.

1.       Vehicle Trade In - Customer Trades in their car that they originally purchased from the same dealership.

Ex. Bob buys a 2003 GMC Yukon from ABC dealership, 5 years later… I decide to trade that same vehicle to ABC dealership and buy another car.  The DMS sends DealerSocket this information as part of the Sold Transaction and we recognize that the Trade In was a car Bob previously purchased and we “Inactivate it” as a vehicle that is no longer owned on that customer record.

2.       Closed RO - A Service Customer closes a repair order on a vehicle that another customer originally purchased from the dealership.

Ex. Bob buys a 2003 GMC Yukon from ABC dealership, 5 years later… Bob sells the vehicle privately to John.  John decides to service that vehicle at ABC dealership.  DealerSocket recognizes that a different customer now owns that vehicle and “Inactivates” that vehicle on Bob’s customer record.

3.       Email Marketing - A customer receives an Email from the dealership and clicks on a link telling the dealer they no longer own the car referenced in the email.

Ex. A dealer might decide to enable a campaign targeting customers that purchased 3 years ago, offering to purchase their vehicles.  When customers click on the link stating they no longer own their vehicle, DealerSocket knows to no longer market to customers based on that Year, Make, and Model that was inactivated.  All ongoing service reminders, recall notices, and tailored messages based on that vehicle will be stopped.

4.       Service Scheduler - Service Appointment Scheduling Process

Ex. A customer decides to either book an appointment through the mobile garage, website, or over the phone.  As part of that process, the customer can easily tell the dealer through that process that they no longer own certain vehicles.

The true value of a CRM is its ability to send TARGETED RELEVANT messages to customers/prospects. 

The result of doing CRM right through automatically inactivating vehicles:

1.       Improves Campaign ROI by helping dealers spend less on collateral

2.       Opt outs are decreased due to more relevant targeted messages being sent

3.       Customer CSI goes up because customers aren’t annoyed

4.       Database management is improved by having ongoing updates to vehicle ownership on customers

Hunter Swift is the Manager of Market Development at DealerSocket and has been with the company since 2005. In addition to his current role he has fulfilled the responsibilities of customer support, consulting, training, and sales. He specializes in helping dealerships improve processes through the use of CRM technology. Prior to DealerSocket he sold cars and is a graduate of Pepperdine University.

Follow him: @HunterSwift

I was recently talking to a dealer about how to handle his "No longer owned" vehicles in his CRM. I was surprised to learn that his CRM didn't have this feature. In my opinion, having a CRM with the ability to automatically Inactivate Vehicles, is one of those features that is a must have.

DealerSocket has 4 ways we recognize a vehicle as “No longer owned” (inactivated) on individual customer records.

1.       Vehicle Trade In - Customer Trades in their car that they originally purchased from the same dealership.

Ex. Bob buys a 2003 GMC Yukon from ABC dealership, 5 years later… I decide to trade that same vehicle to ABC dealership and buy another car.  The DMS sends DealerSocket this information as part of the Sold Transaction and we recognize that the Trade In was a car Bob previously purchased and we “Inactivate it” as a vehicle that is no longer owned on that customer record.

2.       Closed RO - A Service Customer closes a repair order on a vehicle that another customer originally purchased from the dealership.

Ex. Bob buys a 2003 GMC Yukon from ABC dealership, 5 years later… Bob sells the vehicle privately to John.  John decides to service that vehicle at ABC dealership.  DealerSocket recognizes that a different customer now owns that vehicle and “Inactivates” that vehicle on Bob’s customer record.

3.       Email Marketing - A customer receives an Email from the dealership and clicks on a link telling the dealer they no longer own the car referenced in the email.

Ex. A dealer might decide to enable a campaign targeting customers that purchased 3 years ago, offering to purchase their vehicles.  When customers click on the link stating they no longer own their vehicle, DealerSocket knows to no longer market to customers based on that Year, Make, and Model that was inactivated.  All ongoing service reminders, recall notices, and tailored messages based on that vehicle will be stopped.

4.       Service Scheduler - Service Appointment Scheduling Process

Ex. A customer decides to either book an appointment through the mobile garage, website, or over the phone.  As part of that process, the customer can easily tell the dealer through that process that they no longer own certain vehicles.

The true value of a CRM is its ability to send TARGETED RELEVANT messages to customers/prospects. 

The result of doing CRM right through automatically inactivating vehicles:

1.       Improves Campaign ROI by helping dealers spend less on collateral

2.       Opt outs are decreased due to more relevant targeted messages being sent

3.       Customer CSI goes up because customers aren’t annoyed

4.       Database management is improved by having ongoing updates to vehicle ownership on customers

Hunter Swift is the Manager of Market Development at DealerSocket and has been with the company since 2005. In addition to his current role he has fulfilled the responsibilities of customer support, consulting, training, and sales. He specializes in helping dealerships improve processes through the use of CRM technology. Prior to DealerSocket he sold cars and is a graduate of Pepperdine University.

Follow him: @HunterSwift

Turn slow sales months into high revenue with CRM best practices.

Auto dealers, like most businesses, face months that are traditionally slow in sales. If you can predict sales downturns in advance, you are in an advantageous position to focus resources on other areas of potential revenue. You can create revenue during slow sales months by mining your DMS and marketing to customers who may be in a position to spend money.

The most productive non-sales searches include:

1. Sold, Not Serviced

2. Serviced, Not Sold

3. Declined Service

4. Lost Service

5. Unsold Follow-Up

6. Happy Birthday Phone Call

7. Lost Service Customers

8. High Dollar Customer Pay RO’s

9. Service Contracts or Extended Warranties

Dealerships can integrate these search categories into their annual business practices, implementing them when the traditionally slowest sales months inevitably rear their ugly heads. Use this calendar foresight to alert general managers, service managers and sales managers that the time has come to focus on bringing in revenue from the above non-sales categories.

Below are statistics and advice provided by Reuben Muinos, director of marketing of DealerSocket MarketPlace. Muinos has more than twenty years of dealership experience. 

Serviced Not Sold:

An average-size dealer can generate five to fifteen more deals per month when a dealer offers to purchase a prospect’s vehicle that was recently serviced but not bought from the dealer. Acquisitions of these vehicles can be far more profitable than buying the same model from an auction. This scenario is a win/win, benefitting the customer and the dealer.

Unsold Follow-Up:

I have observed an increase of 33% of be-backs when someone other than the salesperson from the dealership, or an outsourced third party, is used in the unsold follow-up process. Prices, products or salespeople are the most-often referenced issues cited by customers when a deal is not made. Customers are more apt to speak candidly with someone other than the salesperson.

Happy Birthday Call:

Although most salespeople fear this call, it is an effective way to reconnect with the customer. It’s important to make non-sales calls; it really does thrill the customer to get the call.

Lost Service Customers:

Marketing through multi channels (e-mail, mail, phone call) can generate $20 to $35 per customer record. Potentially, 1,000 lost customers brought in through multi-channel marketing can result in a $20,000 to $30,000 service revenue gain.

Greg Hammond, DealerSocket product manager, provided the following information from DealerSocket's CallCenter, based on typical results from a campaign list of 1,000 customers in each category.

No Service X Months

• 100-120 leads (appointments/hot leads/call backs)

• Service Revenues $50,000 within six weeks

• Retention of 15%Vehicle Buyback (Equity)

• 80-100 leads (50 appointments, the rest call backs and hot leads)

• 8-10 sales within six weeksServiced Not Sold• 100-120 leads (70 appointments)

• 8-10 sales within six weeksSold Not Serviced

• 160 leads (53 appointments)

• 15-20% retention within six weeksDeclined Service

• 130 actionable leads generated (28 appointments)

• $85,000 in service revenue generated within 6 weeks

Remember that implementing non-sales DMS-mining into your dealership’s annual business practices during slow sales months works. Now get back on the floor and make some money!

Hunter Swift is the Manager of Market Development at DealerSocket and has been with the company since 2005. In addition to his current role he has fulfilled the responsibilities of customer support, consulting, training, and sales. He specializes in helping dealerships improve processes through the use of CRM technology. Prior to DealerSocket he sold cars and is a graduate of Pepperdine University.

Follow him: @HunterSwift

Turn slow sales months into high revenue with CRM best practices.

Auto dealers, like most businesses, face months that are traditionally slow in sales. If you can predict sales downturns in advance, you are in an advantageous position to focus resources on other areas of potential revenue. You can create revenue during slow sales months by mining your DMS and marketing to customers who may be in a position to spend money.

The most productive non-sales searches include:

1. Sold, Not Serviced

2. Serviced, Not Sold

3. Declined Service

4. Lost Service

5. Unsold Follow-Up

6. Happy Birthday Phone Call

7. Lost Service Customers

8. High Dollar Customer Pay RO’s

9. Service Contracts or Extended Warranties

Dealerships can integrate these search categories into their annual business practices, implementing them when the traditionally slowest sales months inevitably rear their ugly heads. Use this calendar foresight to alert general managers, service managers and sales managers that the time has come to focus on bringing in revenue from the above non-sales categories.

Below are statistics and advice provided by Reuben Muinos, director of marketing of DealerSocket MarketPlace. Muinos has more than twenty years of dealership experience. 

Serviced Not Sold:

An average-size dealer can generate five to fifteen more deals per month when a dealer offers to purchase a prospect’s vehicle that was recently serviced but not bought from the dealer. Acquisitions of these vehicles can be far more profitable than buying the same model from an auction. This scenario is a win/win, benefitting the customer and the dealer.

Unsold Follow-Up:

I have observed an increase of 33% of be-backs when someone other than the salesperson from the dealership, or an outsourced third party, is used in the unsold follow-up process. Prices, products or salespeople are the most-often referenced issues cited by customers when a deal is not made. Customers are more apt to speak candidly with someone other than the salesperson.

Happy Birthday Call:

Although most salespeople fear this call, it is an effective way to reconnect with the customer. It’s important to make non-sales calls; it really does thrill the customer to get the call.

Lost Service Customers:

Marketing through multi channels (e-mail, mail, phone call) can generate $20 to $35 per customer record. Potentially, 1,000 lost customers brought in through multi-channel marketing can result in a $20,000 to $30,000 service revenue gain.

Greg Hammond, DealerSocket product manager, provided the following information from DealerSocket's CallCenter, based on typical results from a campaign list of 1,000 customers in each category.

No Service X Months

• 100-120 leads (appointments/hot leads/call backs)

• Service Revenues $50,000 within six weeks

• Retention of 15%Vehicle Buyback (Equity)

• 80-100 leads (50 appointments, the rest call backs and hot leads)

• 8-10 sales within six weeksServiced Not Sold• 100-120 leads (70 appointments)

• 8-10 sales within six weeksSold Not Serviced

• 160 leads (53 appointments)

• 15-20% retention within six weeksDeclined Service

• 130 actionable leads generated (28 appointments)

• $85,000 in service revenue generated within 6 weeks

Remember that implementing non-sales DMS-mining into your dealership’s annual business practices during slow sales months works. Now get back on the floor and make some money!

Hunter Swift is the Manager of Market Development at DealerSocket and has been with the company since 2005. In addition to his current role he has fulfilled the responsibilities of customer support, consulting, training, and sales. He specializes in helping dealerships improve processes through the use of CRM technology. Prior to DealerSocket he sold cars and is a graduate of Pepperdine University.

Follow him: @HunterSwift

This week I attended Digital Dealer (sigh!), the exhibitor room was full of vendors selling all types of technology.  I counted at least 7 booths that offer a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Tool.  As dealers visited each booth I noticed they were often comparing the different features each vendor provided.  One thing that stood out to me is for the most part all CRM companies offer the same type of technology.  They all allow you to input customers, receive leads, automate marketing campaigns, and reporting.  It is important that the technology isn’t the only thing that you are looking at.

Technology should enable processes.  Consistent processes create consistent business.

One of the ways to enable process is through the automation of business rules designed to target specific groups of people.  If the data is there, the technology should be able to enable processes like:

A customer life cycle (customer for life)
Finance termination
Extended warranty
We want your trade
Declined services
Aftermarket accessories
Customers in equity
Bought elsewhere, service introduction
High customer pay RO to new vehicle
Future model introduction
Lead escalation
Sales notification of a customer in service
And the list goes on…

This can also apply to the technology of Social Media.  Are you just using it or really using it to enable the processes?

Once you have the technology and the processes in place the last important part is the people.  I have seen time and time again where technology fails because either the people don’t use it or don’t know how to use it effectively.  Do you have the people to not only train you how to use and support the technology but also how to use the technology to enable the processes your dealership needs?

I am excited for the DrivingSales Executive Summit, where technology and innovation is discussed, something I hope dealers will use to enable more processes.

Your thoughts?

Hunter Swift is the Business Analyst at DealerSocket and specializes in Automotive/Dealership processes that help dealerships become more effective by maximizing their opportunity to improve all aspects of the sales cycle, including: driving traffic, marketing, proper sales, and demonstration techniques. He also specializes in helping dealerships increase their customer satisfaction, reduce their web-lead response times and to improve accountability. Follow Me: @HunterSwift

This week I attended Digital Dealer (sigh!), the exhibitor room was full of vendors selling all types of technology.  I counted at least 7 booths that offer a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Tool.  As dealers visited each booth I noticed they were often comparing the different features each vendor provided.  One thing that stood out to me is for the most part all CRM companies offer the same type of technology.  They all allow you to input customers, receive leads, automate marketing campaigns, and reporting.  It is important that the technology isn’t the only thing that you are looking at.

Technology should enable processes.  Consistent processes create consistent business.

One of the ways to enable process is through the automation of business rules designed to target specific groups of people.  If the data is there, the technology should be able to enable processes like:

A customer life cycle (customer for life)
Finance termination
Extended warranty
We want your trade
Declined services
Aftermarket accessories
Customers in equity
Bought elsewhere, service introduction
High customer pay RO to new vehicle
Future model introduction
Lead escalation
Sales notification of a customer in service
And the list goes on…

This can also apply to the technology of Social Media.  Are you just using it or really using it to enable the processes?

Once you have the technology and the processes in place the last important part is the people.  I have seen time and time again where technology fails because either the people don’t use it or don’t know how to use it effectively.  Do you have the people to not only train you how to use and support the technology but also how to use the technology to enable the processes your dealership needs?

I am excited for the DrivingSales Executive Summit, where technology and innovation is discussed, something I hope dealers will use to enable more processes.

Your thoughts?

Hunter Swift is the Business Analyst at DealerSocket and specializes in Automotive/Dealership processes that help dealerships become more effective by maximizing their opportunity to improve all aspects of the sales cycle, including: driving traffic, marketing, proper sales, and demonstration techniques. He also specializes in helping dealerships increase their customer satisfaction, reduce their web-lead response times and to improve accountability. Follow Me: @HunterSwift

The last 2 months have been crazy for me. Between work, school, and my wife and I having our second baby, I have been very busy.  Because of my busy schedule, it has caused me to work more “mobile” than ever before. Almost every email I have read or responded to was from my phone, please excuse the brevity and any typos if you received an email from me recently.

This week DealerSocket had its annual User Summit in Dana Point, California  The summit was a great opportunity for users of DealerSocket to come together and share best practices and also learn how to better use DealerSocket.  My presentation at the summit was about how dealerships can better use mobile.  I thought I would pass along some of the things I discussed.

When I began my session I asked the attendees to raise their phones, I was very pleased to see that almost everyone had a smart phone; thank goodness I didn’t see any “Jitter Bug” phones.  In my research, I was amazed that there are 5.3 billion mobile subscribers in the world.  That’s 77% of the world population.  We are even seeing a big shift with the use of mobile phones; in fact 1 in 4 households have a mobile phone, but no landline.

Mobile, it’s the device we all have, it’s always on, it’s always within an arm’s reach, and allows us to have instant access to everything on Google. It’s no surprise why mobile phones are popular; they seem to do everything as the tagline says, “there’s an app for that”.  The real benefit of mobile is the fact that it is the world’s first personal mass medium device.  Never before has one person had the power to broadcast something that has the potential of reaching the whole world. 

It is important that we understand how dealerships can use mobile.

Mobile Marketing:

1. Texting:  Although I am against bulk text messaging,  having your salespeople communicate to their customers via text has its advantages.  Text messages have a 98% open rate and for the customer who aren’t returning your calls this can be a good alternative.

2. Email:  We understand how important email marketing is but, do we understand that 70 million mobile users access email through their phone? That 35% of mobile users check their email first thing in the morning before they do anything else?  This makes you rethink when the best time to send out an email is. Other questions I ask myself are, are your emails mobile friendly?  Do they look good on a phone?  Does it encourage people to access mobile content?

3. Social Media:  35% of mobile users use Social Media on their phone.  Are you using Social Media for Marketing, Public Relations, Branding, Product Knowledge?  Is your Social Media content valuable for your customers or are you always selling?  Are you monitoring what others are saying about you?  I love to use HootSuite to monitor Twitter and Facebook.

Mobile Website:

Do you have a mobile website?  It should be a condensed version of your website. With 24/7 access to key information like contact info, directions, special, and inventory.  It should be a medium that converts visits to leads.

Mobile App:

Having something that your customers can save to their devices is critical, even if it is simply a shortcut to your mobile website.  Are you giving your customers an incentive to access your mobile content?

One example, DealerSocket recently came out with the “Customer Mobile Portal” that allows the dealership’s customers to have access to key information that is similar to what they would see on a mobile website, but with the ability to be integrated with your CRM (DealerSocket) to see their service history, set service appointments (Pushing in to the DMS), and appraise their vehicle.  The customers have access to your specials and inventory including images of the vehicles.  It links with your social media.  There is even a way to push announcements and marketing to the device.  The best part is that it works on all devices (iPhones, iPad, Androids, and BlackBerrys) and not does not need to be downloaded.

Here is a screenshot:

Mobile Dealer:

Is your dealership using mobile to assist in processes?  Are leads being sent to phones so salespeople know instantly when a lead has been received?  If they respond to the lead on their phone does it stop the clock?  Make sure if there are interactions with the customer on the phone that info gets back into the CRM.  Do your salespeople have access to your inventory from their phone?

These are all things that can help your dealership.  What are your thoughts?

Hunter Swift is the Business Analyst at DealerSocket and specializes in Automotive/Dealership processes that help dealerships become more effective by maximizing their opportunity to improve all aspects of the sales cycle, including: driving traffic, marketing, proper sales, and demonstration techniques. He also specializes in helping dealerships increase their customer satisfaction, reduce their web-lead response times and to improve accountability. Follow Me: @HunterSwift

The last 2 months have been crazy for me. Between work, school, and my wife and I having our second baby, I have been very busy.  Because of my busy schedule, it has caused me to work more “mobile” than ever before. Almost every email I have read or responded to was from my phone, please excuse the brevity and any typos if you received an email from me recently.

This week DealerSocket had its annual User Summit in Dana Point, California  The summit was a great opportunity for users of DealerSocket to come together and share best practices and also learn how to better use DealerSocket.  My presentation at the summit was about how dealerships can better use mobile.  I thought I would pass along some of the things I discussed.

When I began my session I asked the attendees to raise their phones, I was very pleased to see that almost everyone had a smart phone; thank goodness I didn’t see any “Jitter Bug” phones.  In my research, I was amazed that there are 5.3 billion mobile subscribers in the world.  That’s 77% of the world population.  We are even seeing a big shift with the use of mobile phones; in fact 1 in 4 households have a mobile phone, but no landline.

Mobile, it’s the device we all have, it’s always on, it’s always within an arm’s reach, and allows us to have instant access to everything on Google. It’s no surprise why mobile phones are popular; they seem to do everything as the tagline says, “there’s an app for that”.  The real benefit of mobile is the fact that it is the world’s first personal mass medium device.  Never before has one person had the power to broadcast something that has the potential of reaching the whole world. 

It is important that we understand how dealerships can use mobile.

Mobile Marketing:

1. Texting:  Although I am against bulk text messaging,  having your salespeople communicate to their customers via text has its advantages.  Text messages have a 98% open rate and for the customer who aren’t returning your calls this can be a good alternative.

2. Email:  We understand how important email marketing is but, do we understand that 70 million mobile users access email through their phone? That 35% of mobile users check their email first thing in the morning before they do anything else?  This makes you rethink when the best time to send out an email is. Other questions I ask myself are, are your emails mobile friendly?  Do they look good on a phone?  Does it encourage people to access mobile content?

3. Social Media:  35% of mobile users use Social Media on their phone.  Are you using Social Media for Marketing, Public Relations, Branding, Product Knowledge?  Is your Social Media content valuable for your customers or are you always selling?  Are you monitoring what others are saying about you?  I love to use HootSuite to monitor Twitter and Facebook.

Mobile Website:

Do you have a mobile website?  It should be a condensed version of your website. With 24/7 access to key information like contact info, directions, special, and inventory.  It should be a medium that converts visits to leads.

Mobile App:

Having something that your customers can save to their devices is critical, even if it is simply a shortcut to your mobile website.  Are you giving your customers an incentive to access your mobile content?

One example, DealerSocket recently came out with the “Customer Mobile Portal” that allows the dealership’s customers to have access to key information that is similar to what they would see on a mobile website, but with the ability to be integrated with your CRM (DealerSocket) to see their service history, set service appointments (Pushing in to the DMS), and appraise their vehicle.  The customers have access to your specials and inventory including images of the vehicles.  It links with your social media.  There is even a way to push announcements and marketing to the device.  The best part is that it works on all devices (iPhones, iPad, Androids, and BlackBerrys) and not does not need to be downloaded.

Here is a screenshot:

Mobile Dealer:

Is your dealership using mobile to assist in processes?  Are leads being sent to phones so salespeople know instantly when a lead has been received?  If they respond to the lead on their phone does it stop the clock?  Make sure if there are interactions with the customer on the phone that info gets back into the CRM.  Do your salespeople have access to your inventory from their phone?

These are all things that can help your dealership.  What are your thoughts?

Hunter Swift is the Business Analyst at DealerSocket and specializes in Automotive/Dealership processes that help dealerships become more effective by maximizing their opportunity to improve all aspects of the sales cycle, including: driving traffic, marketing, proper sales, and demonstration techniques. He also specializes in helping dealerships increase their customer satisfaction, reduce their web-lead response times and to improve accountability. Follow Me: @HunterSwift

I had to call a dealership recently about servicing my wife’s vehicle.  At 9:00 am I called the dealership’s main number and the phone rang eight times before it went to voicemail.  I called back and the same thing happened.  I needed an answer right away so I didn’t leave a message and called another dealership that was able to help me.

I understand that the receptionist may have been busy, but this got me to think:

• How many calls does your dealership miss a day?
   
• Does the customer end up calling other dealerships as well?
   
• What do you have in place to insure that you don’t miss phone calls?

One way to fix this issue is to integrate an inbound Call Center.  Majority of dealerships wouldn’t want all of their inbound calls to go to a Call Center, most people think that Call Centers are for prospecting but, what about just the phone calls that don’t get answered?

If all of your calls get answered that’s great, but even if it is just one call a day or even once or twice a week, why not have a safety net or back stop in place, just in case?

If I was able to get someone on the phone to take my message and ensure me that someone would call me back, I would not have gone to another dealership.

What are your thoughts?

I had to call a dealership recently about servicing my wife’s vehicle.  At 9:00 am I called the dealership’s main number and the phone rang eight times before it went to voicemail.  I called back and the same thing happened.  I needed an answer right away so I didn’t leave a message and called another dealership that was able to help me.

I understand that the receptionist may have been busy, but this got me to think:

• How many calls does your dealership miss a day?
   
• Does the customer end up calling other dealerships as well?
   
• What do you have in place to insure that you don’t miss phone calls?

One way to fix this issue is to integrate an inbound Call Center.  Majority of dealerships wouldn’t want all of their inbound calls to go to a Call Center, most people think that Call Centers are for prospecting but, what about just the phone calls that don’t get answered?

If all of your calls get answered that’s great, but even if it is just one call a day or even once or twice a week, why not have a safety net or back stop in place, just in case?

If I was able to get someone on the phone to take my message and ensure me that someone would call me back, I would not have gone to another dealership.

What are your thoughts?