It's frustrating because dealerships are spending tons of money on tools that provide bogus leads or are buying them from companies that purchase them from non-credible sources. Crap in, you're going to get crap out...

Great stuff! A good CRM is no longer an option if you want to truly gauge your success rates, mine your current data base for previous customers that are again in the market and capture new business. All customers are not loyal.

Very true and extremely well written Godfather. It's true, you don't need CRM to sell cars... TO THE 5% THAT ARE GOING TO SAY "YES" AND CLOSE ON THE FIRST VISIT, ON THE FIRST PENCIL. However, for the other 90% of your opportunities and the bulk for which you invest ad dollars, you need CRM.

Oh, and "I just want to sell cars boss, I'm using your system..." Hahahahahaha classic.

Well written Mark. This seems like a never ending topic that should just be common sense at this point. One thing I'm surprised CRM's and lead providers haven't expanded on that I think would help solve the problem Alexander Lau mentioned is a more robust profile on leads. Personally, I believe any customer who has engaged with your advertising/marketing is valuable . Many times dealers fall short here as they don't acquire or retain enough of the right information to understand when and how to capitalize on that value. Look across other industries and there is massive amounts of lead scoring and segmentation going on but just a few in automotive. I wouldn't be surprised to see this type of practice become more streamlined for faster extraction of more information from customers and streamlined to the sales rep through CRM's. Any thoughts?

Thanks Russ! Good points and, yes, these type of articles are warranted and dealerships should appreciate them, at least the decision makers.

The use of the CRM has to start from the top down. If the GM does not have buy-in and enforces it, then it will not be used. A method that has helped me get our GM's attention recently is simply ask them to think back to the years 2009 to 2010. If our industry ever hits that downturn again, and it will, how well you use the CRM today will help you through the next dip. Let's not wait until business gets bad again to put good habits in place.

Spot on Bill! I love taking that angle with your upper management. If there is anything that will resonate well it's definitely bringing up past times that were difficult. Utilizing your CRM as a preventative step towards surviving during tough times is valuable no matter how well your doing today.

Good points.. but most GM's have no clue how to properly use their CRM.

Good point Dennis, but the GM can sure drive the bus with his people to make sure it gets used properly. Actually, in our group some of our GM's are VERY CRM focused and use it daily.

Exactly Dennis! The biggest problem of all, are the silly-heads with absolutely no understanding of technology or how to follow-up properly with customers or potential customers. PROCESSES; stick with the PROCESSES!

Remember one of our cardinal rules "If It's Not In The CRM - it Didn't Happen!" soooo for example - if Salesperson A took an up on the lot a week ago, didn't enter the into the CRM, they come back today & don't mention their previous encounter with Salesperson A - and Salesperson B ups them - Salesperson A has ZERO right to the customers.

That great, Bill! You and I both know that is very rare.

Exactly Megan! No matter how much they cry in their Cheerios.

That's the key, the General Managers of the dealerships MUST use the CRM and be proficient at it. Dealerships need to eat, live, and breath from there CRM. Next to the DMS it's a heavy investment. When a GM doesn't use the CRM neither does anyone else. The sad thing is that GM's look at CRM as something to be used by the employee's. "That's why I have sales managers and a GSM". Dealerships who have a GM using the CRM are the ones growing.

I agree Mark. They are being proactive. There aren't many of those is the problem, but the ones who use it are exceptional leaders normally. As you all know, the CRM is a Gold Mine just sitting there waiting for miners.

I look at this 2 ways because I have been on both sides of the fence. Not saying there are any excuses out there for it not to be used. When i sold cars I used the heck out the CRM, When I was in media advertising I used the heck out the CRM and even when I was running my own little agency by myself I used the out of the little CRM I paid for (Nutshell in case you were wondering) My 1st opinion is this. The dealership CRM tools that are available have such a high barrier to entry. Understanding the functions, logic and reasoning that power them will often lead a person with my extensive technological background to find it cumbersome and sometimes annoying to navigate. If that's my experience then what's it like for someone with a fraction of my knowledge. Dealer CRM's are not easy, they are not agile and as a sales person I'd have a really tough time wanting to invest time, willpower and brain capacity to understanding the hypothetical situations of how this thing is supposed to pay me. You can't expect people to want to use a tool all day that in their mind is the equivalent of going to the DMV. The CRM's that I have used for dealerships lack all elements of logical predictability and lastly are completely void of design. It's almost as if UI/UX is still an after thought. It's scary how much my little bit of coding knowledge gets used daily inside of our CRM. Luckily i'm a total freakin nerd and spend my days off on code academy learning programming languages. I know, I know... NERD ALERT! My saving grace is that i've got cool hair... I think... Now my 2nd opinion: The CRM's that we bring into our dealerships have been put in place for a reason and that reason we all know is because we see the value. That being said the usage of a CRM has to become a non-negotiable flat out. Who cares if the GM or owner uses it or not. It doesn't matter. There should be no excuse why the "option" to use certain things is even up for negotiation. The guy at macy's doesn't get to choose if he uses the POS system at the counter to ring me up or not. It's simply not an option for him. CRM's along with DMS's are integrated into our organizations for a purpose. The purpose and reasons behind that, sit solely with and at the organizational level. That's it, enough said. There is not a single job out there that will allow you to not use the tools they provide and also allow you to keep your job. I can respect the opinion that success of the crm should sit upon the managers and that people will follow what the managers do. But I can't help but compare that to potty training a child. Because it seems like the same exact thing and we all know what the value of making it in the bowl is right. If you allow for exceptions than you should just get rid of it all together and let everyone do their business where ever and how ever and hope that the mess isn't to bad to clean up at the end of the month. Like I said before these are just my opinions but I really do think that the 2 reasons why people don't use CRM's is simply because they suck to use and we're all too soft and fearful to enforce it as a non negotiable. I've used amazing CRM's in other industries that are a fraction of the price and look and function exactly how they should. The dealership CRM has been forced to function and build in the directions more aligned with a DMS than a CRM and thats unfortunate because they should be and act differently. I blame us dealers for that one. I could be totally wrong in my opinions though. But, I do love that we are talking about this because to me, like all of you, this is a really important topic.

Chris, Rock and Roll!!!

Getting the right information into the CRM is a definite must in order to properly follow up with a client now and in the future. Keeping your CRM up to date is also a never ending task. Daily, weekly and monthly cleaning of "bad leads", vendor prospecting and incomplete "space-holder" entries are always on the list. It's a good practice to validate your email addresses as well with an outside source if you see your open rates dropping.

Talking about garbage in garbage out. If you look through your CRM and you see a customer with the first name of "RED" and last name of "SHIRT" then you have garbage. Without having a CRM campion/manager or holding your sales managers accountable to maintaining the DATA in CRM then you have garbage. Robert you said it right It is a never ending task to merge, monitor and maintain your data. These are your customers. You paid 500 to 700 to get that customer to interface with your salespeople. Don't you want to know what happened? If you are looking at your data everyday, you will be able to manage it better and eliminate most of the garbage.

It's frustrating because dealerships are spending tons of money on tools that provide bogus leads or are buying them from companies that purchase them from non-credible sources. Crap in, you're going to get crap out...

Great stuff! A good CRM is no longer an option if you want to truly gauge your success rates, mine your current data base for previous customers that are again in the market and capture new business. All customers are not loyal.

Very true and extremely well written Godfather. It's true, you don't need CRM to sell cars... TO THE 5% THAT ARE GOING TO SAY "YES" AND CLOSE ON THE FIRST VISIT, ON THE FIRST PENCIL. However, for the other 90% of your opportunities and the bulk for which you invest ad dollars, you need CRM.

Oh, and "I just want to sell cars boss, I'm using your system..." Hahahahahaha classic.

Well written Mark. This seems like a never ending topic that should just be common sense at this point. One thing I'm surprised CRM's and lead providers haven't expanded on that I think would help solve the problem Alexander Lau mentioned is a more robust profile on leads. Personally, I believe any customer who has engaged with your advertising/marketing is valuable . Many times dealers fall short here as they don't acquire or retain enough of the right information to understand when and how to capitalize on that value. Look across other industries and there is massive amounts of lead scoring and segmentation going on but just a few in automotive. I wouldn't be surprised to see this type of practice become more streamlined for faster extraction of more information from customers and streamlined to the sales rep through CRM's. Any thoughts?

Thanks Russ! Good points and, yes, these type of articles are warranted and dealerships should appreciate them, at least the decision makers.

The use of the CRM has to start from the top down. If the GM does not have buy-in and enforces it, then it will not be used. A method that has helped me get our GM's attention recently is simply ask them to think back to the years 2009 to 2010. If our industry ever hits that downturn again, and it will, how well you use the CRM today will help you through the next dip. Let's not wait until business gets bad again to put good habits in place.

Spot on Bill! I love taking that angle with your upper management. If there is anything that will resonate well it's definitely bringing up past times that were difficult. Utilizing your CRM as a preventative step towards surviving during tough times is valuable no matter how well your doing today.

Good points.. but most GM's have no clue how to properly use their CRM.

Good point Dennis, but the GM can sure drive the bus with his people to make sure it gets used properly. Actually, in our group some of our GM's are VERY CRM focused and use it daily.

Exactly Dennis! The biggest problem of all, are the silly-heads with absolutely no understanding of technology or how to follow-up properly with customers or potential customers. PROCESSES; stick with the PROCESSES!

Remember one of our cardinal rules "If It's Not In The CRM - it Didn't Happen!" soooo for example - if Salesperson A took an up on the lot a week ago, didn't enter the into the CRM, they come back today & don't mention their previous encounter with Salesperson A - and Salesperson B ups them - Salesperson A has ZERO right to the customers.

That great, Bill! You and I both know that is very rare.

Exactly Megan! No matter how much they cry in their Cheerios.

That's the key, the General Managers of the dealerships MUST use the CRM and be proficient at it. Dealerships need to eat, live, and breath from there CRM. Next to the DMS it's a heavy investment. When a GM doesn't use the CRM neither does anyone else. The sad thing is that GM's look at CRM as something to be used by the employee's. "That's why I have sales managers and a GSM". Dealerships who have a GM using the CRM are the ones growing.

I agree Mark. They are being proactive. There aren't many of those is the problem, but the ones who use it are exceptional leaders normally. As you all know, the CRM is a Gold Mine just sitting there waiting for miners.

I look at this 2 ways because I have been on both sides of the fence. Not saying there are any excuses out there for it not to be used. When i sold cars I used the heck out the CRM, When I was in media advertising I used the heck out the CRM and even when I was running my own little agency by myself I used the out of the little CRM I paid for (Nutshell in case you were wondering) My 1st opinion is this. The dealership CRM tools that are available have such a high barrier to entry. Understanding the functions, logic and reasoning that power them will often lead a person with my extensive technological background to find it cumbersome and sometimes annoying to navigate. If that's my experience then what's it like for someone with a fraction of my knowledge. Dealer CRM's are not easy, they are not agile and as a sales person I'd have a really tough time wanting to invest time, willpower and brain capacity to understanding the hypothetical situations of how this thing is supposed to pay me. You can't expect people to want to use a tool all day that in their mind is the equivalent of going to the DMV. The CRM's that I have used for dealerships lack all elements of logical predictability and lastly are completely void of design. It's almost as if UI/UX is still an after thought. It's scary how much my little bit of coding knowledge gets used daily inside of our CRM. Luckily i'm a total freakin nerd and spend my days off on code academy learning programming languages. I know, I know... NERD ALERT! My saving grace is that i've got cool hair... I think... Now my 2nd opinion: The CRM's that we bring into our dealerships have been put in place for a reason and that reason we all know is because we see the value. That being said the usage of a CRM has to become a non-negotiable flat out. Who cares if the GM or owner uses it or not. It doesn't matter. There should be no excuse why the "option" to use certain things is even up for negotiation. The guy at macy's doesn't get to choose if he uses the POS system at the counter to ring me up or not. It's simply not an option for him. CRM's along with DMS's are integrated into our organizations for a purpose. The purpose and reasons behind that, sit solely with and at the organizational level. That's it, enough said. There is not a single job out there that will allow you to not use the tools they provide and also allow you to keep your job. I can respect the opinion that success of the crm should sit upon the managers and that people will follow what the managers do. But I can't help but compare that to potty training a child. Because it seems like the same exact thing and we all know what the value of making it in the bowl is right. If you allow for exceptions than you should just get rid of it all together and let everyone do their business where ever and how ever and hope that the mess isn't to bad to clean up at the end of the month. Like I said before these are just my opinions but I really do think that the 2 reasons why people don't use CRM's is simply because they suck to use and we're all too soft and fearful to enforce it as a non negotiable. I've used amazing CRM's in other industries that are a fraction of the price and look and function exactly how they should. The dealership CRM has been forced to function and build in the directions more aligned with a DMS than a CRM and thats unfortunate because they should be and act differently. I blame us dealers for that one. I could be totally wrong in my opinions though. But, I do love that we are talking about this because to me, like all of you, this is a really important topic.

Chris, Rock and Roll!!!

Getting the right information into the CRM is a definite must in order to properly follow up with a client now and in the future. Keeping your CRM up to date is also a never ending task. Daily, weekly and monthly cleaning of "bad leads", vendor prospecting and incomplete "space-holder" entries are always on the list. It's a good practice to validate your email addresses as well with an outside source if you see your open rates dropping.

Talking about garbage in garbage out. If you look through your CRM and you see a customer with the first name of "RED" and last name of "SHIRT" then you have garbage. Without having a CRM campion/manager or holding your sales managers accountable to maintaining the DATA in CRM then you have garbage. Robert you said it right It is a never ending task to merge, monitor and maintain your data. These are your customers. You paid 500 to 700 to get that customer to interface with your salespeople. Don't you want to know what happened? If you are looking at your data everyday, you will be able to manage it better and eliminate most of the garbage.