I am not a car salesman so I can't speak to everything you guys go through. However, because we sell dealership improvement software, I have done a ton of research on the subject. I don't think dealers ignore it but struggle to see something that they cannot touch. When a guy walks in with the paper underneath his arm and says, "Hey, you still have this one?". Uhh.....Ok, I can see that. Internet leads, however, can often be junk so the dealers cringe at the money spent. People sending in false emails, numbers, names, etc. so that they can just see how much a car is or what a payment might be. What the dealers fail to see is how many magazines and newspapers are thrown in the trash or even worse, never bought. The reality though is that you have to have a good online presence in today's world. How many newspaper companies have already closed their doors? How many of us stare at our cell phones all day long? Think about how many companies are selling cars WITHOUT ever even seeing their customers. This is why we help build a dealership community with our customers and focus on organic leads. 30% of customers drive 80% of revenues. In order to grow, I have to keep the ones I have and turn more customers into that 30%. You have to give them a reason to go to your website Lose the fluff and keep the good stuff! Lastly, it sounds as though your leadership team is under a heavy amount of pressure to get a "win". I guess I would try and understand what constitutes a good lead and why they believe so. CRMs are already cluttered with fictitious data......why add more blah?

We implemented a customer survey for buyers to be done at the delivery, and filled out by the customer exclusively (not the salesperson!) Among the questions is, what brought to our dealership, with multiple choices for our leading lead sources including websites,autotrader, google search, print, etc. The next question is what websites did you use to research your purchase? You'd be amazed at how the responses differ from what the salesperson reported!

Lezlie gathering that data on where the leads come from is a great idea! It is very good that you are using it at delivery and filled out by the customer as well, that way it doesn't pass through the filter of the salespeople who unfortunately sometimes don't see the value in knowing what is bringing in the customers.

I just feel that the sales front and marketing department are at a disconnect. Sales people after a deal are too euphoric to think about how putting in a source properly can generate more business for them and the dealer. I think that there needs to be a clearer way for those invested in driving online traffic to track the data. Asking sales or any other department to do it is just lazy. I do not believe that people are coming in without looking online at all. I feel that if the skew in data was corrected we would find that online sales/ e-commerce to be a lot more profitable then what the perception leads us to believe. Any software vendors want to come up to the plate? :D

Call the people at VinSolutions and ask for Craig Simpson - share your concerns with him and give him a chance to tell you what their CRM truly CAN do for a dealership. Sounds also Raphael as though you guys may need to try something that MOST Dealerships fear the most --- admit that you need help, and then actually look outside FOR that help. I've been at countless dealerships where "upstairs" (marketing) and "the floor" (sales) simply DO NOT talk to one another (and let's not even get STARTED about Service and Sales not interacting). I think there is plenty of discussion and articles available online from the past say....TEN years or so of talk about this current "Industry Shift" for you to arm yourself with and go straight to the top people at your Organization and say "hey guys - we need to have a chat...one that MANY Dealerships are having...and here's some help to get us started".

Raphael, you are right, almost everyone will do some kind of looking online before they come to your dealership, and you are also right that a lot of dealers still have not embraced the idea of the internet shopper. It seems that a lot of dealerships are in reaction mode rather than being proactive to capitalize on the great opportunities that the internet can bring. You are also correct that a lot of times sales people are too complacent to enter the right data into the system, and they also may want to feel like they did the work to get the sale rather than the internet dept. The fact is that most people do shop online but very few actually submit a lead which makes it very tough to track. It's too bad people don't have their IP address floating above their head so we could know if they looked at the site before getting there.

Most of your customers are coming in from your online presence. The days of print/radio and TV are dying very quickly. Look up the Google Automotive Shopping study from 2 years ago and then read the current one. The online sources that people use to research cars during their purchase process went from 18 to 24 in just 2 years. That is a big jump as to how people research cars during their process. Not only do they look at 3rd party providers ie Autotrader, Cars.com, et al, but they are looking to online reputation and social media as well. If you don't have a strong presence online you are missing out. In regards to a separate CRM for internet leads, no need to have another system to log into to manage the data. Any good CRM will give you the ability to separate Internet, Phone and walk in traffic. Look at them individually and as a whole when measuring ROI. Hope this helps. If you have any questions I'd be happy to help. Adam Denault

Great question. I agree with the commenters here that you should be using one CRM so all of the history is in one place. Love Lezlie's suggestion here about the post visit follow up survey call. I think part of this is a training issue with the floor or with the sales managers not holding the floor accountable for obtaining good source info. A second system with silo-ed data does not help the dealership put a complete picture of their marketing efforts together. If better sourcing were being done, then there wouldn't be the need to spend extra money on a redundant system. Make sure that better sourcing is being done.

Google Analytics (when set up correctly) will give you the exact permitters around goal conversions. No data input, no questions. This would solve Raphael's entire problem with tracking Internet leads. Now, the problem with digital buy in across management is a whole other can of worms that deserves an entire blog post. Thanks for my next topic idea :)