Auto Dealer Monthly Magazine is the daily operations publication serving the retail automotive industry. This automotive publication serves dealer principals, officers and general managers with the latest best practices.
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industry expert / business development Five Take-aways from the CRM Convention Greg Wells has spent almost 25 years working in automo- tive retail, with specific expertise in business development centers and Internet sales. His work has been recognized nationally by NADA, and his in-dealership sales training experience has launched many successful selling careers for his students. Greg is a senior partner at Kain Automotive Inc. He can be reached at 859.983.0370. GWells@AutoDealerMonthly.com Vegas, I had a great feeling about it. I was encouraged to see so many dealers there to learn about one-thing: CRM solutions. I attended all of the workshops I could. Each session was well-attended, and the presenters had great content to share with their audiences. A It was also much-needed con- tent, and there was a lot to learn. Sorting through all the information I took in, I boiled it down to five things you should know when it comes to CRM, CRM solutions and the overall CRM strategy in your store. One, you need the education. As much as you try to keep things simple in your opera- tion, CRM can be complex. It is difficult to train your team and instill the discipline necessary to be really good at customer relationship management. Learning how to use your CRM tool is just the first step. Getting your team to use it correctly can be a bigger challenge. Your problem is your managers are analog but 36 fter leaving the first- ever CRM Convention, held last month in Las their business is digital, and they haven't come to terms with that. A couple of things need to happen. The CRM providers need to do a better job training you how to use their tools to accomplish your goals. On your end, you need a CRM champion and ongoing CRM training, benchmarks and that yucky word, accountability. Secondly, it's not CRM, it's CRM. CRM is not a thing, but a way of conducting business. Answer this question: "What is your CRM initiative?" If you named your CRM provider, you got it wrong. If you said it's how we manage the relationship with our cus- tomers, you got it right. CRM stands for customer relationship management (note: management). CRM is a management program. If you don't have a clear-cut strategy for managing the customers and prospects in your database, then your CRM solution is just going to help you wing it. Customer reten- tion, prospect conversion and your ability to be timely and relevant with both is critical to your initial and continued suc- cess. Your vendor offers a so- lution to execute that strategy. Thirdly, do your homework. When choosing a CRM solution or evaluating your current tool, you should be asking, "Can it do this?" in- stead of listening to your rep say, "Look what it can do." Really, have you ever seen a bad presentation? The CRM providers are pros at present- ing. But the demo should be about fulfilling your initiatives. Know what you want with your CRM strategy and make them show it to you in the context of their solution. Ask a lot of questions about DMS integration, live data, importing lists, personalizing marketing campaigns, inven- tory integration, mobile application, social integration, reporting and ongoing support and education. Next, dealers need to get seri- ous about CRM in their stores. When you think about CRM as a strategy and not a tool, you realize you are talking about your entire enterprise strategy. Because your game plan is centered on customer rela- tions, the CRM tool becomes the facilitator and your game plan is centered on customer relations in the true sense. Yet, I hear "I can't get my people to use it." A quick story: I have a cousin who is a regional sales man- ager at a national wireless company. We were talking shop, and I explained to him the problem of dealership em- ployees unaware of the CRM strategy or unwilling to use it. With his jaw agape, he told me if you worked for his company and didn't properly use their software, you no longer worked for his company. Can you hear me now? This is what I mean by getting serious. Stop letting the tail wag the dog. Connect CRM use to everyone's pay, and it will be handled. End of story. Lastly, everything is trackable. For years, we've been tracking stuff on our logs, Excel spread- sheets and dry-erase boards. It's fairly accurate data for sure, but also very limited. You need to keep evolving. I can remember using a Stuker box, then we evolved to Excel and, finally, a Web-based CRM solution. The data was limited because we were tracking only results and not behavior. Since results are the product of behavior, doesn't it make sense to track and measure behavior? Im- prove it, and you can improve your results. I really hope this helps you. I've always been passionate about CRM solutions because they can help accelerate your business, wow your customers and wean you off the spray-and-pray method of advertising.