How do you structure your Internet Department?

• Sales agents who handle leads
• BDC
• Internet Sales Managers
• Internet Sales Coordinators
• Appointment Setters
• Out-sourced

There are a great number of ways to do it, but before we talk about the nuts and bolts there are quite a few of us who owe our jobs to our traditional sales staff.

The ideal scenario is for a customer, who submits an Internet lead, to work with the same sales agent they are going to buy their car from.  If that’s ideal, why do we even have an “Internet Department”?  You can take a look at an older article about Why We Suck or you can agree with me that for the majority of sales staffs there is a predominate culture of “I’ll wait for a customer to show up before I ever try to generate my own customer.”

Because the majority of sales agents don’t want to answer a ringing phone, don’t want to call a customer back, and certainly don’t want to respond to someone’s Internet quote request we end up with an “Internet Department”.

I have heard all sorts of theories on personalities and even more excuses directly from sales agents themselves, but at the end of the day I have learned I will lose the battle of trying to force a sales staff to “get it”.  So why not play to their strength:  working a customer in person.  It is what they want to do anyway.  You do this by staffing a BDC with appointment setters who are solely there to put customers in front of our sales agents – win win!  And then the Internet folks get to thank their sales agents’ for not wanting to fully do their job because they’ve provided us with a fantastic career!  The loser is the dealer principle.

How do we play to everyone’s strengths and make the dealer principle a winner again?

It is done through CRM.  With a CRM that allows a customer to work with multiple dealership employees you can now create process that plays to each person’s strengths.  The dealership’s CRM architect is a coach with a playbook who is going to write plays for your offensive and defensive lines.  This person knows what motivates both the Internet Department and the traditional sales floor.  This person may even know how to incorporate your special teams into the mix (service, parts, bodyshop).  The goal is to win a customer….for life.

Ladies and Gentlemen, a CRM architect is the sniper rifle you shoot your silver bullets through.

Your CRM architect can program your dealership process to make long passes or multiple hand-offs depending on the direction a customer goes.  This person is part of the dealership staff because your process needs to be fluid and ever-evolving.  Of course, this person is going to want a say in how your Internet Department is setup, but I bet this person is going to want something that allows a lot of fluidity and a team effort with your sales floor.  Through this person, all the nuts and bolts come together.

Am I speaking Greek right now?  If so, please let me know because I am more than happy to answer your questions.  This is a very long and big topic that spawns all sorts of considerations.  But, doing CRM right could be the single greatest thing you do for your dealership this year.  And a key element to that is finding a CRM architect who “gets it” and owns it.

My last question:  Do you have a CRM Architect?

P.S.  Bet this isn’t the ending you were expecting when you started reading this article.

Internet Department vs. Floor Sales Staff is a post from: Car Dealer Internet Sales

Why hasn’t this CRM stuff helped me sell any more cars?

The answer is – it has! However, there are reasons why this question is being asked in the first place:

1. Redundant Dealership Processes
2. Too many customers
3. Too many CRM’s/systems

These three things work together to destroy a dealership employee’s ability to buy into CRM.

I am very fortunate to have access to someone who I regard as “Mr. Dealership Process” who works for a CRM company and travels around the country. He is also a good friend who has helped me with all my CRM questions over the past few years. He asked to remain anonymous in this article, but I have to credit him with helping me write the rest of this.

1.  What does a CRM really do?

Technically it is a Contact/Customer Relationship Management tool, but we don’t use it that way.  We use CRM as a tool to capture and move “data”.  We rarely think of that data for what it really is; a live person that could potentially become a customer in the future. Instead all we want to do is make them disappear  because we get sick of seeing their names on our screens. However, real CRM power comes in the form of what it creates for the future. The Future….Yeah, the really bad F word in our vocabulary.  Unless we’re executives, we’re not thinking too much about the future. We’re in it for Now, Now, Now! Even managers and owners condition sales people to focus on NOW. Successful, veteran, sales people will tell you the real magic of sales is repeat and referral business that comes after 3-4 years of constant follow-up that cultivates a database or “live person base” without fail.

Pair a now culture (read Why We Suck) with something that makes us move into a planning culture and we’re doing battle.  Call it Old School vs. New School if you like.

2.  What does a CRM rely on?

The phone. For the vast majority of dealerships phone training is either a 30 minute Saturday morning meeting or a very expensive “trainer” from the outside. And when we were trained by our managers, in the dealership, it was mostly about what to do when the customer is at your desk, not about what to say on the phone or in an email. CRM works to get a customer to your desk where you are at your best. It does little for you when the customer is actually there.

If you get better on the phone, CRM will help you sell more cars. Plowing through the calls each day that are scheduled in the CRM by just clicking buttons will not help you sell more cars. You must work at your voicemail messages and appointment closing techniques each day if you want to achieve incremental sales success in the future.

3.  Creating Process

CRM makes us build process. We have to plan ahead for all those follow-ups we’re going to place on our staff. Does it make sense to “set it and forget it” when it comes to your follow-up processes?  This should be one of the biggest focuses your dealership has because this is where the rubber meets the road. Remember to put your best people on your biggest opportunity.

This is where buy-in comes from the strongest. Make sure each opportunity that is scheduled in the CRM adds value to the user. One of the biggest reasons sales people and managers don’t completely buy-in is due to the fact that scheduled CRM follow-ups are redundant or meaningless opportunities based on the current status of the customer.

Make sure that the decision makers, in your company, interview top performing sales people at least once a year to better understand what is working and not in regards to your follow-up processes. This will help make sure your organization is keeping pace with your staff’s experience levels and customer trends.

This is how you fix the two items I mentioned at the beginning of this article: 1. Redundant Dealership Process and 2. Too Many Customers on daily follow-up. It will dramatically affect overall dealership buy-in to the CRM.

Instead of thinking about it as how can this help me now, also think about it as how can this help me 3 years from now.

4.  Too Many Systems

If you have an ILM and a CRM, consolidate! There are way too many options on the market to continue to make some of your staff work out of multiple systems. There are even CRM companies that offer inventory support, service writing, penciling, and the list goes on and on. If your sales managers are working out of more than 3 systems (CRM, Inventory, Used Car Pricing, ILM, Penciling, OEM System, etc) it is time to re-look at what you’ve got.

With too many systems, you cannot expect someone to handle all perfectly. It’s tough to expect your managers to inspect what you expect if they have to login, learn, and master multiple systems; which is what it takes to hold the sales staff accountable.

5.  Expectations

What do you want your technology to do for you?  Did I mention process yet?  Did I mention planning for the future?

Okay, you want your technology and employees to sell more cars, but how do you want them to do it? There are some very simple questions you need to think through. How do you want a sales agent to bring a deal to a manager? At what point does a vehicle going through reconditioning get too old in the reconditioning process?  Have you addressed these basic things, and if so, how do you implement your wants into your CRM?

Here are few best practice “Expectations” to move your CRM effort to the next level:

1. All customers logged into CRM and no deals started without a worksheet printed from the system.
2. Managers will take turns reviewing CRM challenges and re-training the staff during each weekly sales meeting for at least 90 days. This practice will help advance the aptitude and overall adoption of the system)
3. All salespeople are required to touch the manager’s desk at the end of each shift to ensure that at least 10 quality out bound opportunity calls are completed.
4. All salespeople are required to ask for a preferred email address on each new customer. Any salesperson with an email penetration rate below 50% on Walk-In customers will be subject to immediate review.
5. All Appointments listed in the CRM must be confirmed by a sales manager before 11:00a each day. (Is the customer actually coming and a second voice/face for the customer that is someone that can “Make the Decision”.)
6. Any salesperson that fails to schedule at least two appointments per week from opportunity calls will be subject to an immediate manager review and phone technique critique.
7. Salespeople caught moving opportunity calls for a customer out more than 21 days without cause in notes will be subject to the following:  a. First Offense (re-train) and b. Second Offense (verbal/written warning).

Question yourself.  Question your people.  Let your people question you.  Discover your expectations; put them in writing, post them in high traffic areas of your dealership, and then put them to work.

Conclusion

If you just skipped any of the 5 points, and just skimmed down to this conclusion, then you’re short-changing yourself. I bet there is something for you in each point that can be immediately applied at your dealership.

CRM, like sales, is simply a numbers game. The more customers you talk to, and the more appointments you set, the more you will sell. However, the numbers are playing against us these days.  The Up Bus isn’t rolling up anymore. So, is it time to strategically think about your process from soup to nuts and make your technologies work to your process expectations? Instead of just playing the numbers, set your staff up for quality too. But be careful not to overburden them further.

Why hasn’t CRM sold me more cars? is a post from: Car Dealer Internet Sales

When changing CRM or ILM companies, you have to change your Internet lead address.  It is a seriously major pain in the ass if you have a lot of lead providers (OEM’s, third-party, freebies, classified sites, your own site, etc.).  If you’ve made a change, did you forget a lead provider?  Did you remember to inform CarFax, Vast, Google Base, or one of those other sites that you don’t pay directly for leads?

I have a suggestion that will make this change only take 5 minutes and open up many more opportunities for your leads:

Make 1 email address that is salesleads@yourdealershipname.com and have all your lead providers send to that address.

Do the same for your other profit centers:  serviceleads@yourdealershipname.com, partsleads@yourdealershipname.com, etc.  Then you control where things forward to off those addresses.  If you ever make another CRM or ILM change, then you’re just changing the forwarding address instead of having to contact all your lead providers.

Some other benefits of controlling your lead delivery address:

1.  You can have backup systems in place
I have all of our leads sent to each member of our BDC, the ILM tool available in our website’s backend, and to our CRM.  If the CRM is lagging on showing the lead, the BDC knows about it immediately.  If something crashes with our CRM, we can still respond to leads through the ILM in our website’s backend.  And I can quickly check to see that all leads are always coming into the CRM.  After being on numerous different CRM & ILM products, I’ve learned that lead forwarding for backup purposes is absolutely crucial.

2.  Lead Analytics
If you ever hire a company to grade or build reports around your leads, you can just add that company to your email distribution rules without having to have your CRM or ILM company set it all up.  This is more of a convenience.

3.  Reporting Systems
If you’re like me, you can’t always trust the CRM reports because your staff is working in the CRM; tainting the data.  Let’s face it, you’re never going to get an entire staff of sales people to understand why they should enter data and update data appropriately in the CRM.  Because there is a human “taint” to the data, I have to use an outside system to get accurate reporting on certain things.  Again, this is just another way to quickly and easily control where your leads are going.  Your reporting system can also work as your backup communication product.  In our case, we use an ILM.

4.  Never losing Leads again!
If you always use the same email address for where your leads are going, you never have to worry about whether you’re missing leads (unless the lead provider just isn’t sending – that’s a separate issue).  This is especially good when you do a lot of free trials or submit your company for various endeavors.

Each CRM/ILM is a little different and none are perfect.  When you control your lead routing, then you have the peace of mind to know you can catch issues quickly and not miss any business.  Just remember to use your new lead routing address forever, and get it to ALL your lead sources.

<< Example of Checkered Flag’s Lead-routing setup

I know of quite a few dealerships who already practice this, but if you don’t feel free to ask any questions and I’ll do my best to answer them.

How is your dealership setup for Lead Routing?

Are you getting all your Internet Leads? is a post from: Car Dealer Internet Sales

Here is a question I get a lot…

“Do you have a few Lead Management Tools that you can provide
to me off the top of your head?”

or

“My dealer currently doesn’t have a full CRM but I need an ILM to work my Internet leads. Do you know of any affordable ($200-400.00 a month) Internet Lead Management tool available?”

Maybe I’m lost but I too have to ask “where are all the affordable ILM tools“? For many Internet sales representative having an affordable ILM tool is vital. Believe it or not, there are a lot of dealers that still do not have a full fledge Customer Relation Manager (CRM) tool and as you know, many of the CRM’s have ILM features but are more of an after thought and lack what you really need.

Most of us have used or are still using either AVV Webcontrol or Cobalts LMCC. These 2 ILM tools used to be the only options available for dealers. Then after the initial offering from AVV and Cobalt, a few more ILM tools that cropped up.

iMagiclabs (then known as icarconnect) had a top shelf ILM tool that I believe eventually evolved into their full CRM. eLead also had an Internet lead management system that was quit robust but this too turned into a full CRM. Both of these vendors I believe still offer their ILM product as an a la carte but I’m not 100% sure anymore.

Since I get this question a lot, AND since I too have sort of lost touch with all the different ILM tools available, lets get a list going. I’ll start off with the ones that I know..

1. Cobalt LMCC
2. AVV Webcontrol
3. iMagicLab ILM
4. MLM Dealer Sight
5. Dealerpeak E-Lead Manager
6. Dealer.com LeadMachine
7. AutoJocky Lead Manager
8. NetTrack Lead Management
9. VinSolutions MotoSnap ILM
10. CAR-Research

If you know of or are using an Internet Lead Management program that’s affordable and a good fit for dealers looking for a lead management tool for a 1 person or small Internet sales department, SPEAK UP!! Let us know what you think and what you’re paying.

If you’re a vendor and you offer an ILM solution…let us know what you offer. Feel free to include your features and pricing. I’ll be sure to add your link to this post.

Internet Lead Manager (ILM) Tools, where are they? is a post from: Car Dealer Internet Sales

One of the toughest jobs these days is picking the right technology for the job, so we’re going to take a different approach with something called the “Blueprint Series”.  The idea behind this series of articles is to tell our vendors what we want.  Hopefully they’ll take our ideas and put them into a product we can buy!

For the first Blueprint Series we’re focusing on automotive CRM solutions.  ADP, Reynolds & Reynolds, AutoBase, HigherGear, iMagicLabs, DealerSocket, eLeads, and all other CRM vendors please pay attention…but please do not come in here with comments saying “we do that”, “I am the solution for you”, etc.  WE DO NOT WANT VENDOR SPAMMING IN THIS THREAD.  If you have a selling message, please email Alex Snyder:  axsnyder@checkeredflag.com and he will point you in the right direction.

Dealer Refresh crowd – here’s your chance to put all your wishes on the table!  Please use the comments link to add your thoughts.

Starting with Alex’s first CRM wish:  Coming from a dealer group with competing franchises all on the same stretch of road we are prone for duplicate leads.  I’d like to have a single customer base, inside our CRM solution, that allows for a separate salesperson, salesmanager, BDC agent, service writer, service manager, etc to be attached to a single customer record for each store.  I’d also like vehicles of interest and vehicles owned to be unlimited for each customer record.

My Honda and Toyota stores are less than a mile apart, so I’d like to have a customer be able to have an interest in the Accord and the Camry….and have a different salesperson for each car.  I’d like to be able to send marketing messages on both the Camry and the Accord to that customer.

Yes, I understand this could get messy in the database, so we’ll have to figure out a way to clean things up.  However, I’d rather have my CRM cater to the real world than have to make the real world cater to the CRM.

Blueprint Series: Automotive CRM Solutions is a post from: Car Dealer Internet Sales

"Our dealer is considering Higher Gear group and Autobase for our sales and service CRM program. Can you provide some insight to the pros and cons of each of these two CRM providers?".

These 2 CRM’s are frequently compared to each other. Both are server based and many dealers like the idea of having their CRM and customer information "in house" rather to the web based CRM programs.

It’s been awhile since I’ve used Autobase and it’s been over a year since I booted Higher Gear out of my current dealer. Therefore it’s not really fair for me to compare the 2 since I’m sure both have made changes and hopefully improvements since I have last used them.

I know there are a lot of readers using either Higher Gear or Autobase CRM and if you are one of those readers. Why not share some of your personal pros and cons for each CRM provider?

Share your pros and cons…

Autobase CRM VS Higher Gear CRM is a post from: Car Dealer Internet Sales

Two things have come up this week, which are major concerns for me. One deals with the two big DMS providers: Reynolds & Reynolds and ADP. The second is something I heard about Toyota. We all know privacy laws have become more stringent than ever and continually evolve to encapsulate wider venues almost daily. It was simply a matter of time before the DMS providers had to jump on the privacy band-wagon by creating their own set of requirements.  This should be nothing new for a Reynolds & Reynolds dealer. Mostly this will affect third-party vendors. As an ADP dealer I am beginning to become familiar with their upcoming process. It seems as though they are offering vendors two steps: 1) The vendor has to purchase an API to gain DMS access (about $80,000) and 2) become certified through ADP (about an 18 month process…currently). Fortunately, dealers will be able to send out some information to vendors, but the more DMS information a vendor interacts with the harder it will be for that organization. I foresee the next few years being difficult in working with DMS information and vendors. We will have a short list of approved vendors to choose from.

To further shorten that list is the second part: our manufacturers. This part fully comes from the rumor-mill, but I heard Toyota is considering a new mandate. The mandate will require dealers to only use approved CRM/ILM vendors. This will be more stringent than what Honda currently does. Honda only wants to monitor certain areas of how Internet leads are handled, so they require a dealer to use a pre-approved list of vendors or offer dealers to pull leads through their own Honda Interactive Network. From what I heard about Toyota, they are considering only passing leads to dealers who use one of their pre-approved CRM/ILM vendors, and not offering any other alternatives to access Toyota leads. Speculation on the rumor vine, also states Toyota will take things even further by requiring the whole dealership use one of these vendors. Toyota is interested in not only how Internet leads are handled, but showroom traffic as well. Typically Toyota sets the franchise premises, so it is only a matter of time before other OEM’s move in the same direction.

If speculation becomes fact, this could mean dealers have an extremely short list of vendors to choose from. And dealer groups could be even more limited as one manufacturer requires a particular CRM/ILM that another manufacturer may not.

Can you see what a mess all of this could put all of us in?

P.S. One more time, this is purely speculation from the rumor-mill. I mention it on DealerRefresh to give everyone a heads-up on a potentially difficult future.

Speculation on the future – somewhat frightening is a post from: Car Dealer Internet Sales

1. Lack of strong ILM utilities – Most CRM software fail to include a strong ILM (internet lead management) utility.
2. Workflow never works right -€“ when I say “€œworkflow”€ I mean your pre-determined automatic scheduled follow-up that you set up in your CRM tool. This might be a scheduled phone call on day 1, 3, 5 etc. or
   scheduled emails and/or letters. I have yet to find a CRM that is able to change its follow-up on the fly according to where a sales person determines what phase the customer is in.
3. Sold deals get LOCKED – If your CRM updates your Sold customers by pulling from your DMS, many CRM’€™s “€œlock”€ the Sold opportunity, making it impossible to make necessary changes to the customer or vehicle information.For example; you title the car in the business or company name and this overwrites the customer’s name that you have entered into your CRM. Now your “after sold” follow up letters are addressed to the business name rather the customer. Another example; a front end or back end gross changes but the CRM doesn’t  allow you to edit this since the opportunity has already been updated by the DMS.
4. They allow dealers to SPAM! – Yes..it’€™s SPAM. If you’re using your CRM to broadcast email specials to customers that inquired about a vehicle from your website or a 3rd party lead you bought from Dealix, AutoUSA, Cars.com, etc. and they have not opt-in for your specials email, you ARE SPAMMING! Remember, SPAM is the customer perception. (I’€™ll write more about this later).
5. Too much maintenance – You almost need a full time person to handle the administrative duties and the phone calls to tech support.

I could go on with another 5-10 more reason why I hate most CRM’s software. I’€™ll keep that for another continued post someday.

5 Reasons Why I Hate CRM Software for Car Dealers. is a post from: Car Dealer Internet Sales

Fill myself and other readers in with the good and the bad.

• What features do you like and/or dislike?
• How would you rate their customer service?
• What ongoing issues have you had with ADP web CRM?
• How strong are the Internet Lead Management features?
• Would you recommend their CRM and Desking tool to other dealers?

Whatever information you would like to share would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance to anyone that has some information to share.

Share your comments.

ADP web CRM Software – Who’s using it? is a post from: Car Dealer Internet Sales

Are you a Mercedes-Benz BDC Manager?

If so, I have put together an exclusive website just for us!

MercedesCRM.com – this is where you can go to voice your opinions and share your comments about the “Mercedes Qualified” CRM Vendors that Mercedes-Benz USA allowed you to choose from and are now currently using.

I took it upon myself to put this site together after attending the MB-BDC meeting in Philly. While I was there, someone had suggested that Managers should be supplied a list of dealers corresponding to each CRM Vendor. This would allow the Mercedes BDC Managers the ability to Network and “Team Up” with other Mercedes BDC Managers in order to help get enhancements features added or changed to their CRM Software. I thought it was a great idea! (if that person ever reads this..please send me an email!).

So, IF you are indeed a Mercedes BDC Manager, please visit MercedesCRM.com or link directly to your corresponding CRM Software Vendor page below.

• Higher Gear CRM
• UDC – Universal Dealer Consultants
• ADP web CRM
• Reynolds & Reynolds Contact Management
• AutoBase CRM
• NCompass CRM
• Elead CRM
• ReckonUp CRM

If you are not a Mercedes BDC manager but are using one of the mentioned CRM Vendors, please feel free to express your comments as well.

Mercedes-Benz BDC Managers.. is a post from: Car Dealer Internet Sales