| Carpe Diem - CRM |
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| Written by Jonathan Ord |
| Wednesday, 06 August 2008 10:50 |
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Now is an excellent time for dealerships to save money and gain market. Take a look at these three simple steps and discover how easily you can use your CRM to save money and run your dealership more efficiently
: 1) Consolidate tools and staff. Make better use of your existing resources. With an effective CRM tool, dealerships can consolidate different positions, such as the Internet department and the BDC. 2) Reduce employee churn. Utilize the employee snapshot and reporting functions of your CRM’s Manager’s Dashboard to quickly assess employee performance. Identify and reward top performers and retrain (or eliminate) non-performers. 3) Know what marketing works. Eliminate unproductive marketing spend and refocus those dollars on what works. “We save $30,000 per month in marketing expenses because of our CRM,” explains Ron Young of Connell Nissan. “Knowing what works and what doesn’t enables us to strategically target both our marketing efforts and dollars to achieve maximum ROI.” Brian Crane is executive manager at Ken Garff Automotive, a busy dealership in Ogden, Utah. After using their current CRM solution for approximately two years, Crane reports that it has made big difference in their business. “I estimate that I save about $4,000 in media spend every weekend by leveraging our CRM,” notes Crane. “Often the OEM incentives arrive too late in the week to make it into our TV, radio, and print ads, but with our CRM, I can still get those promotions out to my customers through email. I don’t have to run a special ad either, which in itself saves me thousands of dollars and I still drive traffic to my lot.” Mr. Crane identifies overhead as an additional area where CRM consistently saves his dealership money. “Another great thing is that it allows me to consolidate my staff and reduce overhead,” explains Crane. “Using a single CRM solution, one person can easily manage both Internet and BDC and another can handle advertising, CSI surveys, and inbound leads. Consolidation in these two areas saves me over $7500 per month in personnel costs.” Crane also credits their CRM for a 10 percent increase in sales over the previous year and a 40 point increase in CSI scores. “We went from an average of 60 percent CSI two years ago to 100 percent in the past few months,” Crane explains. “I attribute this directly to our ability to follow up with unhappy customers more quickly and immediately resolve their issues before they receive the factory survey. Saving thousands and turning around our CSI—those are real benefits,” adds Crane. “I love it.” Our industry is evolving rapidly and we need to evolve with it. As Horace so famously proclaimed, “Carpe Diem!” The time is now to seize the day! Jonathan Ord is co-founder and CEO of DealerSocket. Jonathan can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or 949-900-0300. |
