Automotive Sales CRM on Increasing Auto Sales
Today’s car-buying adventure begins online. Before purchasing an automobile, nine out of ten buyers conduct an online search. An Automotive Sales CRM enables car dealers and salespeople to attract leads and move consumers through the sales pipeline more quickly.
Learn about CRMs, their benefits, and how to apply them for your dealership.
Automotive Sales CRM: What Is It?
Customer relationship management, or CRM, software for the automotive industry assists automakers with marketing, sales, and customer service. Dealerships can use it to build stronger client relationships, manage a multi-channel sales operation, and gather leads.
CRMs are being used by businesses more and more to improve the customer journey and foster customer connections. According to a Fortune Business Insights research from 2022, the CRM market expanded by 10% despite the pandemic. This demonstrates how valuable CRMs are for businesses.
- Improved access to client data
- Enhanced conversion and retention rates.
- Increased sales and profits.
- An automobile CRM provides all of these features and more.
Why Do You Need an Automotive Sales CRM?
The car-buying and selling process is far from straightforward. Car salesmen manage several customers at various points of the customer experience, from lead generation and financing to inventory management and after-sales service.
Learn how an automobile CRM application can help you manage those stages effectively:
1. Improve Connection
You communicate with clients throughout the sales process, from creating content that addresses their needs to providing prompt customer service that helps you convert them into repeat customers.
This means that your relationship with the customer should not end once they are in your sales pipeline.
An Automotive Sales CRM platform helps you achieve this by connecting you with your customers via a variety of channels, including a website, blog, email, and social media. Finally, marketing automation can help you modify your messaging and provide a more personalized experience.
Aside from that, you receive questions from your clients across all of these channels, and customers want you to answer to them in 10 minutes or less.
An automobile CRM with a universal inbox function can help you do this by collating queries from various customer support channels so you don’t miss anything.
2. Optimize your sales process
While communication with client’s converts leads into sales, messaging alone is insufficient. You must track when your prospects connect with your touchpoints and organize meetings at the optimal moment to convert them. In other words, you should automate your sales process.
In addition, with so many contact channels, a few sales prospects may slip between the cracks. Your Automotive Sales CRM’s lead generation and pipeline management solutions can help you avoid these leaks and drive prospects through the sales pipeline.
In addition, sales analytics and reporting can assist you in determining what is and is not working in order to optimize your sales process.
3. Close more deals
The key to closing more business is to have a streamlined sales process.
A sales CRM that specializes on autos can help you provide that experience. You may use task management features to ensure that your team is on the same page, as well as workflow automation to remove low-value chores from your plate, allowing you to meet with customers and close more transactions.
Aside from that, you do not want to lose a client due to a lack of payment processing options in your sales process. That is why you should select a CRM with native payment processing, which streamlines the customer purchasing experience by consolidating customer and commerce data under one roof.
Features to Look for in an Automotive Sales CRM
While selecting an automobile CRM software relies on your organization’s size and demands, the following characteristics can assist you in managing your dealership:
1. Contact Management
An Automotive Sales CRM should allow you to generate contact records and collect client information, such as budget, car model preference, and channel of discovery, in order to develop a full customer profile.
Aside from that, an automobile CRM should allow you to automate tedious activities and maintain your contacts without having to manually enter too much data.
2. Lead and Pipeline Management
As the traditional automobile retail model digitizes and decentralizes, leads can come from anywhere:
- The dealership’s premises
- The company’s website
- Email and phone.
- Advertisements on television and newspapers
- Social media advertisements
- Monitoring all of these leads might be difficult when working with different clients.
Auto dealership CRMs, which include lead generation, lead nurturing, and lead management capabilities, bring these leads together on a single platform to ensure equal nurturing.
Aside from that, an Automotive CRM should assist you in guiding your clients through the car-buying process by providing them with the relevant information at the right time.
3. Improved client communication
CRM data allows you to refine and tailor your marketing messaging.
The top Automotive Sales CRMs take a CRM-driven strategy, allowing you to develop personalized experiences across numerous channels using a single platform.
- You should have the ability to:
- Develop focused digital marketing efforts.
- Use email templates and meeting schedulers to follow up with customers.
- Respond to client inquiries via email, live chat, or chatbots.
4. Collaboration among the team members
Automotive Sales CRMs let team members collaborate more effectively.
Aside from communication features, task management tools ensure that team members are aware of their daily process. With mobile CRM features, they may also access client data collected by another team member while on the go.
The knowledge base functionality allows employees to access tutorials, guidelines, and other information in one spot.
5. Analysis and Reporting
What gets measured is handled.
Tracking performance indicators in an automobile CRM should reveal what is and is not functioning. Visual reporting dashboards allow you to forecast and spot opportunities.
Benefits of Automotive Sales CRM Software to Car Dealerships
An Automotive Sales CRM helps car dealerships and salespeople increase efficiency and save time, resulting in more car sales.
Specifically, an automotive CRM assists you:
1. Adapt by developing digital-centric experiences
Technological improvements and the pandemic have altered how autos are made and sold.
Many car stores were forced to close due to the pandemic, and the automotive sector changed the client purchasing journey online in order to remain in business. Original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), who traditionally supplied information through webpages and articles, began providing virtual tours and test drives.
According to a Google and Kantar survey conducted in 2020, one out of every ten car buyers in the United States bought their vehicle online. Given that we now make the majority of our purchases online, that may not seem like much—until you remember that only 1% of car purchases were made online in 2018.
An automotive sales crm allows you to enable and benefit from digital-centric experiences. Customers can meet with your sales teams virtually and make purchasing decisions.
2. Increased sales through post-purchase follow-ups
The customer journey does not end when a customer purchases a car.
According to Facebook’s 2018 research, 86% of buyers stated they’d prefer to interact with their auto dealer after purchasing a car. They want to receive maintenance reminders, follow-up promotional offers like extended warranties or gap insurance, and car usage advice.
For example, SimpSocial’s Sales Hub enables you to contact with your consumers after the sale and upsell car parts and accessories, which is growing increasingly popular in today’s industry.
3. Enhanced Customer Journey
Yesterday’s car-buying process was straightforward, with customers coming into showrooms and selecting a model. Today’s car-buying path has many touchpoints and revisions; losing these leads is considerably easier.
An automotive sales crm maintains these customer interactions across several touchpoints and provides a seamless omnichannel experience, allowing customers to resume where they left off.
According to a Google survey, 90% of auto purchasers conduct internet research before purchasing a vehicle, with 68% visiting only one showroom during their journey. This means you should make sure potential prospects choose your showroom first.
You can accomplish so by offering a positive consumer experience. If you answer your clients’ questions and handle their concerns, they may not need to visit your showroom until it is time to pick up the car.
SimpSocial’s customer service solutions include everything you need to provide effective and helpful customer support. A universal inbox allows you to respond to queries given over several channels, such as live chat or email, and automated ticketing routes requests to the appropriate team member.
4. Increased productivity through automation
An Automotive Sales CRM automates repetitive operations, such as:
- Collecting and entering the contact information
- Qualify, score, and nurture leads
- Preparing and synchronizing data for reporting
5. Secure Data Access Everywhere
Sales personnel are constantly on the go.
Most Automotive Sales CRMs include desktop and mobile solutions, allowing your employees to access data from anywhere. This presents security challenges.
However, if you choose a secure CRM software solution that includes features such as web application firewall (WAF), regular vulnerability screening, and encrypted data transfers, you can be confident that your data is secure.
Choosing the Right Automotive Sales CRM for Your Dealership
Before selecting the best Automotive Sales CRM, you must first understand your company’s demands, just like you would when purchasing a car for yourself.
Aside from the characteristics unique to the automobile business, here are some more criteria to assist you select an Automotive CRM.
- Easy to use
- Salespeople understand that time equals money.
You should opt for a CRM that is simple to use and does not require a steep learning curve. If you need help, you should have access to tutorials, community forums, and 24-hour customer service.
For example, SimpSocial CRM enables you to get started in three minutes or less. Not only that, but you can find useful lessons in its knowledge base and take relevant courses through SimpSocial Academy.
Sales teams require both security and mobility
Choose a CRM that allows you to access data from anywhere and includes security safeguards to keep your data safe.
For example, SimpSocial’s cloud CRM has desktop and mobile choices that allow your staff to access data in real time. Furthermore, it safeguards your data with security features such as WAF, data encryption, and DDoS protection.
Scalable
When looking for an automobile CRM, find a solution that can scale with your company so you don’t have to change tools or migrate data every year.
SimpSocial CRM, for example, offers tiered pricing to cater to both small and large businesses.
Final Thoughts: Why Car Dealers Need an Automotive Sales CRM
Because the majority of automobile purchases today begin online, having an Automotive Sales CRM will allow your dealership to take advantage of extra lead generation channels.
Aside from that, an automobile CRM allows you to automate low-value operations, freeing up your time for higher-priority duties. You can connect with customers and give outstanding service across numerous touchpoints and channels, resulting in increased leads and sales.
When looking for an automobile CRM, don’t limit your options to the CRM with the fundamental functions you require. Consider using a CRM that is safe, scalable, and mobile.
Begin with SimpSocial’s free CRM now.
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