Your CRM is a valuable tool in all aspects of your dealership, and you want to make sure that you’re making the most of it. Knowing your CRM in and out helps you know your customers in and out, and at the end of the day, your customers are what’s important.

Getting in touch with the right customer at the right time with the right message is the goal, but without a CRM, you’ll likely never be able to do that. So how can you use your CRM to help you? There are a few key things you’ll need.

Your CRM

The more time that you invest in your CRM, the more you’re going to get back from it. Your CRM lets you easily manage things like alerts, workflows, and campaigns, and if you’re not using your CRM to do that then you’re wasting time. You have a system that’s meant to help you, don’t let it go to waste.

Lead Source Management

Your CRM can help you see where your leads are coming from, helping you sell more effectively. People that visit your dealership’s page on Facebook are very different from people getting a mail flyer from your dealership, and you want to make sure you’re treating them differently. 

Today, customers don’t want to hear a generic message, no matter what you’re selling. Even you - you’re reading this to get useful information for your needs, not some generic statements that aren’t going to help your dealership grow. You need to be sending targeted messages that are as specific as possible, and your CRM will help you do that. 

Record Management

Managing your contacts includes managing your customers. If you have a customer that’s made multiple purchases, you don’t want a contact record for each purchase. In 6 months when you send an oil change mailer, you don’t want to send three to the same person.

A CRM will prevent this by keeping a detailed record of everything your customers purchase, even if they’re buying at different times. You’ll be able to nurture that relationship with your customers by having them organized, helping you with customer retention. Happy customers who feel valued come into your service lanes.

Templates

Templates are, or should be, an invaluable part of your business strategy. They allow you to provide your leads with quality responses every single time without your sales reps spending too much time creating that response. A CRM can help you create templates as well as give you a great place to store them, making it easy for them to be used.

There are a few great ways to use templates in your CRM. First, make sure you have different templates for different makes. You’ll be able to quickly respond with a highly-detailed email to your leads, which helps you do what you do best: sell! Also, make sure that your templates sound like they’re coming from a human. Don’t be so professional sounding that your lead thinks the email came from a robot.

A CRM Champion

A CRM champion is one of your employees who knows everything about your CRM. He or she will be able to monitor how the CRM is functioning, for both your workers and your customers, helping you ease the process for your buyers. This helps keep your processes flowing correctly, saving you time and saving your customers frustration.

It might sound crazy to hire someone just for managing your CRM, but having a smooth process helps everyone involved in your dealership and will save you money and time in the long run. You would never know if a lead didn’t funnel correctly, but your CRM champion will find out and save you sales. 

A CRM champion can also train your other workers on how to be efficient when working with the CRM. Your employee satisfaction will skyrocket when they’re not having to fight with a system. CRM champions can also be in charge of training employees on how to use your CRM correctly.