Choosing Anvil: A Strategic Perspective from Current Customers

In a recent industry panel, a select group of Anvil customers fielded questions from their peers. Learn why these dealers chose Anvil’s powerful CRM and inventory management software, and their experience with integrating it into their existing business systems.

THE PANEL: 

• Lundi McIntyre (LM), continuous improvement specialist, Hutson Inc. 
• Joe Smith (JS), operations manager, Wright Implement 
• Ryan Payment (RP), CFO and CIT, LandPro Equipment 
• Brian Marshall (BM), corporate systems director, United Ag & Turf Northeast 
• Cedric Citrowske (CC), innovation specialist, True North Equipment 

The panel was asked about their decision to choose Anvil over other available CRM systems for dealerships. While each participant had their unique motivations, the consensus revolved around two primary factors: the ability to consolidate systems and reduce the number of necessary logins. These considerations were cited by most of the panelists.

1. After considering all the options available, why did you choose Anvil?  

LM: We were looking to consolidate processes and systems. Now we don’t have to log into seven different accounts every time we sit down at the computer. In Anvil we quickly find quotes and inventory, we see complete deal packages as a unit, we see everything our customers have going at any time. Pretty much anything you want to see as a sales rep or manager — it’s all right there for you. 

JS: We were also looking to bring everything together, but for us the key was trades. We were having trouble with trades and dealing with the various workarounds our system required. Anvil puts everything we need for tracking and evaluating trades in one place, and it is flexible enough to set things up the way we want it done. 

The Salesforce platform Anvil is built on gives us almost unlimited possibilities, particularly with reporting. Our old system could only show certain things. Now we can track and report on almost anything happening in the dealership. We now have a couple years of data built up and we are looking at all the ways we can use that to do better and concentrate our efforts. 

CC: We simply weren’t happy with the limitations of our old system. Anvil gives us the functionality to accomplish what we wanted to do. 

The integration capabilities of Anvil are a frequent topic of interest for dealerships contemplating an update to their CRM solutions, particularly in regard to reporting and data analytics. The question is often asked how Salesforce integrations will function in conjunction with, or influence, existing dealership systems or processes. 

2. We use other business systems, including Microsoft 365, and Microsoft Power BI for reporting and analytics. What is your experience with how Anvil interfaces with other systems like Power BI? Does it limit your reporting potential? 

CC: We are a Microsoft Office 365 dealership. We use Power Apps and Microsoft Teams. Through Salesforce, everything can connect using APIs and all our apps talk back and forth seamlessly.  

RP: We already had a bunch of stuff built out in Power BI. Even though Salesforce has Tableau [analytics platform] embedded, you can still connect Power BI and do everything you need to do. 

BM: We use Power BI for all our reporting. But the reporting capabilities embedded in the Salesforce platform today are astronomical — close to on-par with what Power BI is capable of providing. 

The CRM and inventory management features are usually the first step in implementing Anvil. The platform provides a range of features dealerships can integrate once these foundational pieces are in place.  

3. What features did you not have at implementation that you’d like to incorporate into the system? 

RP: We’d like to get texting and automated texting into our parts department. Messaging like, “Your part is here, schedule pick-up or service at this link.” That one is getting close to ready, and we have other projects in the works. 

BM: You can hit Anvil up with just about anything. One we did recently involves a function John Deere provided for quickly posting a payment. Now we have an “Apply Payment” button built right into the PO form that posts a deposit right to the stock number. Now our salespeople never have to work in any other system than Anvil. One login, one resource for everything.