Winning in Today’s Market
Dealers are adjusting to slowing demand for inventory. Winners and losers in today’s market are going to be determined by how well they manage inventory.
The Need for CRM in a Fast-Paced World
The need for CRM in all business functions is growing. Technology is rapidly evolving, and customers expect quick resolutions to all of their business needs. You have targets for sales, business objectives, and profitability. But getting up-to-date, reliable information on your progress can be tricky. How do you translate the many streams of data coming in from sales, customer service, marketing and other channels into useful business information?
CRMs are more than just digital Rolodexes
Customer relationship management (CRM) is a technology for managing all of your dealership’s customer relationships and interactions with customers and prospects. The goal is simple: strengthen your relationships. A CRM system helps dealerships stay connected to customers, streamline processes, and improve profitability.
Anvil App Works created solutions help give you a clear overview of your customers. You can see everything in one place — a simple, customizable dashboard that can tell you a customer’s previous history with you, the status of their orders, any outstanding customer service issues, and more. Use the CRM feature to better understand the pipeline of sales or prospects coming in, making forecasting simpler and more accurate.
Some of the biggest gains in productivity can come from moving beyond CRM as a sales and marketing tool and embedding it in your business – from sales and service to parts and management.
Running a business without CRM can cost money
More administration means less time for everything else. An active sales team can generate a flood of data. Sales reps are out on the road talking to customers, meeting prospects and finding out valuable information – but, all too often this information gets stored in handwritten notes, laptops or inside the heads of your salespeople.
Details can get lost; meetings aren’t followed up on promptly and prioritizing customers can be a matter of guesswork rather than a rigorous exercise based on fact. And, it can all be compounded if a key salesperson moves on.
But it isn’t just sales that suffer without CRM.
Your customers may work with several different departments at your dealership, asking questions, following up on orders, service requests and parts. Without a common platform for customer interactions, communications can be missed, questions go unanswered, and customers end up feeling like their business isn’t important
And, if you do collect all the data into one cohesive system, you are challenged with making sense of it. It can be difficult to extract intelligence. Reports are hard to create, and they waste valuable time.
What does a CRM do?
A CRM helps you find new customers, win their business and keep them happy by organizing their information in a way that helps you build stronger relationships with them. CRM systems start by collecting customer contact information. Customer profiles include details about their business, other people or groups they do business with (agronomist, banking and financing, etc.), customer demographic information and more. A CRM organizes this information to give you a complete record of customers and prospects so you can better understand your relationship over time.
Top 5 reasons a CRM helps your business
1. Make improvements to your bottom line.
CRM platforms have been shown to produce real results – including direct improvements to the bottom line. CRM applications have a proven track record of increasing:
- Prospect conversion by up to 30%
- Sales by up to 30%
- Sales productivity by up to 35%
- Customer satisfaction by up to 35%
- Faster decision-making by up to 38%
- Revenue by up to 25%
2. Identify and categorize prospects.
A CRM can help you identify and add new prospects easily and quickly and categorize them accurately. By focusing on the right prospects, sales can prioritize the opportunities that will close deals. With complete, accurate and centrally held information about clients and prospects, sales and marketing can focus their attention and energy on the right clients.
3. Increase referrals from existing customers.
By understanding your customers better, cross-selling and upselling opportunities became clear – giving you the chance to win new business from existing customers. With better visibility you’ll be able to keep your customers happy with better service. Happy customers are likely to become repeat customers, and repeat customers spend more – up to 33% more according to some studies.
4. Offer better customer support.
Today’s customers expect fast, personalized support. A CRM can help you provide the high-quality service that customers expect. Your agents can quickly see what products customers have purchased, and they can get a record of every interaction so they can give customers the answers they need, fast.
5. Improve products and services.
A good CRM system will gather information from a huge variety of sources across your business and beyond. This gives you unprecedented insights into how your customers feel and what they are saying about your organization – so you can improve what you offer, spot problems early and identify gaps.
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