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Shopping for a new CRM - Looking for suggestions

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NTIV10

Peel'm off the Ceiling
Dec 23, 2009
36
0
First Name
Nick
#1
I have finally had it with DealerSocket. I'm actively looking for alternatives. I will start off by saying I don't mind if vendors contribute to this thread about their product, or you can just contact me directly. But really I'd like some real world experiences with various products from other e-commerce/internet directors, and internet salespeople.

What I've used: iMagicLab, AutoBase, and DealerSocket. I would consider iMagicLab again but the last time I used it was almost two years ago so I don't know what their system is like these days. I am not interested in considering AutoBase.

Requirements:
-Mac compatible. Most of my staff use Macs and I am done with using VMWare Fusion only for the reason of accessing my CRM.
-Easy to use. DealerSocket is not _difficult_, per se, but it is tedious and complicated to get even the simplest tasks done.
-Very customizable. I am very experienced with computers, html, etc. No "fisher price" interface to cater to non-computer people. I can teach my staff to use it, I'm confident in that. For instance, I don't want a CRM that rewrites/overrides the HTML in my templates, or tells me I can't put punctuation in the subject line of an email (!!)
-Full service department integration for appointment setting and customer follow up.
-DETECT DUPLICATE LEADS! I probably spend 30 minutes a day merging duplicates. How can a system get three leads with the same email address and name, and not connect them all to the same customer records?

Wish list:
-Interface with HomeNet and give me live inventory to easily insert into emails, with pricing, specs, and photos.
-Chat integration? Facebook and Twitter? (Am I just dreaming here? LOL)

I'm sure I'll think of other things, but this is a good starting point.

Is there a CRM that meets these criteria?

Any and ALL input appreciated!
 
#2
All I've ever been told, seen in demos, or heard from current users about VinSolutions is that it does it all. If you're familiar with the forums, you've probably seen Matt posting (CTO of VinSolutions) - smart guy, knows what he's about. I can put you in touch with someone over there if you want.
 
#4
I was looking to replace Higher Gear between April and December of last year. I settled on 2 answers, Izmocars iCRM and Vinsolutions Motosnap. Both are extremely easy to use but have advanced features necessary to customize your experience.

I finally settled on Vinsolutions which integrates the CRM, inventory, and market pricing tools all into one. I was previously using eCarList for inventory. ecarlist worked fine for me but the integration with the CRM was too cool to ignore.

Vinsolutions handles the CRM portion very intelligently. Stuff like when you have a salesman without a signature in the system it won't fire off any automated emails because you've suppressed the process when the form is incomplete. Also, if the system receives 10 leads from the same customer from different places (or heck, 10 from the same source sometimes) it will automatically mark 9 of them as bad. You can still see all those leads but they're automatically bad/duplicate.

Another cool feature is the ability to match customers based on customized fields. If you want to be strict you can say to match only customers with the same last name, phone number, email, and home address. A more lenient customer matching is built in by default though where it matches by about 8 different grouped qualifiers, like last name and street address or email and phone number or email and last name. stuff like that.

The absolute best part of vinsolutions though is that it is always changing and upgrading. Every two weeks they put out a new patch that addresses some problems and implements new features. The most recent added a receptionist's log of sorts where the receptionist doesn't really add customers, but can still create a log of minor contacts. I'm going to use it just to keep a tally of phone calls my salesmen receive without forcing the receptionist to take customer information.


iMagiclabs is another product that you should definitely keep in your mind. I did not delve too in-depth with my demo with them, but what I did see showed me they were at least on par with what I needed in a CRM so worth a 2nd look. I just wish they would update their UI. It looks like Outlook 2003 and I'm using 2007 going on 2010 ;)
 
#5
See, your comment about the interface brought up one of my biggest issues with all of the CRMs I've seen to date. They're all hopelessly outdated.

Why are we not seeing a 100% web based, ajax/php/html5 (but PLEASE don't use flash!!) solution? These websites look like they were designed in 1998. Modern web technologies are so capable that these antiquated web-based, or worse, software-based systems are slow, poorly designed, and/or incapable of performing the tasks adequately.

Website providers for dealerships are prime offenders in this area as well. I have to say I finally gave up on several dealership web providers for everything except inventory access and went to wordpress. Our site is so much faster, I have so much more flexibility, and everything just works better since I did this. PHP provides a very flexible and very capable server-side framework, and it is easy to use. The only thing that is still beyond my level of expertise is inventory database processing.
 
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#6
Hello again. Since you didn't reply to my reply to your last post revealing who you are... I thought I'd give it one more try.

Like I said in your previous post, some of your issues can be addressed with training. Our new products are built using Adobe Flex, which is more robust and flexible than Ajax. (See our new ServiceDriver product as an example). Other than that, I am not sure how to help you… we do not know which dealership you represent, so it is a little hard to provide support to anonymous issues.

Shellie Pierce
www.dealersocket.com
[email protected]
 
#7
NTIV10 said:
I have finally had it with DealerSocket. I'm actively looking for alternatives. I will start off by saying I don't mind if vendors contribute to this thread about their product, or you can just contact me directly. But really I'd like some real world experiences with various products from other e-commerce/internet directors, and internet salespeople.

What I've used: iMagicLab, AutoBase, and DealerSocket. I would consider iMagicLab again but the last time I used it was almost two years ago so I don't know what their system is like these days. I am not interested in considering AutoBase.

Requirements:
-Mac compatible. Most of my staff use Macs and I am done with using VMWare Fusion only for the reason of accessing my CRM.
-Easy to use. DealerSocket is not _difficult_, per se, but it is tedious and complicated to get even the simplest tasks done.
-Very customizable. I am very experienced with computers, html, etc. No "fisher price" interface to cater to non-computer people. I can teach my staff to use it, I'm confident in that. For instance, I don't want a CRM that rewrites/overrides the HTML in my templates, or tells me I can't put punctuation in the subject line of an email (!!)
-Full service department integration for appointment setting and customer follow up.
-DETECT DUPLICATE LEADS! I probably spend 30 minutes a day merging duplicates. How can a system get three leads with the same email address and name, and not connect them all to the same customer records?

Wish list:
-Interface with HomeNet and give me live inventory to easily insert into emails, with pricing, specs, and photos.
-Chat integration? Facebook and Twitter? (Am I just dreaming here? LOL)

I'm sure I'll think of other things, but this is a good starting point.

Is there a CRM that meets these criteria?

Any and ALL input appreciated!
Click to expand...

The largest Chevy dealer in the world is in office today getting trained on our system. I thought it was kind of cool when they all walked in with Macs :)

If you haven't seen our system, you should definitely at least see a demo.

We integrate with Facebook to find your customers. Pretty cool feature.
 
#8
If you want your CRM to fully work on a Mac, then you have two options: VinSolutions & iMagicLab. I haven't worked with VinSolutions on a daily basis, but I've spent the last 6 years with iMagicLab (4 with ILM & 2 with CRM)....and I am a Mac fanatic. iMagicLab works in FireFox (fully supported), Chrome, and Safari on the Snow Leopard, Leopard, or Tiger. Safari and Chrome aren't fully supported but there are only some small items that don't work 100% on those browsers. It absolutely screams on Chrome! Only problem I've found on Chrome is that dropdown menus are not alphabetized (not a big deal).

To answer your other questions as a dealer:

Requirements:
-Mac compatible.
Yep
-Easy to use.
Subjective based on your perception. My perception is "absolutely" and our staff feels the same.
-Very customizable.
Through Action Plans there is almost anything you can do. I consider myself quite versed in iMagicLab's action plans and I know there are more things I have not considered doing with them than what I already have done. This is where iMagicLab is extremely powerful. This is also why Action Plans should either be handled by them or someone with vision.
-Full service department integration for appointment setting and customer follow up.
We have not moved to it fully yet, but another dealer I trust (one of DealerRefresh's moderators) says it is great. My service department is ticking along on XTime and is just waiting on 1 more feature to be added to iMagicLab's service CRM before switching.
-DETECT DUPLICATE LEADS!
This is where all CRM's are weak. I have yet to find one that does a good job here. AutoBase, of all things, probably had the best backbone/foundation for sourcing duplicates, but nobody else has done a good job in this area. Nobody. I think iMagicLab is on par with their primary competitors, but I'm not going to tell you they do a great job here.

Wish list:
-Interface with HomeNet and give me live inventory to easily insert into emails, with pricing, specs, and photos.
No need. iMagicLab has a very worthy inventory tool. But it can work with HomeNet if there are some HomeNet-specific things you want to stick with.
-Chat integration? Facebook and Twitter? (Am I just dreaming here? LOL)
Chat integration is there. It works very well with the CRM. iMagicLab does not have actual integration with social media sites like being able to post from the CRM to those sites, but it does have a very slick way of finding customers on social media sites. Take a demo and ask to be shown that - it is very cool.
 
#9
NTIV10 said:
Why are we not seeing a 100% web based, ajax/php/html5 (but PLEASE don't use flash!!) solution? These websites look like they were designed in 1998. Modern web technologies are so capable that these antiquated web-based, or worse, software-based systems are slow, poorly designed, and/or incapable of performing the tasks adequately.
Click to expand...

Oh man that's one of my pet peeves too, but there's some things that you just need a 3rd party platform to do correctly still. HTML5 isn't a ratified standard yet, so no company in their right mind will program their core product on a draft standard. I feel your pain though and I can't wait for the future!

from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML5
Ian Hickson, editor of the HTML5 specification, expects the specification to reach the W3C Candidate Recommendation stage during 2012

Once that goes through then we'll see a flood of HTML5 programming because the standard won't change very much at all... but right now there is way too much risk unless a company has spare programmers doing nothing all day (LOL)
 
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#10
ghen said:
Oh man that's one of my pet peeves too, but there's some things that you just need a 3rd party platform to do correctly still. HTML5 isn't a ratified standard yet, so no company in their right mind will program their core product on a draft standard. I feel your pain though and I can't wait for the future!

from: HTML5 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ian Hickson, editor of the HTML5 specification, expects the specification to reach the W3C Candidate Recommendation stage during 2012

Once that goes through then we'll see a flood of HTML5 programming because the standard won't change very much at all... but right now there is way too much risk unless a company has spare programmers doing nothing all day (LOL)
Click to expand...

Developers really can't use HTML5 until everyone has a browser that supports it. It will be years until 80% of us have a browser that does. Think about how long IE6 has been haunting us already. IE7 and 8 will be around forever as well with no support for it.

I'm hoping the iPad gets silverlight support.
 
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