It was a good amount of work, however it is paying dividends at this time. One feature that has made it successful in our store is the highly customizable dashboards. This feature has drawn the GM and Owner into frequently using the CRM tool. We find that a fish decays from the head down and if the guys on top are not users the second tier managers are not.
Example Service Penetration Dashboard.
For internet sales we had to write hooks into Sendmail our MTA to parse and create inbound leads. This took 1 day. The mail application Sendmail parses and archives all mail in and out of the store currently. We added a feature that stores the content of the email as a completed activity between sender and receip.
Screen shot of completed activities under customer record.
We started using SF in 2005.
If we needed to make a choice today not having the Build your Own as an option there are a number of very successful Automotive CRM's available;{ Except R&R Contact Management. }