What if CRM tools aren't even the right solution? Seriously how many people here are really database marketeers, or want to spend all day creating queries? What if the solution is you out source your CRM effort? Dealer's have outsourced the majority of their marketing and other services. Now, especially since a lot these tools are becoming commodities, why not just hire a team to run your email marketing, pulling queries out of the DMS and marketing your serivce opportunites? As many people here I'm really frustrated by most of these crappy clone of a clone not even beta products. I just want to sell cars and not be a beta test or a database marketeer.

Yes, I just love how so many reps think we're stupid.. I used to be a software engineer and managed the development of custom multi-million dollar crm and sfa solutions for fortune 500 companies and the government.. needless to say, most vendors rub me the wrong way
The single biggest request I have - GIVE ME QUERY ACCESS TO MY DATABASE!!! Man, if I could run my own reports and build my own dashboards I would be tickled pink! I personally liked BDC Software inc's solution, as they are first and foremost a technology company - they get it. My DB would sitting on my server and I could do anything I wanted with it if I chose to! Even extend the app and build my own modules.. Too bad I was overruled when it came time to pull the trigger on selecting our vendor

Relating to the frustrations as Bad Ashley...

I wish for a CRM tool that helps me sell more cars, not beta test their product.

I wish for a CRM company NOT to sell me on the features/benefits of the product that are not finished or do not work at all, then leaving their skeleton tech support crew to clean up the mess.

Meanwhile, I look like a jerk (being nice) to dealership management for selling them on a product that takes more time to troubleshoot, work around bugs, and anxiously awaiting for the over-worked/under-staffed tech support to respond with a VALID answer or solution.

As I've said dozens of times... give me a usage report, and not only will I be able to tell who is adopting the system and who isn't, but I'll be able to defend the CRM vendor when a Sales Manager (who opens the tool once a week) tells the owner the product sucks. Why a CRM vendor wouldn't want to show client usage reports is a mystery to me.

And looking way down the road (for most dealers anyway), we need the capability to add customers to our DB for reasons other than "new Sales lead"... as we move into the era of opting in and subscribing to blogs, etc. As it stands now for most CRMs, where would you enter a new prospect who opted into email updates on your web site? Or a customer who read your blog and submitted their contact info just so they could leave a comment? As a regular new lead? They're not a lead, and they shouldn't be counted or f/u'd as one. The whole customer record concept needs to be expanded to include Sales/Service/Finance/Parts/Other histories, and you should be able to plug a new customer in through any of those histories independently. A guy who lives across the country just bought a new grille from Parts? Great... plug him in as a new prospect in Parts, not Sales or Service.

Can we relate....c'mon Ashley, are you serious? That one crosses over the CRM threshold into so many different automotive-vendor arenas. As for CRM companies, the one we're with now is so bad you can't get anything done unless you speak to a Vice President.....and this is a HUGE company (one of the two Automotive biggest....but I won't say exactly who it is), so you can imagine how hard it is to talk to a VP. I'd rather pay $150 a minute to Microsoft to talk to their tech support in India than waste my time talking to one of the _ _ _ (not saying who it is) support reps in America for free. In fact, they're a major inspiration for this thread and why I've become such an expert on what features every other CRM company has.

You did nail a major feature request on the head Ashley: Customer Support. I would like a CRM with customer support that does not have the word "no" in their dictionary. You're catering to sales staff - in fact - your support is probably catering to senior sales staff and management. These are people who typically "get it". I have to spend 5-10 minutes of every support call trying to make the support rep understand I wasn't born yesterday - I almost think I should send my high school transcripts, SAT scores, college diplomas, and resume before calling. Then I should play a recording of everything the CRM salesperson said to us before we signed the contract.....and remind them our CRM salesperson was a VP, CFO, CEO, etc. Okay, I need to stop, I feel my blood pressure rising. I'll end this little rant by saying there is an ENORMOUSLY HUGE disconnect between tech support and corporate ideology at most companies (not just CRM).

Request: How about making customer support history accessible to the customer?

I want to thank a few CRM tech support reps for making me feel super smart, insanely angry and on the verge of severe verbal abuse all at the same time. Is there a ticket they can put in which says
"I have no idea what you are asking me and why it's relevant. Or what you are trying to do and frankly I don't care."
And where do these tickets go anyway? I never hear back concerning my issue until bad Ashley comes out. Then I end up explaining the quite simple thing I was trying to do in the first place to 4 or 5 different people who all put in a "ticket" while I become more and more frustrated.
Can any of you relate?

There seems to be a huge disparity between what is currently available and what advanced users would like in a useable format. Certainly, current systems are capable of doing much of what is listed in this string. The problem is the learning curve to implement and maintain those systems. You almost need a programmer to be able to keep up with demand.

A CRM needs to have some level of "intuition". Multiple non-linked pages to add, transfer, delete, etc. users and customers keep the dealerships in the "training mode" as attrition of sales people is a constant theme.

Outsourcing of these programs (BDC, sales followup, service followup, marketing) is going to continue to increase if we can not implement a user-friendly and cost effective solution long term to the CRM world.

Unfortunately, many of the CRM decisions are controlled by the accounting world of the DMS. So, I would look for a DMS/CRM solution that best meets the needs of the dealership group.

I was hoping that Microsoft's entry to this area would be a significant alternative. It does not appear that is the case in the near future.

I would add these to CRM...
1. Gives me same functionality as SalesGenius.com so I can see if prospect opened my emails... visited the site...
2. Send service reminders.
3. Searches by email address... or other data... provides me any sites where customer profile is one... they have commented... on... facebook, myspace, linkedin... etc... etc...
4. Integrates with route one or other financial companies...
5. Has built-in support for commission Calculation... something like QCommission or Xactly Incent...
6. I can view current and previous marketing material... all postcards, newspaper ads, adwords... etc...
7. and most important of all... it can handle reports for any vendor... so I only have to log into to one place to view my reports... and better yet... able to link the third party reports to data in my CRM.

Jeff,

To expand on this topic, how about lead data augmentation, segmentation and scoring within CRM products. The standard data that comes with a lead is fine, but what additional data would users like in their CRM to help with working and closing leads?

All:

I would love a CRM that would prospect for me, call the customer, close the deal, wire the $ into my bank account and then tell my wife she can't buy that 6th pair of shoes..... maybe 3030??

Dave

TYPE R&R User

I have a number of desired features, automation being a major one. First and foremost however my current issue that is foremost in my mind is communication, specifically via Email. Part of my role at my dealership is coaching the sales staff on good vs bad email techniques. I really want any CRM to allow us to simply enter in our Email settings and 'POP' the Email instead of having to use the built in tool, it would also be nice to be able to moderate new employees emails more efficiently until I know they are up to speed on how to construct a proper email response.

Having moved (over a year ago) from GM's InTouch solution to ReyRey's contact management I can honestly say ReyRey has a much better product. InTouch is now defunct regardless. However I find the reporting abilities to be quite limited. Any CRM tool needs to have superior reporting abilities with in-depth customisation available.

Another point is we have three stores and our sales people sometimes move from store to store. Being able to track clients across stores would be a nice ability as well since sometimes I have one employee with customers across two stores, especially at the management level.

I have one other request to any CRM developer, PLEASE start making your applications platform independent. I want to be able to use your app from any browser. In this day and age being locked into Windows with Internet Explorer hurts our options. Also integration with a Dealer's DMS system is a MUST.

R&R user.

Topic: Post Sale Survey (in store).
CRM offers only a single choice as "lead source". That's ok if a majority of our customers are contacting us online. And, we all know, THEY ARE NOT. So this leaves our reps to key in the lead source. We get erratic data lead sourse data.

CRM should offer a "post sale survey" thats handled post sale, in the store. Reps desk, F&I, at delivery etc...

Example:
How many dealerships did you visit before you bought from us?
1,2,3, 4 or more
How long were you shopping?
Do you consider yourself a frequent internet user?
Did you visit our website, DealerName.com?
How did you find our website, DealerName.com?
____ Heard it on TV
____ Heard it on Radio
____ Found it on Search Engine (i.e. Google, Yahoo, etc...)
____Found it on Auto Shopper Site (AutoTrader.com, Cars.com)
____ Other

The Survey and financial data can be linked so we can connect financial results with user behavior.

Thanks for the suggestion Joe. It would certainly be helpful, but the idea behind the Blueprint Series is for us to be architects for all the vendors. I don't want to see things turn into a "Witch Hunt" against the vendors who don't do something. It also isn't a spotlight for the current vendors who do certain things well. This is an opportunity for improvement for everyone.

If saying who you're currently using helps you to explain what you're looking for, by all means, put it in your comment.

R&R user.

Email campaign produces many dead email addresses. These bounced emails should be automatically deleted from the system.

Bounced emails have multipe causes for failure. For any emails with a questionable error message, have an fast management single page management area where we can click a check box and edit, delete or re-try as needed

Joe
p.s. Alex, is it a good idea to list what CRM you use at the top as we all have different systems with different issues.

I'd love to see standardization with the ability to send leads from all sources, autotrader.com, cars.com, ebay, etc. to one CRM source but this unfortunately seems impossible as all of these online vendors wish to be the "sole destination" within their own products for this and would be unwilling to have these leads send to a CRM system for the simple fact that it would enable us to track ROI on them on one screen and make it that much easier to track the effectivness of our ad spends with all of these vendors. They all wish to be "stand alone solutions".

Brian - I think you're looking more for an inventory control solution. Check out HomeNet (http://homenetinc.com) for starters. I agree, it would be nice to have all that working inside a CRM, and I think one CRM vendor is working down that path, but there doesn't seem to be a great CRM/Inventory solution out there yet.

While we're talking about inventory, I'll add another one of my wishes (I have tons): I'd like to be able to upload my inventory from a DMS provider or Inventory Control tool such as HomeNet with photos and all details. I don't want a cap on the photos because I'd then like an "ebrochure" feature allowing me to email a professional looking template about a single vehicle (especially a used car).

I'd also like to see a "Dream Car" feature much like Dealer.com's CarFinder (http://www.checkeredflag.com/carfinder.htm), or have the CRM work with my website's CarFinder. But I want to take things a step further than just sending a customer an email saying "your car is here" - I'd like the salesperson to be notified and task be dropped into his/her to-do list to contact that customer. And to take things a step even further, I would also like the option of having it work with potential trade-ins. If customer A wants a 2005 Ford F350 Diesel and another salesperson is appraising one for customer B, I would like either customer A or customer A's salesperson to be automatically notified when one is currently being appraised.

I would like to see some way to track aggressive pricing strategies via a stock number or vin. My current control panels only let's me track a model. I would like a system that compares inventory views similar to the way autotrader tracks your traffic, that way I can see what effects pricing has on different vehicles in stock. I would also like some type of read receipt for my emails and some way to push info to our arkona showroom management on customer contacts, vehicle interests, appointments and demos. While your at it throw in the ability to manage third party sites such as cars.com and autotrader.com from one control panel and if I change something live it doesn't lock out future pushes from our DMS. Maybe current products exist for some of these issues?

I wish the industry would mature to the point where vendors came together to create some standards. I could write a mile on this topic, but won't because I'm not really crazy about doing the vendor's innovative work for free.

Hello hello,

Jeff it was Reynolds we went to Monday night. And while we didn't go to this one, because we had plans with KBB, I heard the Aspen party was great - that will be a must do next year.

I didn't even make it over to the west building - totally missed all of my peoples over there!

And while Jeff likes to beat up on Autobase - they did get most improved booth this year. Worst booth went to this service training company that was literally under a stairwell next to the Paul Cummings booth and I believe they just gave up on Tuesday, bc their lights were off and no one was home.

Anything new? Uh No.

People that I missed that I am mad at - ALEX SNYDER!!!! You are in trouble. We are going to be in VaBeach in April - you better have on your entertaining shoes.

I can back-up Mark on his new DDC facility claims - the new building is nice! I can't imagine a better setup for a progressive tech company - I'm sure it would make some Silicon Valley groups envious.

Let me see if I can explain the layout...

The main part is a huge circle split into four parts to separate the various departments: sales, support, development, SEO/SEM with their prospective managers easily available on the outside of the circle. The middle of the circle has plush couches and vegetation that inspire people from the various departments to sit down together at. The second floor is a loft/balcony where the executives sit, able to see over 90% of the operation just by stepping outside their office door. There is a gym and tennis courts to go along with the casual-dress environment. It is a great place for anyone to work.

What does it mean for us (the dealers)? Happy Dealer.com employees for a start. Since the move, I have noticed an uplift in demeanor from all the people I work with at DDC. I've watched things happen much faster - my requests that need development work are done in days instead of a week or two. I can get tons of answers in one call as the rep I speak to can easily get to whomever has the answers right then. I'm sorry to ramble on about it, but I didn't realize how much things had improved until I read Mark's last post - thanks Mark!

Now a response to Brian....

I think you bring up some very valid and needed points.

Over the past 2 years Dealer.com has made massive investments in our dealer support and account management staff and training programs. I would dare say they are breakthrough in the sense that we involved the State of Vt and various organizations to build a state of the art training solution that allows us to respond better to our clients issues than ever before.

As an example, just this week we added 8 new account managers that will all start at the same time and begin serving our dealers more and more over time as they become better experts in the field. In the past this was impossible since we did not have a large scale training program and the facilities to host it. We can now train anywhere from 1 to 30 people at a time and do it in an environment that is second to none. Our mission and focus is better than ever before since we were in a 4 story building for the first 8-9 years much like Cobalt's and it was a very disruptive environment that did not allow our people to talk in person and get "real" answers fast from each of our respective teams.

That issue was answered this past summer when we custom designed the ultimate customer service and technology center just down the street from our original HQ and created what is now the new Dealer.com home. View the full construction video here: http://sappo.dealer.com/slideshow/

You might ask, does the layout and flow of the various teams and staff really matter to me the dealer? Looking from a distance it may seem superficial and unimportant but I can tell you that will all the incredible talent we have at DDC it could be likened to a college basketball player practicing with his teammates for years and then all of a sudden moving to a new sports complex having direct access to playing Michael Jordan every day instead. The level of each person's game rises dramatically.

As you know we continue to add industry experts to our team to help us with our mission of being the #1 most effective dealer marketing solution possible, our most recent addition was Dean Evans (formerly of Dealix, Ford..etc) that has offered a wealth of expertise to our teams and is even helping to structure better training and education the account managers that assist our clients every day. This will continue as our compensation plans for the industries top professionals are top notch and we will not settle for anyone but the best to join our teams.

We can always do better and that will be our mission in 2008 to deploy the very best possible training, support and proactive care the industry has ever experienced.

-Mark

Mark Bonfigli
President, CEO
Dealer.com,Inc

First responding to Shaun,

Thanks for the clarification and detailed response.

I am assuming you have not seen our TotalControl Product? It actually allows starters to get into the SEM game fast and with proven results with full lead, phone tracking and dedicated landing pages or empowers the expert to create very custom keyword lists and geo-targeted campaigns.

It just makes running things faster and easier than ever...sort of like typing an email with spell checker on. Imagine if you had to grab a dictionary every time you were unsure how to spell a word? I guess my point is that we have created a system so simple to use but so powerful for the advanced user that it simply makes sense for dealers to use this as a platform instead of a generic one like google...etc Even the various search engine's people have remarked how far ahead this is from their own platforms and how much this will help all dealers conduct their campaigns more aggressively.

Let me know if you would like to see it in more detail, I think you would be very impressed!

-Mark

Mark Bonfigli
President, CEO
Dealer.com, Inc

@Mark
I am glad to see you’re passionate about your work Mark. I also have to give props to Jeff and Alex (pardon me if I left someone out) for maintaining a site that is of the quality of dealerrefresh.com that we can hear from the likes of folks that head some of the most important companies in our industry.
I for one do not have the talent or the knowhow of most of the folks on this board, which is why I come here. I want to learn from some of the best in the business. I have accepted the fact that this business will be driven by the internet in the years to come and I am sure everyone that visits this site has similar feelings. As a dealer.com customer I feel as though I am getting value for my dollars spent at dealer.com but as with anything in this business we can always strive for improvement. I have to give it to your support department, Jason is one that comes to mind off the top of my head, he is always willing to help me and improve my business. I have also had numerous other conversations with many folks up and down the dealer.com chain of command and I have to say sometimes I feel as though the only suggestions I get from most of the dealer.com staff involves me or more directly (my dealer) spending more money on something new. This could be my fault for not clearly stating what my issues might be or my lack of understanding this business. One of my first suggestions to dealer.com when we signed up a couple years back was to have better more in depth training not only for me but for the guys or gals that help me (support staff)
One of the basics of my business is to drive home the fact that we are here to serve our customers before and after the sale. I am on the fence about whether dealer.com has the dealer’s best interest in mind? Maybe you can shed some light on this subject for me. Thanks in advance for any help on this matter.

Response for Mark.

Regarding the award... you're welcome. I certainly don't know the percentage of your customers today vs. two or three years ago that are on flash sites. My impression/experience with Dealer.com sites up until the launch of what I believe you call "SmartSites", was that Dealer.com built a lot of flash to compete with BZ. I know that most of the sites Dealer.com showcased in the early days were very much flash sites.

Anyway... I'm not beating you up about flash. In fact, I'm quite glad you're deliberately pursuing search engine friendly sites. Your customers deserve it!

With regards to your new SEM product, I agree that dealers can't create ad campaigns in 10 seconds that automatically produce thousands of keywords for multiple departments. It sounds like Dealer.com has done what many SEM companies have done which is create something for those that can't really handle "total control." For the record, I'm ok with that and completely believe that some dealers are best served by using a great SEM solution. On the other hand, I know dealers that are having such amazing success right now doing everything in-house that they've dropped Cars.com and Autotrader.

There's room for lots of products and services in this space and maybe "TotalControl Search Engine Dominator" is truly amazing but, "total control" still suggests no assistance required.

Thanks again for your response.

My best,

Shaun