Location is the ad source of the unenlightened

[Alex Snyder]

I almost wrote the title of this thread as "Location is the ad source of morons," but that's not a fair statement. Usually, your CRM provider is the one who sticks location into the listing of advertising sources and they're not all morons

So dealers, do you believe you should leave location in your CRM as an option for your employees to click as the main advertising source that brought a customer in your door?

Or in an even crazier question, do you trust your sales & service staff to actually probe the customer to find out what truly made them aware of your dealership and what other sources should receive attribution too? Okay, yes, that's a trick question.

Anyway, here's some gas and a match.... go

 

[AdamMurray]

This has been one of the ultimate challenges since the beginning of time (or at least since the beginning of desk logs and up counts). I used to think "Location" was solely chosen out of pure salesperson laziness. Then we put a full court press on sourcing in the dealership and every single manager that talked to a customer was required to discuss what brought them in. Surprisingly, we would see different answers from the salesperson, ASM, desk manager, F&I mgr, F&I director, etc...from the same customer!

In this day and age, Location is certainly low on the totem pole for attribution, but still a common answer from a customer that might feel it's better to say less and listen more while sitting in our stores.

 

[Chris Leslie]

Never trust a manual entry for sourcing.

 

[Rob]

If you take Location out as an option, things get worse. Instead of dozens (hundreds?) of Locations, your team will find a new pet default to select. Or maybe even worse, they’ll just pick randomly every time.

I’d rather have a pile of Locations.

 

[Alex Snyder]

If you take Location out as an option, things get worse. Instead of dozens (hundreds?) of Locations, your team will find a new pet default to select. Or maybe even worse, they’ll just pick randomly every time.

Why even ask the team for their input on ad sources then?

 

[Rob]

Why even ask the team for their input on ad sources then?

I guess the most basic answer would be “because the CRM requires it.”

Just from a logistics standpoint, a sales rep can’t enter a customer into the most (all?) CRM’s without selecting a source.

 

[Alex Snyder]

I guess the most basic answer would be “because the CRM requires it.”

Well shit Rob, you're going to make me use that moron word I was trying not to use in my first post, in regards to the CRM systems

It certainly is time for a better CRM solution isn't it?

 

[Rob]

Well shit Rob, you're going to make me use that moron word I was trying not to use in my first post, in regards to the CRM systems

It certainly is time for a better CRM solution isn't it?

And YES! Somehow I kept myself from flying off the handle on the recent post about how CRM is essentially a solved problem.

!!!

 

[FrigginBandit]

I almost wrote the title of this thread as "Location is the ad source of morons," but that's not a fair statement. Usually, your CRM provider is the one who sticks location into the listing of advertising sources and they're not all morons

So dealers, do you believe you should leave location in your CRM as an option for your employees to click as the main advertising source that brought a customer in your door?

Or in an even crazier question, do you trust your sales & service staff to actually probe the customer to find out what truly made them aware of your dealership and what other sources should receive attribution too? Okay, yes, that's a trick question.

Anyway, here's some gas and a match.... go

This is a fantastic question! It’s amazing how my sales didn’t go down when I removed “driveby” from the CRM. You’d think I had the best locations in the country before that.

If CRM’s were created by automotive successes instead of automotive rejects and workflows were crafted by those actually making deals instead of those that failed on selling then they’d have it as a requirement for the desk manager to input and then again by the finance manager as a cross reference.

That way we can see A. If the customer changed their tune or B. If the managers are getting the same story and how often. This is really important as it’s something I look at every two weeks when deciding if and where I’m investing ad dollars.

No, I don’t trust my front line team to enter this information and it’s not due to laziness or devious intent. It’s because they’re trying their all to just build rapport and follow the road to the sale.

The sales managers would be able to gather all and the finance managers would be able to confirm the sold.

However, to take this to another level some may not want to hear, do we really think the “drive by” and/or the “newspaper” still happen or work? Customers either submit a weblead, call in, chat in or come through the drive. A small percentage may engage and print something from social. There’s an even smaller percentage that come from the high priced ad agencies however, again, they hit the landing page or call in.

So, the real condundrum is the CRM folks are insanely antiquated and their systems are sill based on non-text and non-mobile communications and back in “1984” drive bys and newspapers still worked.

 

[john.quinn]

Hmmmm.... Seems to me "location" may be more relevant than ever.

With every dealership in the country only as far away as your fingertips, when it's time to actually take that first step through a bricks door, what is going to influence my decision?

Research a few different places, go where I want to buy, which is usually the place that is most convenient to me.

Dirty little secret? It shouldn't be...

Now -- TRACKING that information? Any data that relies on staff input is inherently useless.