Is there room in automotive for another CRM?

[joe.pistell]

with more folks submitting leads online

RANT.
The Dealer/CRM relationship is AFU. Our world is slowly shifting...

Last month,
• 19 Million Car Shoppers went to Carvana.com**.
• 1 Million Used Cars were sold by Franchised Dealers*.

How many Carvana Shoppers were on YOUR SITE this month?
--> 97-99% OF YOUR WEB SITE VISITORS DON'T BUY FROM YOU <---
-->90% of 1st time visitors to your VDP never return <--

Dealers: "7% of buyers purchased a vehicle entirely online in 2023" (NADA '23)
Carvana: 100% of buyers purchased a vehicle entirely online.

Carvana CRM = Collaborative Retail Management

(p.s. your going to need FrikenTech's platform to execute teh penny perfect loan/lease quotes)
**Carvana 2024 retail unit sales up 34% YoY.



/RANT

 

[Dan Sayer]

but with more folks submitting leads online

@Shawn Ryder, noticing this ^^^ point (highlighted by @joe.pistell from his RANT), I do not equate Internet Leads to CRM. Internet leads up or down have no weight on whether a CRM or the function of a CRM is either more or less important. Internet leads are Phone Ups we haven't talked to yet, Phone Ups are Walk-ins we haven't met yet, and Walk-Ins are Internet Leads that didn't push the button. Don't base the entire focus of a CRM on how the customer raises their hand but rather how a dealer needs to organize every prospect and customer in their lifecycle and automate as much as you can because lord knows even the best salespeople and managers can barely manage their own lives let-alone their work day.

 

[Dan Sayer]

No. @Shawn Ryder Not in the traditional model of CRM. DriveCentric flipped the old guard on its head a bit in the way they approach tasks and engagement and UX. They're still limited though by partnerships and integrations with the puzzle pieces they don't posses (DMS, etc). Tekion's goal of a single integrated system seems to be stalling even though they're growing in accounts, growing in features, but seemingly not improving satisfaction, performance, or value of tools. I think the largest area of opportunity for someone with a new CRM wanting to move quickly is in the independent space. Subscription based $199-$399 price point with basic features, mobile, and customer management with even 5% of the market is $3M+ in annual revenue. And with that said, every entrepreneur on here is going to say I'm an idiot LOL. The other issue is going to be the increasing OEM lock down of tools and required partnerships and integrations for franchise dealers. For instance, just to get FordDirect integrations I had to move our four Ford stores to "FordDirect CRM" aka DriveCentric which we were already using. My FD rate on DriveCentric is going to add a considerable expense to our Variable Department expense BUT gotta play if we want those private offer and inventory integrations...

And I rest my case...

 

[Carsten]

That's sad.

Either they are incompetent or just basically incompetent.

 

[Alex Snyder]

The best ILM was AVV’s Webcontrol. It was so simple and gave you true oversight on all leads. No CRM has come close to duplicating what this little tool did in the late 1990s. What is now called “the CRM” had a nice little ILM that became iMagicLabs in the early/mid 2000s. That too, was a more elegant solution than what we have today, for leads.

The single person handling all leads doesn’t exist anymore. Those of us who had the Internet Manager role during those days are no longer at those dealerships or moved up in roles. The Achilles heel of those systems was us. If the “expert” was no longer using that tool, that tool died. Thus, we have bland CRM systems stuck in a feature parity chase because the front door on the dealership revolves. The new guy only wants what he had at his old dealership. The vendor has to have the same features and flows to have a chance at retaining the dealership at that point. And it works the same way for a new vendor trying to come in. Dealers are too busy to have an open mind every day.

You are witnessing Tekion crashing against this right now. The shiny new trinket phase has warn off. They have crested the early adoption chasm. The end of the grow grow grow phase is plagued by scale scale scale and the quick get-to-market decisions show their ugly downsides in glitches and bugs. They will overcome it to find their spot in the pecking order soon. This is totally natural.

CDPs are shiny new things right now. AI too. In two more years we will have different opinions about these things as we better understand these techs’ limits. CRMs are 30 years old. They need an evolution or disruption.

 

[joe.pistell]

'refresh threads are hot, @Ryan Everson has been quiet... I bet ya he's balls deep in prompt/agent discovery

 

[Ryan Everson]

'refresh threads are hot, @Ryan Everson has been quiet... I bet ya he's balls deep in prompt/agent discovery

Got a little busy having another daughter! But the 48 hours of paternal leave that the automotive industry provides is almost over, so will be back soon

 

[jon.berna]

Congrats @Ryan Everson

 

[Ryan Everson]

I’ve done a deep dive into CRMs both inside and outside of the automotive industry, and the one that impressed me the most is FollowUpBoss:

The Real Estate Team OS - Follow Up Boss

Follow Up Boss is more than a real estate CRM. It's a flexible, open platform where top performers build thriving businesses. Get your contacts and team organized, engage with the right people at the right time, and have total visibility into your entire business.

www.followupboss.com

It’s a real estate CRM that was recently acquired by Zillow. If someone were to create something similar but tailored for automotive, it would sell like hotcakes.

They offer tons of innovative features that haven’t yet made their way into automotive CRMs:

• Smart Lists: Create custom, dynamic follow-up lists or lead segments based on lead properties and activity history (e.g., leads who haven’t been called in 5 days but have responded to 3+ texts in the last 14 days). It's the perfect hybrid of eliminating endless tasks without relying solely on an inbox.
• Power Dialer: Work through an entire smart list by creating a dialing session that progresses from lead to lead, allowing you to pause between calls to add notes.
• Dedicated, Text-Enabled Phone Numbers for Every User: Salespeople can put their CRM number on business cards, social media profiles, etc., and have all inbound texts and calls automatically routed to them.
• Workflow Journey Builders With Automated Triggers: Create automation sequences based on triggers (e.g., when a lead’s status changes from Hot to Cold, enroll them in a specific follow-up sequence).
• Embedded Apps: A unique feature that allows you to embed custom apps directly into the customer record screen (e.g., create a custom desking app that can send and receive information about the current customer).
• Robust API and Webhooks: It’s unfortunate that this level of integration is still considered innovative, but it allows for powerful customization and data flows.
• Unified Inbox: Similar to DriveCentric’s, but more advanced. Create team inboxes with custom SMS/voice numbers for specific campaigns or lead sources.
• Group Texting: Send texts to multiple recipients (husband, wife, co-buyer, etc.) in a single group message.
• vCard Integration: Automatically text a vCard to new leads with your name and contact info, so when you call them, your name appears on their caller ID.
• Website Pixel & Custom Events: Track a customer’s website history and trigger custom events (e.g., viewed a 2020 Dodge Charger VDP, submitted a “Check Availability” lead form). Use these events when creating dynamic smart lists.
• Note Reactions and Threads: Add reactions, tag users, and create threaded replies to internal notes on a customer’s profile screen.
• Calendar View: View all of your appointments by sales representative.
• Kanban Sales Pipeline View: View all of your deals organized by their current stage, and easily move them through the funnel
• Call Recording Transcription & Summary: Automatically transcribe and summarize call recordings, and generate suggested next steps based on conversation content.

So, if any automotive CRM startups or legacy CRMs are reading this, please incorporate some of the features listed above!

 

[Jon Singo]

Congrats @Ryan Everson!

I think it was brought up here before but wouldn't Salesforce be able to do most of what everyone is asking in here? I know they were discussing bridging into automotive a few years ago but I haven't heard anything since. Any time I bring up some new cool CRM/CDP/marketing thing in automotive to my wife I can almost guarantee she'll reply, 'I'm pretty sure Salesforce already does that'.