Future of CRM

[C Dorman]

Alex Snyder said:

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You sound defeated Chip. I hear where you're coming from, but I also have faith.

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Not defeated Alex, just realistic. We're still using ADF. If asking for our systems to pull data via API is to much to ask for, what gives you hope anything major is going to happen in the next 5 to 10 years?

 

[john.quinn]

Baron Ringler said:

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The first company to build a comprehensive suite (phone tracking, CRM, equity and service miner, online chat, etc.) will make a fortune AND hurt their competitors badly.

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I respectively have to disagree here... are there actually CRM's who DO NOT have the basic features mentioned above today?

Building features is easy! Building features that streamline existing, sometime intricate processes is a completely different story.

Features that do not seamlessly integrate with the accounting system are quickly tossed-aside. Features that add to an already cluttered desktop are quickly discarded.

I have a small bit of experience in this arena -- here's another truth: talk to 10 dealers about their 10 absolute MUST HAVE features, and you will certainly end-up with a list of 100 features. And these 100 different features will have to work for 100 different processes.... and you start to get the most basic inkling of why the marketplace is so differentiated -- absolutely no such thing as One Size Fits All.

Now... build something so that your customers are using the same set of tools as your staff... my ears perk-up a bit

 

[C Dorman]

Those CDK and ReyRey boat anchors are dragging an entire industry now.

Who's going to break the log jam Alex? All of the established players have a proven track record of sucking at developing software. They all basically grew through acquisition and manage their products like cash cows. Even if a new competitor emerged, one of the old guard would just buy them and the status quo would continue. Salesforce is the leading CRM system outside of automotive, but given their current user license fees, developing an automotive version would be cost prohibitive. So unless something drastic happens, we're going to be stuck with what we have for the foreseeable future.

 

[Alex Snyder]

You sound defeated Chip. I hear where you're coming from, but I also have faith.

Those same CRM systems that set this stage came about in a time when things looked like this. CoBalt was the king of websites, ADP & Reynolds bought and shelved things, etc, etc. Dealertrack, vAuto, Dealer.com, VinSolutions, eLead, DealerSocket and many others grew out of this period. The needle was moved by small startups before.

 

[C Dorman]

john.quinn said:

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I respectively have to disagree here...

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John, sadly, dealers don't know what they want because they don't know what they should be doing or what's even possible beyond a few buzzwords. Even worse, most new technology discussions regress to asserting authority and social standing than anything beneficial.

Asking dealers for their must have features is one of the main problems. I have yet to meet an Owner or GM that has gone through any real CRM or DMS training. And onsite training doesn't count. There are too many distractions inside a dealership. I mean real, honest to goodness training for at least 5 days to an Admin level offsite. And when you combine the lack of knowledge and expertise with CRM and DMS systems with similar gaps in understanding of digital marketing, you end up with the state most dealerships are in now.

My last dealership purchased what everybody in management thought was state of the art technology. When I asked about reports, I was pointed to all the wonderful "Custom" reports. They were garbage. I was told that it took a week to two weeks to get a new report or anything changed on an existing report. Long story short, our "state of the art" DMS was using Crystal Reports driven by SQL. Admittedly I had to blow the dust off of some of my old skills, but at least I was able to get the data I needed and I was able to help our CFO clean up some messes. With the exception of the CFO, there was nobody in the dealership who really understood the data in either the CRM or the DMS, its quality, how it was gathered or how a report was generated and how that might affect the accuracy of the report.

 

[jscole86]

Last time @Alex Snyder wrote some blog posts on crm related stuff, a new crm popped up not too long after. What's taking so long Alex...? haha

 

[Baron Ringler (blog)]

john.quinn said:

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I respectively have to disagree here... are there actually CRM's who DO NOT have the basic features mentioned above today?

Building features is easy! Building features that streamline existing, sometime intricate processes is a completely different story.

Features that do not seamlessly integrate with the accounting system are quickly tossed-aside. Features that add to an already cluttered desktop are quickly discarded.

I have a small bit of experience in this arena -- here's another truth: talk to 10 dealers about their 10 absolute MUST HAVE features, and you will certainly end-up with a list of 100 features. And these 100 different features will have to work for 100 different processes.... and you start to get the most basic inkling of why the marketplace is so differentiated -- absolutely no such thing as One Size Fits All.

Now... build something so that your customers are using the same set of tools as your staff... my ears perk-up a bit

Click to expand...

100% a great idea, that last.

As a fairly decent end user I've found that none of the big name CRM companies have the full package when it comes to the full customer experience. e-Leads is starting to work with it but it's so rudimentary as to not be fully useful. On the other side, a company like AutoAlert should have thought about expanding in to the CRM market years ago. That type of full scale system that would be created, along with adding a chat and and phone monitoring system (or as you mentioned customer interfaces right online), would streamline the user experience, streamline the costs, and reduce the number of vendors a store has to deal with (and I don't know of any dealership that wouldn't like reducing vendor count). Then integrate an accounting system in to that? It would be the Mona Lisa of systems and would control the market in short order. But no one wants to take the risk because they are afraid o screwing up a good thing.

Many many years ago, in the mid-90's, Reynolds actually started to build a system with that in mind (CRM, desk, finance, and accounting all in one) but they botched the programming (I was there: it was one of the most amazing screw-ups of all time) and lost a ton of money before they scaraped the whole thing, and they haven't really taken any more risks since then.

They all have paid for systems which are cash cows that no one wants to mess around with, although I will give Dealersocket credit in that their new Bluebird (Blackbird? Not sure) does take a radical departure from their previous system. But it's still mired in old thinking of what a CRM should be.

It will be a startup that makes it happen, not any of the established players.

 

[john.quinn]

How does new, cool, fantastic technology reach critical mass against the behemoths?

I have a FANTASTIC idea for a new cellphone... but what's the point there?

I can remember a time when iMagic CRM was NEW, cool, good tech, hip... right? (Right??) Although they may be "newer" than many mentioned on this list above, they stayed the course... to the point where they are barely relevant today. (Right??)

And I do understand some of the specific "eccentricities" associated with that particular example, but...

In this age of "if you're not growing, you're going backward," how does Mom & Pop reach critical mass?

Full disclosure: I really wish Mom & Pop was the goal. I've NEVER seen better than small, personal, "intimate," one-to-one -- impossible to have the needed relationships at "considered" scale. No one has ever been able to answer this simple question: How much is enough?

 

[Baron Ringler]

You know the biggest players: eLead, VinSolutions, DealerSocket, and Reynolds Contact Manager, but do you know when they were originally coded? I believe the newest one of that pack came to market in 2003. Do you remember 2003? I think we, as an industry, were finally beginning to accept that the Internet was not going to be a fad and maybe we should start taking these Internet leads more .....

Read the whole post here.

I was with Cobalt (now CDK) in 1998 when they bought Prospector, and their system now is virtually identical (and it was really bad then!). I am waiting for a company, ANY company, to finally create a full-fledged and comprehensive CRM that also includes features that you find in AutoAlert, X-treme, or Deal Activator. I know e-Leads is trying, but it's still very rudimentary. I've always been confused as to why no one has ever done that. Right now you have to purchase and maintain two different systems, and along with the coinciding inherent costs, it's just not user friendly. I've always wondered why AutoAlert hasn't done that.

The first company to build a comprehensive suite (phone tracking, CRM, equity and service miner, online chat, etc.) will make a fortune AND hurt their competitors badly. I can almost guarantee that anyone who builds such a thing, as long as it's reliable and quality, will own the market and would instantly pull in the larger dealer groups. I'm fairly certain the reason Cox hasn't done it (integrating Arkona, VIN, Dealer.com, and Deal Activator) is that they can charge more ala carte, but it would be a good chance for someone to break the market

 

[C Dorman]

You sound defeated Chip. I hear where you're coming from, but I also have faith.

Not defeated Alex, just realistic. We're still using ADF. If asking for our systems to pull data via API is to much to ask for, what gives you hope anything major is going to happen in the next 5 to 10 years?