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Rank the CRMs

I'm currently evaluating what's available. I intend to talk ALOT more about this at some point but my biggest gripe is that they're all......kind of awful....with the exception of drivecentric. But as far as the majority of the offerings - if you want to ACTUALLY communicate with the customer in a way that consumers have grown to expect (treated them as humans instead of users across departments) and can use the data to fuel marketing....good heavens the state of affairs of crms are wild. so you're either spending 845049053 dollars + the cost of the cdp to be able to use the data. OR you're in 1999. And here we are.
 
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Reactions: Alex Snyder
Valuable feedback Dan. I’ve been elead using on and off (mostly on) for over 25 years, back when it was just an ILM. However, this is NOT an endorsement.
Geez you got me trying to think now....the years all roll together now.....I guess it was only ILM for the many many years the Hathcock's started and owned them right? (Miss those cookies)
 
My overall point was the landscape for crm in automotive is extremely grim, otherwise
In the B2B side of the world, many of us are on the verge of building custom CRMs for our own teams. If I had stock in Salesforce or HubSpot, I'd be dumping it tomorrow.

We do not have the walled gardens to get past, so this is an easier endeavor for us. We also have developers and full AI coding accounts... and some of us have built CRMs before.

Automotive retail CRMs are still hand-holders. The benefit is in printing paperwork and desking deals. Management drives follow-up and customer entry.

The future automotive CRM sticks to those benefits while removing the rest ;-)

....someone may or may not be thinking about this :hidepc:
 
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Reactions: Lindsey BOOM Shaker
In the B2B side of the world, many of us are on the verge of building custom CRMs for our own teams. If I had stock in Salesforce or HubSpot, I'd be dumping it tomorrow.

We do not have the walled gardens to get past, so this is an easier endeavor for us. We also have developers and full AI coding accounts... and some of us have built CRMs before.

Automotive retail CRMs are still hand-holders. The benefit is in printing paperwork and desking deals. Management drives follow-up and customer entry.

The future automotive CRM sticks to those benefits while removing the rest ;-)

....someone may or may not be thinking about this :hidepc:
TRUE! THAT!
 
I would love to see what "they" are thinking about that already hasn't been thought about already in this space.

When we signed up with Tekion at my previous spot the trainers were boasting about the Tekion founders buying a Reynolds store and a CDK/Elead store out West and making Tekion with the best of both.

So I'm wondering what else is there to think up. I'm sure that's :sssh: on "theys" end but makes me :thinker:

....maybe a better way to email?
 

✨ AI Highlights

A 12-store dealer group considering leaving Elead/CDK opens a discussion on the current CRM landscape, drawing candid takes on Tekion, DriveCentric, VinSolutions, and DealerSocket. The thread's sharpest insight is that automotive CRMs are broadly seen as outdated and inadequate for modern customer communication, with one industry figure hinting at a custom-built alternative as AI coding tools make that increasingly feasible.

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