CRM advice needed, Small VW Dealership in Northwestern Pa
I am currently needing advice with regards to CRM software for our dealership, we have something sort of close but very antiquated, that said, I thought that I understood the functionality of said software however I may have been sort of blind to it... My question(s) to you all is simple, for anybody using a CRM that they are happy with or would like to change a few things with their current software, please advise me on the following...
1-Integration with sales, service, and other departments (seamless functionality)
2-Ease of use for incoming/outgoing email, phone etc...(leads, follow-up etc..)
3-Smartphone friendly with regards to email response
4-A reasonable cost
5-HOW DOES IT WORK???????
I would really love for some input with regards to the above, tell me how it works..How does one use it? Pros/Cons etc etc.... Thank you
I am only in the infancy stage of building a case for the D.P of my store, so that he can see the benefits of said software... This is not an invitation for countless phone calls or sales reps from companies that offer CRM software to hammer me... Please advise me within this forum only!!!!!!
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Linn Boyd on -
@Keith
Mr. Shetterly, first I am sorry to mis-spell your name.
Yes, for most dealers, the network is the biggest problem only because of culture, and they are "vendor-locked" because they won't spend the money to true IT infrastructure or staff. The dealers see them as a "cost center" that must be cut. It is so easy to sit in the parking lot and get all of the customers SSN's etc without leaving an identifying marks! (Think MDI's when they wouldn't support any encryption)
Yes, hosted solutions do=vendor lock, unless you get a fully operational software & databackup often, you are locked! You give me a snap shot of any server that has raw data, I can get a team to get it operational no matter what vendor goes tits up within 48 hours. No one can do that with a "hosted" solution, also with a "hosted" solution I can't be assured that I get unaltered logs to everything that has happened, they always have "root" access.
Tell me this. If cloud is so secure, why is no military or secure government agency running on a public cloud? Also why are there active movements within PCI, HIPAA, and other security groups trying to ban all cloud and SAS computing for anything that can't be released publicly. Yes they are cheaper but every day you run on them you are risking your business.
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Permalink Reply by Keith Shetterly on
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It's just not that way at dealerships, whether it should be or not (and I agree it should be MUCH more secure).
Cloud computing is here to stay. I've seen it bashed, no matter what it has been called, for over twenty years, and it's still here. You are right that dealerships don't protect data; for now, as much as you argue for it, the network the server-based solution sits on in dealers is often less secure than the cloud.
Anyway, to offer up a server-based system for dealers as more secure is like saying it's more secure to leave locked safes loose in your unprotected parking lot rather than to leave chain-locked money bags behind a fence across the street. Until the network security is tackled, the security of server-based or cloud-based for dealers is often MORE secure in the cloud.
Dealers need good advice and real solutions for their real environment. I just don't agree that what you propose takes that environment, and the true cost to secure it, into account. To me, it's a marketing bullet point I've heard for . . . well, probably longer than I care to think about.
Don't worry about the mis-spelling. At least you didn't choose the really wrong vowel. ;)
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Permalink Reply by Thomas Dean on
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Linn,
Most Web based CRM systems are not hosted the way that you would host your personal web page at GoDaddy. They own their own hardware and store them at a colocation. Since the CRM owns their own hardware they do all of the backups and other maintenance you are referring to so that the dealership does not have to. Plus I have had to get data out of several other CRM's when they were transitioning and also have exported data for dealers. CRM vendors do not withhold dealer data like it is some kind of hostage.
As a result, CRM systems such as these provide several key benefits to their customers:
- Unrivaled amounts of carrier grade space in all major U.S. and international markets that will allow your business to be located as close to future end users as possible.
- Instant scalability - faster network and facility expansion.
- 100% SLA for Bandwidth and 99.9% SLA for Power
(SLA = Service Level Agreement) - 24 x 7 x 365 operations capability, without the associated costs of maintaining it.
- Closed-circuit video surveillance, and biometric (e.g., palm scan) identification maintain a secure operational environment.
- Uninterrupted Power Supply (UPS) provides highly reliable service for mission critical equipment.
- Web Based Detailed Monthly Bandwidth Usage Reportingshowing uptime, max data spike, overall average and 95th percentile average data usage
- Carefully monitored, climate-controlled space helps maintain the integrity of your equipment.
- Centralized receiving and storage equipment controls allow for tracking and securing our equipment
Linn Boyd said:@Joe
All of your banking is NOT stored in a "Hosted" or a cloud based solution that is controlled by others and Bank Of American and Wells Fargo control their own infrastructure and systems. All of the small credit unions and banks that I have worked with have all of the data in either their facility or a private colocation area that is SSAE 16 audited. Their websites may be hosted by someone else but not their private data. They also get an audit log of who has seen all of their data, along with other safe guards. Yes, it is on the internet, but it is not a "hosted" our cloud based solution completely, with a CRM system they are putting it all out there.
With a hosted solution you are inherently vendor locked into their solution, they can raise their prices at will, and not let you have access to your own data and a lot of other things. I know of more than one company that was servicing enterprise type of accounts using megaupload's CDN to distribute the data, now they are out of business, and they didn't have a copy of their data, some were also using a sister companies data.
Here is a study released by the Gartner group http://www.infoworld.com/d/security-central/gartner-seven-cloud-com... also there are many healthcare and financial rules about the cloud that are beginning to come out right now that are going to specifically ban cloud computing.
Would a customer buy a car from you if you told them, hey I have a great business and am making money but if I go out of business you get a car with all of the screws and bolts to hold it together taken away just overnight. That is what going with a hosted CRM/DMS solution can do to you!
For your websites there are ways to safe guard this, but with your CRM/DMS etc. etc. there is not. You should be getting nightly backups of the following daily delivered to you on a USB key(or disk drive), and rotate them in two week increments with at least one going off site.
1) DMS
2) CRM other critical tools
3) eMail server
4) Critical Files
5) If your website is dynamic this (if it isn't dynamic you should get it monthly)You should also have a SOP that allows you to continue business as usual without any vendor, without losing email addresses etc. within 48 hours.
One of the things that I see is a store send person emails from their sales staff to a customer using another domain example, it is very unprofessional to see Keith.Shutterly@iamtocheaptobuymyowndomain.com rather than keith.shutterly@mylocalcarstore.com. Using the other domains that are used by hundreds of dealers also makes it very easy to block those domains from corporate email etc. and if you don't think that administrators do that you are mistaken. I know a large hosting provider that causes those email email domains to be slowed purposely. This hosting provider is responsible for millions of domains. It is proven that customers don't like to see their information sold etc and the domains changing are exactly that.
I am could keep going, but I am going to end with this from someone at MIT that is much smarter than me. Speaking about security in the cloud. If the government specifically bans cloud computing for anything of any importance on their internal systems, it makes me think that I don't want my company’s proprietary information there either.
"The very term cloud computing should be replaced by swamp computing." Ron Rivest, MIT Computer Scientist, co-inventor, RSA public key cryptography algorithm.
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Permalink Reply by Linn Boyd on
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Thomas,
What stops a salesman from your company showing a live customers data to another potential customer? Can each customer get RAW audit logs to the servers that hold their data? Does the dealership have an opportunity to do a third party full audit of your systems without your interference or being able to see that audit?
If Car-Research had all of its data destroyed tomorrow could the dealership's crm run the next day? I mean something like a megaupload thing. If the dealership had in-house backups with all software then you could. If a dealership pays to use the software then they should have a copy of the binary and don't give us the BS that a binary=source code because it doesn't!
Cheers!
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Permalink Reply by Keith Shetterly on
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Well, good luck, as they say, stopping the cloud with dealers using that argument. SOME of us here might get it, but it's not going to do the trick. The cloud isn't coming. It's here. In dealers today.
The worst data issue, actually, has nothing to do with cloud or otherwise. It has to do with rampant, unchecked, and un-monitored vendor access to the DMS. Happens today with cloud AND server DMS.
if I had to advise a dealer about data, right now I'd be on that point. 100% active risk because, essentially, the master keys for the data are loose on the street, so to speak.
Thanks.
Linn Boyd said:Thomas,
What stops a salesman from your company showing a live customers data to another potential customer? Can each customer get RAW audit logs to the servers that hold their data? Does the dealership have an opportunity to do a third party full audit of your systems without your interference or being able to see that audit?
If Car-Research had all of its data destroyed tomorrow could the dealership's crm run the next day? I mean something like a megaupload thing. If the dealership had in-house backups with all software then you could. If a dealership pays to use the software then they should have a copy of the binary and don't give us the BS that a binary=source code because it doesn't!
Cheers!
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Permalink Reply by Linn Boyd on
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Keith,
You are so right.... On what I quoted you below on. This is just starting to shut the unfettered access down.
Also a bunch of people don't realize that someone flaming me here www.car-research.com can be shutdown at any time by iland.com because car-research.com isn't even able to do business with their colocation provider(maybe just bandwidth) (Level 3) directly. They are going through a reseller, I bet that they don't tell their customers that they buy colocation space from someone that doesn't even own it, it just adds another step of, opps they didn't pay the bill so I am screwed.
The dealers need to pay for real DD on their IT systems, and how they operate! Not just who gives the best demo, has the best looking account managers etc.
Cheers!
Keith Shetterly said:The worst data issue, actually, has nothing to do with cloud or otherwise. It has to do with rampant, unchecked, and un-monitored vendor access to the DMS. Happens today with cloud AND server DMS.
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Linn,
The point is the dealership should not have to. A couple of years ago when a hurricane ripped Houston apart. It took down that colocation which is considered a backbone of the internet. In less than 24 hours our backups had us back up and running from another city.
I have done this in the private sector and in the military (Semper Fidelis) and trust me everything is being done and more. That's why CRMs exist to give the users a tool to use and one that they do not have worry about the inner workings of just that it helps them sell cars.
Linn Boyd said:Thomas,
What stops a salesman from your company showing a live customers data to another potential customer? Can each customer get RAW audit logs to the servers that hold their data? Does the dealership have an opportunity to do a third party full audit of your systems without your interference or being able to see that audit?
If Car-Research had all of its data destroyed tomorrow could the dealership's crm run the next day? I mean something like a megaupload thing. If the dealership had in-house backups with all software then you could. If a dealership pays to use the software then they should have a copy of the binary and don't give us the BS that a binary=source code because it doesn't!
Cheers!
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Permalink Reply by Linn Boyd on
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Thomas,
Ahhh.... Which hurricane was that? See I was living in Houston at that time. The problem is that car-research.com picked a poor facility to host their operations in, I can name many facilites that didn't have a single second of downtime in that hurricaine including the one that I used to OWN! What about Katrina and data centers in New Orleans that didn't have a second of downtime. I was involved in those as well! Had car-research.com or any of its dealers done more DD then they wouldn't have had the hours of down time for a restore because they could have used active-active configurations, and/or a correct datacenter. Rather than doing that the correct way car-research and their customers went the cheap route!
Cheers
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Permalink Reply by Keith Shetterly on
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You wrote "If Car-Research had all of its data destroyed tomorrow could the dealership's crm run the next day?"
Thomas answered you well. There are always more-expensive answers, and there's no accounting for luck in "location location location" for what will down or not down a facility.
Car Research, and all cloud-based CRMs, serve dealers every day. As I said, it's not the model, it's the usage; not the theory, but the reality. Because of parasitic and self-serving vendors AND dealer ignorance of the issue, I submit that dealers' DMS data, in general, has more leaks than the men's urinal at half-time at the Reliant Center, and cloud or not that is currently the most real data issue they face.
Linn Boyd said:Thomas,
Ahhh.... Which hurricane was that? See I was living in Houston at that time. The problem is that car-research.com picked a poor facility to host their operations in, I can name many facilites that didn't have a single second of downtime in that hurricaine including the one that I used to OWN! What about Katrina and data centers in New Orleans that didn't have a second of downtime. I was involved in those as well! Had car-research.com or any of its dealers done more DD then they wouldn't have had the hours of down time for a restore because they could have used active-active configurations, and/or a correct datacenter. Rather than doing that the correct way car-research and their customers went the cheap route!
Cheers
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Listen nobody needs a pissing contest here. This post was asking for help and you are way off subject. Besides Level 3 is not the cheap route and as I said they are a backbone to our countries internet. More than any other company why do think they were chosen by NBC and the NFL.
Level 3 Selected by NBC and NFL to Deliver Super Bowl XLVI in High Definition
http://level3.mediaroom.com/index.php?s=23600&item=118219
I hope Andrew and all of the other dealers much success in the coming year.
Good night!
Linn Boyd said:Thomas,
Ahhh.... Which hurricane was that? See I was living in Houston at that time. The problem is that car-research.com picked a poor facility to host their operations in, I can name many facilites that didn't have a single second of downtime in that hurricaine including the one that I used to OWN! What about Katrina and data centers in New Orleans that didn't have a second of downtime. I was involved in those as well! Had car-research.com or any of its dealers done more DD then they wouldn't have had the hours of down time for a restore because they could have used active-active configurations, and/or a correct datacenter. Rather than doing that the correct way car-research and their customers went the cheap route!
Cheers
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Permalink Reply by Linn Boyd on
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@Keith
I am not arguing with you that DMS's are a h*** but hosted CRM's are just as big of a h***, and we should start plugging them all, starting with the CRM's is easier than the DMS systems. Lets get the dealers to plug all of the holes! And not create new ones with "Cloud Computing" or Software As Service"
-Linn
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Permalink Reply by Linn Boyd on
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Thomas,
No pissing contest, why not explain why you had ANY downtime when others didn't 1001 Texas, 1301 Fannin, Cyrus One along with others in Houston while yours did? Then you say the benefits of colocation, what about RAW access logs? You put this out there, then avoided them lets discuss them. Can your dealers see each time that your people have accessed your data, has it been audited by a qualified third party?-Linn
Thomas Dean said:Listen nobody needs a pissing contest here. This post was asking for help and you are way off subject. Besides Level 3 is not the cheap route and as I said they are a backbone to our countries internet. More than any other company why do think they were chosen by NBC and the NFL.
Level 3 Selected by NBC and NFL to Deliver Super Bowl XLVI in High Definition
http://level3.mediaroom.com/index.php?s=23600&item=118219
I hope Andrew and all of the other dealers much success in the coming year.
Good night!
Linn Boyd said:Thomas,
Ahhh.... Which hurricane was that? See I was living in Houston at that time. The problem is that car-research.com picked a poor facility to host their operations in, I can name many facilites that didn't have a single second of downtime in that hurricaine including the one that I used to OWN! What about Katrina and data centers in New Orleans that didn't have a second of downtime. I was involved in those as well! Had car-research.com or any of its dealers done more DD then they wouldn't have had the hours of down time for a restore because they could have used active-active configurations, and/or a correct datacenter. Rather than doing that the correct way car-research and their customers went the cheap route!
Cheers
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