2 Rooftops and CRM
For example, if Dealer A buys Dealer B and wants to use their existing CRM tool for the store they bought (just adding users) are they able to successfully do that--- given they utilize the same DMS system? Routing new cars leads would seem simple enough but used car leads between the different stores as well as distributing, for example, orphan owners, may be trickier.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Arnold Tijerina on -
Sure you can. You'll still probably have to pay twice to the vendor though. Most vendors charge per rooftop. If you have two rooftops (and are paying a fee for each), they'll link them together and help you get it all set up properly usually..(and notice I said "most".. check with your CRM vendor to be sure but I have yet to come across one that they "can't" do that with)
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Permalink Reply by Wm J Baierl on
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We did this and had it working superbly but one mid-level manager wasn't happy with the corporate wide reporting and was able to quash the effort with complaining. We set up teams within 1 store to handle 7 rooftops. Worked great for front-line people. They knew immediately when people were cross-shopping our own stores and they had seamless easy access to all inventory. There were issues in having reliable real-time lead/sale counts but that stuff was only verified after pulling data from DMS anyways so not sure what the one guy's problem was.
We have since shopped for CRM and with rare exception we were told we could not do this. VinSolutions was offended we even asked. Like we were supposed to fall down and gladly pay high price 7 times because their tool was so much better. Guess no one on their staff ever learned about marginal utility.
Almost of the opinion that paying a programmer to set up a SQL databse that interfaces with DMS would get us everything we need. Then we could contract add ons that import/export flat files on single point contracts.
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Permalink Reply by David Goodison on
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It is no problem at all. Most companies can handle that easily but yes, they will charge for the extra store. If the dealerships are close together and the CRM is good, they can get instant cross shop alerts so if a customer visits store A and then store B, they can see what transpired with the customer at their sister store (like what they were quoted in price and terms). Very cool feature for holding gross.
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Permalink Reply by Skip Shakely on
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Yes this is no problem with most CRM companies. I have done this with a prior dealer group I was with ( 3 stores and 1 central used car dept.) an it worked very well. The only problem is like a lot of the other things we do in this business. People. Getting people to use the right process to get the info you want and need to make it all worthwhile. Since what you are looking for is information the right stuff needs to go in to get the right stuff out. That is usually the breakdown.
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Permalink Reply by Jock Schowalter on
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Better CRM solutions can handle this with no problem. It's just important that everyone from a management perspective can agree on how the CRM will be set up from a process standpoint and how the stores will agree to work together. With DealerPeak you can also setup different processes per location, but still have enterprise level reporting. Hope this helps.
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Permalink Reply by David Goodison on
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Yes, Jock is right. It only works if the managers are together on the rules for sharing that data. ProResponse makes it simple since dealerships access our system ASP and we process all data and dupes real time.
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Permalink Reply by Robert Hildreth on
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I have set up my 2 stores under 1 CRM but have been experiencing many problems since installing the program. When interviewing the companies it is funny how every CRM always tells you there will be no problems. The CRM was installed in October and still is not working correctly.
Reading others comments what will work and what will not. I could not get the managers to agree on anything. I simply told them I will set it up and they can adapt to it. Trying to get multi managers agree can be nearly impossible. And frankly most want things that are not possible or difficult to do.
What we all want is to know are the same basic things. 1) Are the customers being followed up 2) Measuring our success in communicating to the public, walk in, email and phone 3) Have templates set up to streamline responses and save time on your sales team not having to re-create message(s) that has been proven historicaly to perform.
Having more then one rooftop with a process in place makes it easier to manage and control. However, in my case the downfall is that when one store sells the vehicle in some cases the other store it shows up as a service customer the same day. This can cause many problems as we are on the constant search to clear duplicates.
I did negotiate the CRM for 2 independent systems and 1 rooftop price. Any company not willing to work with me under that premise was immediately crossed off of the lists.
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Permalink Reply by David Goodison on
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Sorry to hear about your situation Robert. 8 months!? That is totally unacceptable. When are you going to fire them? When I started doing this back in the mid 90's it was simply called "follow up". There were very few vendors. Now, everyone is a friggin' CRM company! I still have customers that I had from day 1 in 1998 and they are still with me because we deliver what we say and never let our customers down. Too bad you didn't take a look at ProResponse during your selection process. Here is one of our customers that has 12 stores: here They went through a few CRMs before they found us. That was 3 years ago. Hope you get your situation fixed, but if you don't...www.proresponse.com
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