eCRM Dealers of the Year: How They Did It – February 2006
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By Patrick Luck
February 2006
eCRM Dealers of the Year:
We dedicated last month’s issue to honoring the Top 10 eCRM Dealers of the year. Our annual eCRM Dealers of the Year award is unlike any other industry award in that we look at dealers’ results. We look at volume of leads, sales and how well the dealers use eCommerce and CRM to promote all of their profit centers: new, used, F and I, service, parts, etc.
In this issue, we will show you how the top dealers accomplished their results.
The eCRM Dealers of the Year sold 80 to 700 additional units each month, while using their eCRM strategy and vision to drive additional revenue to all their profit centers. Success like this is possible for all dealers who have the know-how and ability to implement it. In an effort to share best practices with our readers, we’re publishing the Top 10 Mistakes as well as our conversations with this year’s award winners below.
CONGRATULATIONS eCRM Dealers of the Year
HerbChambers.com
RedMcCombs.com
DaveSmithMotors.com
HouseofCourtesy.com
ParagonCars.com
CDodge.com
Sheehy.com
DickHannah.com
Schomp.com
Tasca.com
How They Did It
Top 10 Mistakes in eCRM
1. Leadership fails to get involved, measure results and hold the team accountable.
2. Dealers assume they only need a good Web site and CRM tool to get good results, and you need a lot more.
3. Dealers fail to invest in the right strategy, marketing, people, place, process and technology.
4. Dealers sign up with an eCRM vendor that’s incapable of providing everything they need to succeed.
5. Dealers fail to market and generate enough traffic to their Web sites.
6. Dealers don’t leverage the power of e-mail marketing to drive traffic.
7. Most dealers don’t know how to dominate the search engine with “free” results, not just sponsored placement.
8. Most dealer Web sites are no more than an online brochure that is often not updated and not very interactive.
9. Dealers have the right technology but lack the people, processes and pricing to turn leads into profitable sales.
10. Dealers fail to track and measure results.
Avoid and correct these mistakes, and you’ll find yourself saving time and money while improving results and sales. Our industry has been scrambling to leverage technology, and as a result, many dealers waste time and money on a Web site and CRM tool that are tall on expense and distractions and short on results. To avoid the top 10 mistakes, fix them at your dealership or build them out of your strategy. We interviewed this year’s award-winning dealers about each topic and compiled their answers below.
Leadership Involvement
Top eCRM dealers tell us that having the dealer and general manager heavily involved in initial planning, strategy sessions and decision making is crucial. Continued support and involvement determines the success or failure of any eCRM initiative. The right vendor can provide automated reports that provide all the information needed to hold the team accountable.
Creating Success
The top eCRM dealers share the belief that a good Web site is important, but won’t generate extra sales without a solid marketing strategy, the right process to turn leads into appointments, the right people to turn appointments into sales, a pricing strategy to project a fair profit and a strategy to hold it all together.
The Right eCRM Vendor
The top eCRM dealers have been exposed to companies that promise the right strategy and vision and even claim to offer marketing tools and CRM technology that will generate leads and sales.
However, what’s tough to discern is that many of these companies actually outsource a number of products and services. This can leave the dealer to manage working with two, three or five different companies when originally they thought they were signing up with just one. The products don’t integrate as promised, processes are not seamless and there’s a lack of accountability at the vendor level. What can a dealer do when choosing a vendor? Ask for references and lists of clients and ask them about their satisfaction
and results.
Generating Traffic
The top eCRM dealers have mastered the art of search engine optimization and e-mail marketing. As Roy Reutter of Sheehy.com tells us, “Search engine optimization combined with multi-media buzzmail campaigns has enabled us to increase traffic and sales at a lower cost than ever.”
When customers go online to look for a vehicle or a dealership, search engine optimization allows a dealer to ensure that their Web site appears ahead of the competition.
As Brian Benstock, of ParagonCars.com observes, “Some vendors will tell you that flash technology is incompatible with SEO, and that’s just not true. Type ‘Manhattan Honda’ into Google and you’ll see us on top. Our competition has to pay to appear near the top; we get there for free.”
Dick Hannah, of DickHannah.com, tells us, “We’ve had a lot of success with our e-mail marketing campaigns, so we focus on
“Customers love the virtual test drives and we use them to build value and bring customers into the showroom.” Ray Velasquez
Many of the top eCRM dealers told us that they are using digital marketing to increase return on investment, drop cost per sale, boost traffic and gain incremental sales.
E-mail Marketing
Brian Benstock tells us, “We know that e-mail marketing is cost-effective because everything is measurable, including the view rate and lead source. In just a couple minutes we can reach hundreds or thousands of customers with just a few clicks for less than the cost of a stamp.”
Bob Tasca III, of Tasca.com, gives a powerful example, “If Ford comes out with an Explorer incentive, I can send a buzzmail to everyone who has been in an Explorer. I can select just our lease renewal customers who are currently in an Explorer or even customers who were in to service their current Explorer. There’s no limit to how I can target my campaigns, and our customers actually tell us how much they love our buzzmails because it’s like watching a mini-movie about the product. It’s unlike anything else out there, so it gets their attention.”
Ray Velasquez, of Schomp.com, offers another best practice. “We’ve established a database of e-mail addresses so that we can send a mini-movie of a walk-around presentation straight to the customer’s inbox without requiring the customer to open an attachment. We simply select from a suite of multi-media e-mails that use the latest in compressed animation to send a ‘virtual test drive’ of the vehicle they’re interested in.”
People and Process
The top eCRM dealers agree that with the right technology, you can handle more leads with fewer people. Rad Weaver from RedMcCombs.com explains, “Our CRM tool automates so many of our phone and e-mail processes that we can manage thousands of additional leads without adding staff. Without the automation, we’d be forced to build a BDC, hire a BDC staff and incur additional expense to follow up with each and every lead.”
Brian Benstock echoes the sentiment that automation allows you to do more with less. “Automation makes it easier to follow our process, allows us to handle more leads with fewer people and allows our staff to focus on what they do best: sell cars. It’s a big part of why we’re selling an additional 200 cars a month. Today, we have more than 80,000 e-mail addresses, and if we were attempting to manage that database without automation, it would be overwhelming.”
“Our competition has to pay to appear near the top; we get there for free and customers find us first.” Brian Benstock
Hiring for Results
Most of the top eCRM dealers tell us that they look for people who are passionate about customer service. Scott Gruwell of HouseofCourtesy.com tells us, “They don’t need to be superstar sales people or incredibly Internet savvy, but they have to love the phone and love serving the customer. Once we find the right people, I make it my mission to create an environment that they’ll never want to leave, because we all know the cost of employee turnover.”
Bob Tasca III is also passionate about people. “We have a recruiting, hiring and training process that we use whenever we’re hiring for any position in the dealership, and we like to say that we hire out of inspiration, not desperation. That means that we’re always on the lookout for energetic, talented people with a good work ethic and an eagerness to learn. We find that the best new employees are referrals from someone who already works for the Tasca family of dealerships. A new candidate doesn’t necessarily need to have automotive experience because our new-hire training program and on-going training are so extensive. We have a training company that we bring in for two days every month to help with our training needs.”
Dick Hannah sums it up, “Even though the Web and CRM have made an incredible impact on the automotive industry, this still is and always will be a people business, so nothing is more important than quality people who are well trained. Training is a daily and on-going process for our dealerships. We’ve developed a friendly business development team, and when we need to bring on someone new, we look for that friendly characteristic and an aptitude to successfully use the phone and e-mail for follow-up.”
Tracking and Measuring
The best part about the Web and CRM is that everything is measurable. Roy Reutter says, “Our technology provider automates the reports we need so it only takes a few minutes a week to get a great snapshot of how things are going, who is excelling and where the process needs fine-tuning. The most important numbers to track are: number of visitors to the Web site, conversion ratio, closing ratio, average gross profit and cost per sale by lead source.”
Again, congratulations!
Congratulations to the Top 10 eCRM Dealers and thank you for sharing your insight on what it takes to use the Web and CRM to sell more cars. If you have any questions regarding any of the best practices discussed in this article, please feel free to visit the dealers’ Web sites or send an e-mail at the address below.
Patrick Luck is the editor and publisher of AutoSuccess Magazine. He can be contacted at 866.239.3698, or by e-mail at pluck01@autosuccess.biz.
