Well let’s begin with the good since it is the first on the list, there are many CRM solution vendors out there. One good feature that every one seems to share is the incoming 1-800 phone tracking capabilities, any respectable CRM solution will offer this feature of recorded phone call from their targeted 1-800 numbers for advertising tracking purposes. The CRM solution providers often are partnered with a voice over IP solution provider to offer their clients this service. Voice over IP call tracking got to be one of the biggest improvements found in today’s CRM or DMS systems for dealers. Another good feature is sales reporting and performance tracking, almost all of the CRM solution vendors offers some sort of way to track their advertising spending, or sales performance. This can go as far as the best selling model for the month, even export to Excel file format. The last good feature of today’s CRM we are going to discuss here is the ability to manage, transfer lead from sales person to sales person. With different security access levels, a manager can access sales person’s lead and manage and transfer them at his will. This level of sophistication is light years ahead of the older systems.
Now moving on to the bad, or the weaknesses of some of the CRM solutions today! Well one of the biggest draw back of automotive CRM system today is its platform. Almost all of them are web based portal system that is accessed through a browser windows. Here are some of the draw backs of that system, for one refreshment rate, every time you input something through a web site it will load another page to display the result. It will cause major delays between the data transfer and require much more bandwidth to operate. The second draw back of that system is there are different standards between the browsers making it not 100% compatible with all systems. For example the way this portal displays on Internet Explorer 8 is not the same way as Internet Explorer 6. Even worse certain system requires you to go back in time to Internet Explorer 5 to be compatible with them. That’s just to show you when the technology was developed. Third draw back would be security issues, not only the HTML or JavaScript codes will be visible to users, it offers great information for a hacker to break in the system. Things such as the system structure, or vital system file names are all exposed to the naked eye making a web based system more vulnerable compare to a desktop solution.
Ok here comes the ugly, for one the real ugly thing about the automotive CRM systems today is the price tag. After careful research on the market I have found they are all asking from the lowest of $1500 per month to as high as $5000 per month. Not to mention setup fees ranging from $1200 all the way to $10000. In a nut shell these web based systems are lot less sophisticated than Facebook, yet Facebook is free to use. At Dealer Elite CRM solutions we don’t believe in ripping off our clients with ridiculous prices, on top of that we deliver a quality, well tested, desktop solution with $0 setup fees, and very affordable monthly plans at fraction of the cost compare to the competition. Contact us today for your demonstration, and account setup. Visit us online at http://www.dealerelites.ca
