The global financial crisis is severely affecting the automotive industry.
In difficult times like these, it is vital for companies to center their efforts on three main imperatives:
- Focus on current customers
- Mind costs
- Improve productivity and efficiency
These can be translated into five specific objectives the dealer can work on:
- Retain customers
- Purchase parts intelligently
- Detect unsold parts and vehicles
- Increase service efficiency
- Evaluate the dealership performance in detail
A good DMS (Dealer Manager System) is key to providing the dealer with specific information in order to work on these targets.
Here is a list of reports a good DMS should provide to help you in this process.
Target 1: Retain customers
Benefits for the dealer
- Retain customers
- New sales to current customers
DMS Report: Customer Segmentation
In times of crisis, it is difficult to gain new customers; therefore, it becomes essential to retain your current ones. If we can achieve a lasting relationship with all of our customers, it will be easier to sell to them again in the future, and much more difficult to lose them. This will also result in cost reductions since you will require less marketing effort and can achieve a shorter sales cycle.
A good DMS, through its CRM tool, should provide a thorough report of current customers in order to obtain a detailed profile for each, detecting their tastes and needs. It is important to be able to segment customers and create focused marketing campaigns for each segment. A good DMS also lets you generate contacts, send e-mails automatically and follow-up until the sales cycle completes.
DMS Report: Sales Trends
Your DMS should offer a report which lets you evaluate customer sales period by period (monthly, bi-monthly, quarterly, yearly).
You’ll be able to see purchase habits and frequency, and can estimate the best time to contact customers and offer them special promotions or discounts so as to motivate them towards a purchase.
