5 Reasons You Need to Redefine CRM

The customer relationship management (CRM) tool started out as a simple electronic rolodex and calendar. It’s now a complicated tool that is underused or disregarded by sales teams. You’re left incentivizing salespeople to use it, or more commonly punishing them for not using it.

But why is your sales team not using it? The traditional CRM approach doesn’t work anymore. It doesn’t make their job easier or help them sell more cars. Really, it has the opposite effect – it adds inefficiencies that result in a less productive sales force.

From wasted time to lost deals, these inefficiencies cause problems for dealerships and users in more ways than one.

Inefficiency #1: Manual and Duplicate Data Entry 

72% of salespeople spend an hour a day on data entry alone.¹ You’re probably thinking, “that’s great, they’re adding customer information and deals!” But in reality, your salespeople spend time writing customer and deal information on a notepad, in their phone notes, or in their “hot sheet.” They then spend more time re-typing that information into the CRM.

They spend time manually creating follow-up tasks and action items, when they could spend it calling prospects, sending targeted marketing messages, or even identifying leads sitting in your service drive.

Does this sound like the most efficient and productive way for your sales team to work?

Inefficiency #2: Manually Prioritizing Prospects

45% of sales reps need help figuring out which prospects to prioritize.² That’s nearly half your sales team. Often times, they don’t really prioritize at all, they just start at the top and work their way down. Odds are they use valuable time sending birthday reminders to people who aren’t even looking for a new vehicle, while at the bottom of their list is a follow-up call for someone who test drove a vehicle just yesterday! More times than not, they don’t even get to that call and now you’ve lost a potential deal.

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Article Credit: CBT