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Accountability and Enforcing the Logging of Customers in Your CRM

January 23, 2018 By Arnold Tijerina

We are an industry inundated with technology. Technology can help dealerships operate more efficiently, extend the life of a customer, interact with new ones and market to previous ones. Just like any technology, however, you must use it for it to do its job. One feature that many dealership managers take for granted is the CRM. In particular, holding salespeople accountable for not only accurately accounting for their customer interactions but also gaining accurate information about them. Some sales desks will even track showroom traffic on a paper desk-log not even checking to see if the salesperson logged the customer in the CRM at all. This practice can harm your dealership operations in more ways than many realize and cost the dealership opportunities and/or sway decisions on marketing with bad data.

Every salesperson will log a customer who they write up. Most of the time for the simple fact that the sales manager can then pull the customer up to save any numbers presented to them. What about that customer that the salesperson greeted on the lot, spoke to for awhile, perhaps even showed a couple cars to but didn’t get anywhere with and the customer left without giving the salesperson any information? Chances are 50/50 that the customer wouldn’t get logged for the simple fact that the salesperson didn’t get any information. Or let’s look at the more positive side, your dealership has a very busy showroom and salespeople are constantly with customers gaining a new one after they have finished with the previous. It’s not uncommon for salespeople to carry a notepad which they use to jot notes or even the back of their own business cards. Because they’re busy, those note and business cards pile up. At the end of the day, perhaps the salesperson goes through and inputs each customer into the CRM. Another possibility is that the salesperson cherry picks the customers that they either want to protect (as many dealers offer 72-hour protection to its salespeople) or those the salesperson feels is worth following up with. Anything less than 100% compliance with entering customers can easily sway decisions ranging from staffing, marketing spends, employee performance and many others.

Dealerships that aren’t logging all of their customers in the CRM end up with an inaccurate view of their entire sales operations. Busy dealerships appear not as busy as they really are and could prevent a dealer from realizing this. In this case, the dealership could be understaffed with customers either waiting a long time for assistance or not getting assisted at all. In busy dealerships, its hard for a sales manager to keep track of everything that is going on while desking deals and juggling all of the tasks that are assigned to them. Salespeople certainly don’t want MORE salespeople as that could bite into their personal incomes. But the bottom line is that if your dealership is understaffed, your customer’s experience at your dealership is probably not great and sales are walking out the door. And the sad part is that you’ll never know it. Why? Because all customers aren’t being logged in the CRM.

Another example of how the failure of logging customers in the CRM can hurt a dealership is through marketing decisions. Most CRMs include a source as one of the pieces of information that salespeople are supposed to collect. “How did you hear about us?” is something that most dealerships ask. But how accurate is that information? If salespeople are entering the typical choices of “walk-in”, “billboard”, “drive-by” or “Auto mall” you’re missing out on valuable information that could be costing you thousands of dollars. Don’t think that’s happening at your dealership? Here’s an easy test. Go into your CRM and add a couple sources for programs that are well known but your dealership does not currently use. Wait out the month and run a source report. Chances are that you’ll find that all of a sudden these non-existent sources are producing sales. If your salespeople are not putting accurate information into the CRM, how do you expect to be able to use that information to allocate your marketing spend? This test will not only show you how bad the problem is but can also identify the biggest offenders.

Just like the old saying, “Garbage in, Garbage out” your CRM is your dealership’s future. It can be the most wonderful tool to help you operate efficiently, follow up relevantly, catch previous customers coming back into the market, ensure an excellent customer experience by visiting prospects and assist you in spending your marketing dollars more effectively. It can’t do that, however, if the information isn’t accurate or non-existent. Make enforcing the logging of customer information a priority in your dealership and you’ll find that all of a sudden the blinds are drawn, the sun comes in and you can clearly see what’s going on.

Originally published Jan 23, 2018 as a guest blog for Nextup.

Why No Social Media Vendors Exist In Automotive

May 13, 2013 By Arnold Tijerina

Before you get all huffy (especially the social media vendors that may read this), I want to narrow my definition of “social media” for the purposes of this article down. Social media encompasses a lot of things but I’m specifically talking about Facebook and Twitter management.

There are not many people who would argue that, given the choice and means, any company has the ability to do their own social media better than any vendor. You know your company better than anyone. You have the access and availability to create instant, company-specific content on-site and all the content you need to do it.

That being said, if you find yourself either in a position where you don’t have anyone to do it in house, or you don’t have the time to do it yourself and you are considering outsourcing your social media, consider a few things.

Being familiar with many of the social media services directed specifically at the automotive industry, whether those services are from a company that only does social media or as a service offered by a vendor that has multiple services, in my opinion, there aren’t any social media companies and/or any true social media services offered by companies.

What, exactly, do I mean by that?

In my opinion, every company that exists and works within the automotive space that offers social media services are, in reality, offering content marketing services. The basic idea is that they will set-up and/or manage your social media properties and provide content for those properties on a daily (or less) basis. Yes, chances are that they will respond to comments left (hopefully) and engage with fans when fans engage with you. They may offer to help you grow your fan base and followers – some via methods with which I agree and some using methods which I think are idiotic. Keeping in mind that I’m only talking about Facebook and Twitter management (not reputation, location-based services, etc.) that typically encompass the scope of work.

Content marketing is NOT social media.

I’m certainly not trying to imply that there is no value in content marketing. There are lots of benefits to it especially with well run blogs with great, relevant content… but it’s not social media (at least as defined for the purposes of this article).

So, what is social media?

In my opinion, if someone says they will manage your social media properties, these are the types of things they should be doing:

They should be optimizing your pages/profiles to achieve maximum exposure via search engines.
They should be teaching you how and helping you grow your fan base organically through in store signage, marketing integration and other means in which to capture your existing customers.
They should be providing fresh, relevant and timely content and posting this content to your properties on a daily basis.
They should be creating, finding and seeking this content daily. Yes, every day. Not creating some monthly calendar of content 30 days in advance, re-using content amongst clients (whether they are geographically close or are competitors doesn’t matter)… and they certainly should not be using a “content library” of canned posts.
They should be analyzing the performance of different content types on a daily basis and tailoring the content they are posting to what the page audience wants to hear, not what they want to tell them… on a daily basis.
They should be available and ready to react almost instantaneously to any issue, event, request, problem, comment.. anything and everything… on a moment’s notice. If a customer tweets or posts a complaint, there better be someone to respond.. and fast. Not just between the hours of 9am and 5pm.
Most social media companies are reactive in their engagement. Their engagement is in response to an action taken by a fan or follower. Social media companies should be proactive in their engagement. They should be seeking out relevant conversations happening in your market area (whether that’s by region, state or national) and trying to insert themselves into relevant conversations in a non-threatening and engaging way.
Anyone that tells you that social media is all about branding and that “selling” shouldn’t and/or can’t happen is an idiot and you should run away from them. Bottom line is that everything you do – whether its traditional or digital advertising – is about selling your product or service. Sales can be, and are, made on social media all the time. Revenue is there. There is an ROI (albeit it’s hard to track). Anyone trying to convince you otherwise is setting you up for that future conversation where you say you’re not selling anything from it and they say social media isn’t about selling. I’m pretty certain you’re not in business to not make money.
When people follow you on Twitter, they should be thanking those people and, if appropriate, following them back. In addition, they should be finding new and relevant people to follow on your behalf. On top of those two things, they should be identifying your influencers as best as they can (and that doesn’t necessarily mean the ones with the highest Klout scores) and seeking to engage with them.
They should be using methods and techniques designed to maximize your reach on both Facebook and Twitter. There are many things you can do that are free. Some that cost money. There are some things that I believe are worth the money they cost and some that I believe you might as well be lighting your money on fire if you use them. Whatever the case may be, they should be including these in their offerings to you. They should be doing this in real-time as the situation warrants.
They should be providing you with detailed analytics monthly including detailed Facebook reports, Twitter reports, overall performance reports, response times, interactions, and even be able to show you how your social media may have influenced website traffic (which it can, and is possible, if you provide your Google Analytics code to them). These reports should NOT be simply how many new fans/followers you got, how many pieces of content they posted and the engagement metrics associated with that content (likes, comments, shares, etc.)

How do I know that there are NO social media companies that do this? Well, I’ve talked to many of them. Heck, it was my JOB to research competitors. I also attend trade shows and pay attention.

The reason they don’t do it is that it is not a scalable business model. Bottom line. I get that and agree that it probably isn’t but that doesn’t mean they’re providing social media services.. they’re providing content marketing. That’s all well and good but let’s keep it real.

Just because doing it right isn’t “scalable”, that doesn’t justify calling your service something that it isn’t. Many dealers don’t “get” social media. Some “kind of” get it. The ones that actually “get it” will agree with everything I’ve just written (or at least I hope they will).

So, remember two things about your social media: First, that you can do it better than any vendor whether you believe that’s true or not and second, that, IF you’re going to outsource this to a company, at the very least know the difference between a company offering you social media and one offering you content marketing.

[Note: If you know of a vendor that does all of the things I described above and/or even more, I’d love to hear who they are.]

iPhone 5 and iOS 6: My Thoughts

September 26, 2012 By Arnold Tijerina

I’ve had the iPhone 5 and iOS 6 for 5 days now so I thought I’d write a mini-review of my thoughts on both. This is certainly NOT a comprehensive review. Many of those exist already. These are just my personal impressions.

It’s light. – The iPhone 5 is certainly lighter than any previous iPhone. I like this feature as I typically carry my phone in my pocket. It’s hard to feel and sometimes I can’t even remember which pocket it’s in. That being said, I don’t get the impression that it’s less durable. In fact, one of the biggest complaints about it, according to Gizmodo who analysed the chatter about it, is the fact that it is too light.

It’s fast. – I can tell the difference in speed between the iPhone 5 and the iPhone 4S. I also had a Samsung Galaxy S III and it is certainly on par with that. This is in line with Mashable’s recent article comparing the speed of the two.

LTE rocks. – The one thing I LOVED about the Samsung Galaxy S III was the LTE ability. The iPhone 4S still used 3G and it was very slow. Sometimes painfully so. The new LTE integration rocks. Seeing as I recently moved to Chapel Hill, NC (which has great LTE coverage presumably due to UNC and it’s student body), I have excellent LTE coverage. Being that I did not where I lived in California, I love this.

It’s unlocked out of the box. – Not that I ever want to do business with or have a phone with service on AT&T but, according to the Huffington Post, the Verizon version of the iPhone 5 comes unlocked straight from the factory. It’s nice to know but I doubt I will ever need it. However, that being said, when the iPhone 6 (or 5S) comes out, I have double the market of people to sell it to, which is nice. Personally, if I were going to pay full price for the phone and I had AT&T service, I would buy the Verizon version and use it on AT&T since it comes unlocked whereas the AT&T version does not.

Facebook Integration. – Being a social media guy, this was a huge deal for me. The iPhone Facebook app sucks. Really sucks. It’s painfully slow. The ability to post to Facebook straight from my phone is great. It’s easy and painless. You can also use Siri to do it just like you can with tweets. I don’t really use Siri but it’s nice to know that I could if I wanted to. Another benefit to the Facebook integration is authorizing apps. In previous versions of the OS, when you wanted to authorize an app to access your Facebook account, it would flip open a Safari page and you had to type in your e-mail address and password to complete the authorization. In iOS 6, it still flips open a Safari page but because your Facebook account information is on your phone, it authorizes it and returns to the app, similar to what happens with logging into a website or connecting a website to Facebook while logged in to Facebook on your computer.

Do Not Disturb – I love this! It’s very nice to be able to set DND for specific times and not get an e-mail received alert at 2am (since the early morning hours are typically when retailers seem to think is the best time to send e-mails). If you add people to your favorites, it will allow those calls to come through (like your wife, kids, or whomever else you like) and block the rest.

Maps. – Suck. Yes, they do. Very much so. I attempted to get directions to a place that was about 5 miles away or less. It gave me directions to a place in Texas. Yeah, big fail. No matter how hard, or how specific, I got. Texas came up every time. Apparently, Apple is a Texas fan. Maybe it is because everything’s bigger there or they didn’t want to mess with Texas.

App Store – I like the new presentation of the iTunes/app store. It’s easier to navigate and you get more information without jumping back and forth between the search results list and actual information about an app. You just flip through the search results similar to how you would in the Music app on the phone with the information right on every result.

EarPods – I have yet to open or try these but they look cool and come with a storage case. It’s hard to want to use them in lieu of my Beats by Dre Studio headphones. Just saying.

New connector – Personally, I don’t have any issues with it. Yes, I know it is inconvenient and forces you to pay $29 for the adapter (assuming you want to use your old accessories with your new iPhone). I like that you can insert it into the iPhone 5 any way (ie. there’s no “right way” as there is with the old connector. My guess is that Apple got sick of replacing damaged iPhones from people attempting to force the 30-pin connector upside down. Of course, it could also be about money. Or both.

Cases (or lack thereof) – I’m not a fan of cases so I don’t really care. If you’re a case fan, I’m sure there will be plenty of cases available for you soon. Personally, I think the iPhone 5 is very well designed and nice looking as is. By adding a case, you increase the phone’s weight and that is one of the features I like the most. If you tend to drop your phones or are just a paranoid person, buy the insurance from your phone carrier (typically $8-$10/mo) OR and even better (and cheaper) way to insure your phone is to add it to your homeowner’s policy as a rider. In the past, I have added my previous iPhones to my State Farm policy with a zero deductible, replacement value policy for $24 PER YEAR. Beat that.

Screen – It is longer. The best benefit of this is that you can have 5 rows of apps on a page versus 4 from before. For those who have a lot of apps or have a lot that they use often, it is nice to be able to stick those extra apps on the home screen. As for “brighter” and “more vibrant” – well, I can’t really see much of a difference. It’s still a nice screen like the iPhone 4S, however, and it seems a little more responsive since the touch functionality is integrated into the screen now rather than being a separate layer.

iCloud – I had this on my 4S. I paid the $25. It’s nice that it backs everything up and, when I got my iPhone 5, I was able to immediately restore all my apps and settings via iCloud over wi-fi so I didn’t have to wait until I got home to sync my phone. One of the features that I don’t like (and never have) is the inability to actually sync your music and physically have it on your phone without having to stream it and/or download every freakin’ song straight to my phone from iCloud. It would be much faster and more convenient to just be able to put it on my phone, as you could in the past, and not be dependent on having a wi-fi connection or eating up allocated data over LTE.

Anyways, those are my initial impressions. It ended up being longer than I anticipated, and there are plenty of features I didn’t cover, but that’s mainly because I have never used them – like AirPlay and AirPrint, etc.

Should you upgrade from your iPhone 4S? That’s up to you. It’s very similar to the decision you may, or may not, have had to made when the “New iPad” came out and you owned an iPad 2. I, personally, chose to keep my iPad 2 and NOT upgrade it. In this case, however, I chose to upgrade (obviously). Partially because I use my phone WAY more than I use my iPad and partially because I like having the newest technology (I am an early adopter. Very much so.). The choice is up to you but there are TWO features that made my decision quite easy: lighter and LTE. That was enough for me.