Most of the data that dealers collect comes from their CRM. We spoke with Bill Wittenmyer, a partner at ELEAD1ONE, to talk about where he believes the direction of data among the automotive industry is heading and how dealerships can set themselves up to receive and capitalize on major opportunities.
Over the last ten years, the retail auto industry has become a huge host of data. In fact, the CEO of Ford Motor Company recently made a statement saying that he sees Ford as more of a data company than an auto manufacturer.
When speaking with Wittenmyer, we learn about where he believes the biggest opportunities for dealers are. “It’s about owning the data. controlling the data, and then executing on the data.” Wittenmyer tells Jim Fitzpatrick of CBT News.
There are many dealers that do an outstanding job at maximizing their CRM but, the majority of dealers only use 25% of what their CRM is actually capable of doing. Naturally, we wondered why that is the case and what dealers need to do to increase that number so they are utilizing as much of their tools as possible. Wittenmyer explains that he has seen dealership get more involved in using the data provided over by their CRM’s over the years. Telling Jim that dealers are ultimately getting better at it. Yet, there is still a large amount that could be losing out on possibilities due to their lack of engagement with a CRM.
He believes the key to utilization of a CRM tool is lots of integrations. “Let’s have a lot fewer places for people to log into. Most salespeople don’t want to log into 5 or 6 different tools… Let’s keep them in one place. A good CRM will do that and you are going to get more usage out of it” he says, before walking us through 5 rules he uses when picking out the perfect CRM.
