USING YOUR DEALERSHIP’S CRM ANALYTICS TO DRIVE SALES STRATEGY
Learn how your dealership can leverage dealership CRM analytics to gain insights into customer behavior and sales trends to inform their sales strategies.
The automotive market is constantly evolving, making it even more important for dealers to collect and analyze all the available data through dealership CRM analytics and use it to their advantage. Understanding customer behavior and anticipating sales trends is necessary to garner excellent customer satisfaction and stay ahead of the competition.
Dealerships that can utilize the benefits of CRM analytics gain valuable insights that drive more informed and strategic decisions. Learn how to leverage CRM analytics to decode customer behavior and sales trends that can transform your dealership’s sales strategy.
Why the Data Matters
The sales guessing game, also known as the “spray and pray” method, involves flooding the market with sales and marketing tactics without a data-based plan. Hoping something sticks and prompts a customer to engage with your dealership is a risky and energy-consuming way of selling.
Wouldn’t it be better to use real data and actionable insights to target your audience and provide exactly what they’re looking for at the right time? Not bits of information here and there that you’re expected to piece together, but data that is combined, analyzed, tested, and handed to you. Allowing your team to take a proven course of action.
A platform that can remove roadblocks by collecting data from myriad sources and bringing it all into one place for analysis gives the user a complete picture of each customer and what they seek in the marketplace.
Understanding Customer Preferences and Behavior
The role of CRM is to manage and organize customer interactions, helping dealerships track leads and nurture relationships. Analytics help identify which behaviors and characteristics are more likely to lead to a potential sale, making the CRM more effective. The dealership’s CRM and data mining platforms allow dealerships to map the customer journey, from the initial inquiry to the sale and beyond.
One of the most significant advantages is its ability to track and analyze customer interactions across many touchpoints. By examining data such as browsing history on your website, responses to marketing emails, and engagement with social media, you can better understand what your customers like and how they make buying decisions.
By prioritizing high-scoring leads, your sales team can focus on prospects inclined to convert, boosting efficiency and effectiveness. This insight helps tailor your approach, ensuring that your sales team engages with customers at the right time with the best message.
Forbes lays out the benefits of CRM analytics in this article: CRM Analytics Guide: 7 Key Metrics In 2024
Segmenting Customers for Targeted Marketing
Your CRM contains a wealth of information that can be used to segment customers into different groups based on demographics, buying behavior, and past interactions. By creating targeted marketing campaigns for each segment, you can address specific needs and preferences.
For example, a customer who has purchased a sedan for their family might be more responsive to promotions on new models with enhanced safety features. A first-time buyer might respond better to offers on entry-level models.
Tailoring a message to different customer segments can improve engagement and increase the effectiveness of your marketing efforts.
Understanding customer preferences and behaviors allows you to anticipate their needs and provide personalized experiences. This fosters customer loyalty and drives higher conversion rates, as customers are more likely to engage with offers that resonate with their specific interests and previous interactions.
CRM analytics can also measure the performance of your marketing campaigns. By tracking metrics such as click-through rates, conversions, and customer responses, you can assess which campaigns drive sales and which need tweaking. This feedback ensures that your marketing dollars are spent wisely, focusing on strategies that deliver results.
Optimizing the Sales Process
CRM analytics provide valuable insights into the effectiveness of your sales processes. You might think your current CRM is housing all the data you need. However, your dealership can’t respond to customers in real-time if your data isn’t regularly updated based on customer behavior.
By tracking metrics such as lead response time, follow-up frequency, and conversion rates, you can identify areas where your sales team excels and where they need to improve.
Regularly reviewing sales performance data in your CRM lets you identify top-performing salespeople and understand what sets them apart. By recognizing patterns that lead to success, you can replicate these practices across the team, set realistic sales targets, and track progress.
Service Lane Sales & Conquesting
Consider the service drive a prime opportunity to increase vehicle sales. People pour in and out daily, but how do you do it intelligently?
First, you need to determine the right customers to approach. Randomly picking customers can easily come off as a sales tactic. A good data platform will identify the right customers for you and hand you information that is helpful to the customer. Maybe the data and analytics have indicated that they’re in-market, that they were on your competitor’s lot yesterday, and that their warranty is almost up. Now, you have a much better reason to start a conversation.
With AutoAlert, you can even create a “wishlist” of vehicles you’d like to buy through the service drive and get alerted when a customer with one of those vehicles arrives. Even better, you’ll be alerted when they schedule an appointment, giving your team the chance to prepare ahead of time.
Enhancing Customer Retention
Understanding customer behavior doesn’t stop after the sale. Dealership CRM analytics can also provide insights into post-purchase behavior, helping to identify opportunities for customer retention and repeat business.
For example, suppose your CRM data shows that customers who receive timely service reminders are more likely to return for maintenance. In that case, you can apply automated reminders as part of your retention strategy. Perhaps offering targeted promotions on service packages or trade-in opportunities will keep customers engaged and loyal to your dealership.
By analyzing service records, feedback, and engagement with post-sale communications, you can create data-backed strategies to keep customers returning to your dealership.
Identifying Trends and Predicting Future Sales
CRM analytics also help you spot emerging sales trends. By analyzing historical sales data, you can identify patterns such as seasonal demand for certain vehicle types, increasing interest in particular features, or shifts in financing preferences.
These predictive insights enable you to make more informed decisions about inventory, pricing, and promotional strategies. By analyzing trends over time, you can adjust your inventory to align with customer needs, ensuring that your lot is stocked with the vehicles your customers demand. This data-driven approach minimizes excess inventory and maximizes vehicle turnover.
When leveraged effectively, embracing the power of CRM analytics can transform your sales strategy and drive significant growth. Getting an in-depth look at customer behavior and sales trends is not only smart but essential for dealership success.
You can create a proactive sales strategy by capturing deeper insights into what drives your customers’ decisions and staying ahead of market trends. This results in a more targeted approach that boosts sales, enhances customer satisfaction and strengthens your dealership’s competitive edge.
Can Your CRM Do This?
When investing in dealership CRM analytics, like AutoAlert CXM, in-depth data mining can pinpoint a motivated customer and the reasons behind the motivation. Then, give you the best time to reach out, in the best way, with the best message for the conversation. It all adds up to the difference between a customer ignoring your touchpoints compared to engaging with your dealership.
