Digital Dealer - October 2017 - 16

DEALERSHIP MANAGEMENT

Continued from pg. 15

experience. Organizations
often automate existing
bad processes instead of
redesigning their customer-facing operations
based on the new and
improved best practices.
It is clearly the time to
refocus on what CRM
processing is really about,
"the customer" in order to
achieve the results CRM
has promised to deliver.
No business can
exist without customers.
No matter how good a
product is or how efficient
an organization operates,
without customers there
is neither growth nor profitability. Customers make
the purchase decision.
They bid the price up or
drive it down depending
on the value they perceive
in a product or service.
The customer decides
which way and when he
wants to interact with a
dealership and how he/
she wants to explore and
ultimately buy whether it
be online, over the phone,
in a store or through any
other channel. It's the
customer's perception
of everything a company does and represents
that creates an image
of its people, brand and
dealership and eventually
determines its success
or failure as a business.
Thus, it is ever so critical
for every corner of your
store to be radiating these
new "relationship building"
elements or your store
looks just like everyone
else and consequently
your business will ultimately hinge upon 'best
price' issues. We have
to give customers real
reasons to do business
16

OCTOBER 2017

...ORGANIZATIONS
LOSE SIGHT OF THEIR
CUSTOMERS. THEIR
ATTENTION CENTERS
ON RATIOS AND
EFFICIENCY GAINS
THUS, BECOMING A
PRISONER OF ANALYSIS
PARALYSIS."
with us way beyond just
the money factors.
This is why successful
companies build their
business totally around
the customer. They know
who their most valuable
customers are and they
understand their needs
and buying habits. They
target and tailor their
offerings and personalize
the interactions with their
customers. Successful
companies design and
continuously improve
business processes
across their entire ecosystem "including suppliers
and channel partners" to
respond quickly to changing customer needs. They
strive to become fully
customer-driven, deliver
superior customer value
and consistently provide
exceptional customer
experience across all customer touch points. They
make every effort to build
long-term relationships
with their customers,
recognizing that keeping
customers is more profitable in the long run than
winning new customers
over and over again.
Essentially this is what
CRM without compromise
is about.
More than ever, Relationship Building training
is so critical to organiza-

D I G I TA L D E A L E R . C O M

tional success. What we
expose our team members to is exactly what
they will become. What
have you done lately to
grow your team to new
heights in learning new
things? After more than
a decade of harnessing
cost-savings potential
to remain competitive in
an increasingly difficult
economy, driving growth
has replaced cutting costs
as the most important
goal for most dealerships.
Hence it becomes no surprise that CRM is back on
the agenda of many top
executives. To stimulate
new growth, wise dealers
are beginning to explore a
more disciplined approach
to exploit untapped opportunities and make the
most of relationships with
customers. They seek
new ways to increase
wallet share, deploy
new channels, penetrate
underserved segments,
reach out to new customers and enter entirely
new markets. To ensure
sustainable, profitable
growth CRM processes
must take a leading role in
the value chain, enabling
organizations to excel not
only across, but beyond
customer touch points and
rapidly adapt to changing
business needs.

When price and efficiency were the driving
forces of competition,
many companies focused
on increasing their competitiveness by improving
their internal processes.
Continuous, standardized
processes were the key to
new efficiency potential and
for survival in the market.
But the spotlight has since
shifted to relationships with
customers, employees and
partners. Internal efficiency alone is not enough to
guarantee market differentiation and competitive
edge. Success is no longer
determined only by price
and product, but by well-designed sales channels and
well understood relational
sales and service processes.
At first, companies focused on CRM for a single
department or function.
They often turned to niche
CRM software vendors
to not only support but be
their CRM effort. However,
while sales productivity, call
center efficiency or marketing effectiveness may
have improved, progression to effectively managed
customer relationships
was often prevented by an
internal focus, deployment
of tactical departmental
solutions and inadequate
integration of front-office
and back-office systems.
Successful dealerships
have realized that integration along the entire process chain is the only way
to gain a lasting competitive
advantage. But so far, few
companies have used this
profitably, redefining their
own strategies and reshaping business processes
for a truly customer-driven
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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Digital Dealer - October 2017
