In any business, the little things can add up quickly, and these extra costs often go unnoticed until they represent a large portion of your business expenses. These can include things like redundant marketing efforts, unnecessary overstaffing, inefficient scheduling and excess inventory.

By streamlining all of your dealership’s operations with a quality automotive CRM software package and related programs, you can increase efficiency and lower costs at your dealership, resulting in higher profits and a better return on your investments.

Here are just a few of the ways automotive CRM software can help you save money:

#1 Streamlines Entry of Customer Information

From your first contact with a potential customer, automotive CRM software can start gathering information about that customer, eliminating the need to constantly re-enter data at every subsequent meeting. This data typically includes basic information, like phone and address, as well as more advanced information like the customer’s sales record, service record, customer preferences and more. By reducing the amount of data entry, you reduce the workload on other staff and can adjust staffing levels appropriately, saving money.

#2 Reduces Workload of Sales Team

By combining your automotive CRM with a business development center or a call center, you can reduce or eliminate the need for your sales team to answer phone calls, emails and other mundane communications, letting them focus on their primary jobs of helping customers in the showroom and selling vehicles. This reduces their workload and allows you to keep your sales staff at appropriate levels, while offloading regular communications and appointment-setting tasks to those specialized for the task.

#3 Improves Customer Relationship

With automotive CRM and a call center or BDC you can improve your dealership’s relationship with its customers, and shift more of the customer service-related tasks, such as making appointments, answering phones and following up on sales or service visits, to staff that is better-trained, more efficient and, most importantly, less costly for those same tasks than your in-house staff.

#4 Evens Out Staffing Levels

By using automotive CRM software to schedule appointments effectively, to manage your marketing efforts efficiently, and to keep track of your sales and service figures, you can better determine your staffing needs for the offices, sales team and service department. With more effective scheduling, you can avoid understaffing during busy periods and eliminate unnecessary overtime costs as business slows during slower periods.

#5 Reduces Marketing Costs

With automotive CRM software to help guide your marketing efforts, you can use the wealth of information the software collects to more effectively target your customers, and avoid using marketing methods that are inefficient for your customer base, such as sending multiple direct mailings to Internet-savvy customers, or are redundant, such as contacting the same customer by multiple methods for the same promotion. By eliminating unnecessary and redundant marketing efforts, you can eliminate wasted time, effort and materials, saving money.

#6 Reduces the Size of the Marketing Team

With your marketing department using automotive CRM to coordinate your marketing efforts and to operate more efficiently, and with much of the lead generation and follow-up being handled by the BDC or call center, you can reduce the size of your marketing team to the bare minimum, eliminating unnecessary positions and any excess overtime costs. Even at the lower staffing levels, your marketing department will be more perform better thanks to the automotive CRM software.

#7 Streamlines Service Department Operation

Thanks to improved appointment scheduling, the amount of traffic in the service department can be better predicted. This allows you to keep the staffing levels perfect, with no understaffing and reduced overtime costs, as well as a better service experience for your customers. Another benefit of predictable service traffic, is that you can avoid keeping unnecessary parts on hand and make sure that you have the parts necessary for the predicted amount of service, eliminating the costs to have parts delivered or to send someone to acquire them.

#8 Improves Management Of Vehicle Inventory

With automotive CRM you can easily keep track of what vehicles you have in stock, which models sell better than others, and how much space you have available for new inventory. By efficiently managing your inventory and only keeping your best selling and most profitable vehicles in stock, you can eliminate wasted space in the showroom and on the lot, and avoid having to apply significant discounts to vehicles that simply do not sell well or only sell at certain times of the year.

#9 Avoids Unnecessary Expansions

By keeping tabs on your vehicle inventory and eliminating wasted mushroom space, streamlining your service department and eliminating wasted part storage space, and by keeping only the minimum amount of staff necessary at all times, you can eliminate wasted space at your dealership and avoid unnecessary expansion of your retail space. This can save money in the short term by allowing you to use your existing space for as long as possible, avoiding remodeling costs. It can also help save money in the future, by allowing you to set aside funds for future expansion that are interest-free.

#10 Eliminates Redundant Tasks

With automotive CRM software you can save time and reduce the amount of money you spend on payroll by eliminating duplicate tasks. These include things as simple as entering customer information, sending out sales promotions, and making follow-up phone calls. You can also reorganize job duties so that each task is handled by the person that can do it most efficiently. For example, answering phones and making follow up calls is delegated to the BDC, while specific sales and service questions are routed to sales or service personnel. Actual marketing is left to the marketing team, while lead development and management is done by the BDC, and only the best leads are forwarded to sales or marketing.

Overall, Automotive CRM software simply makes your dealership run more effectively, eliminating redundant tasks, redundant staff and excess overtime. When Automotive CRM is combined with other related products, such as virtual business development centers, internet lead management, inventory solutions, and data management, from a single source, your dealership can run more efficiently than ever, increasing your profits, increasing the growth of your business, and allowing it to expand and take advantage of new markets and new opportunities.