There was a time when a DMS was nothing more than that – a platform from which car dealerships ran sales operations and managed key business aspects.
Times have changed. Modern automotive retail software offers so much more; it’s capable of supercharging your sales and driving customer advocacy. It can even integrate after-sales, finance, administration and the servicing arm of your operations to create seamless, unforgettable, addictive customer experiences.
Thanks to advances in Cloud ERP technology and the ability to run enterprise-class software in the palm of your hand, we now live in the age of optimum dealership productivity.
Let’s consider three ways in which your next-generation dealership software will make its presence felt in the most vital corners of your business.
1. Turn more digital leads into confirmed sales
The modern dealership sales process is challenging due to the increasingly complex -mostly digital- journeys car buyers take to reach their eventual destination.
This requires software that brings you closer to the customer every step of the way. Today, you can leverage data to second-guess the customer and enable your sales team to jump in and make their presence felt when its most convenient to do so.
Legacy dealership DMSs aren’t capable of handling digital sales opportunities holistically, nor can they provide the tools needed to manage incoming leads tightly from initial interest to test drive, finance deal, purchase and aftersales operations.
Imagine being able to manage pre-delivery inspection, delivery to the customer and that all-important final billing management from one cloud platform. Now, you can.
2. Drive service profitability with digital customer experiences
One of the best ways to drive brand advocacy after the initial purchase of a car is to provide an unforgettable service experience.
If you’ve used a traditional dealership DMS, the service and spare parts operations of your dealership may have been dealt with via separate systems.
This means duplicate customer databases and a limited link between the service and sales desk (if one exists at all). Today’s automotive software is seamlessly integrated with OEM systems and capable of managing spare parts and servicing with holistic resource management.
Service job orders and job cards can be created effortlessly and automatically assigned to customer profiles (unique profiles that will have been created during the sales process). Thus, a once complex process becomes as simple and convenient as it should be for everyone involved.
Perhaps, most exciting is the fact that modern car dealer software, with customer-centric digital service booking and check-in, enables your dealership to finally deliver guaranteed fixed-price, fixed-time service – and your customers won’t forget that experience!
3. Offer unmatched vehicle and fleet management capabilities
Now, your DMS gives you a 360-degrees insight into every vehicle you’ve sold or serviced – or which belongs in your customer’s fleet. From servicing to ownership history and general vehicle information, the modern dealership DMS provides a bird’s eye view of your stock with every piece of vital information just a finger tap away.
Every bit of detail, such as the list of parts that the vehicle has used in the past, logistics of the vehicle including its location and movements and financial information, including profit and loss analysis are now accessible anywhere, anytime, with any device. Your next Cloud DMS will help minimize or even remove the risks associated with your customer’s vehicle investment.
Wrapping up
We’ve only scratched the surface above. Today’s automotive retail software goes way beyond the DMS of the past, offering complete marketing automation for every channel, robust big data analytics, integrated used car sales modules, complete finance suites with full invoicing, leasing tools, sales ledger functionality and web commerce payments integration and even complete car sharing and new mobility solutions.
In fact, there’s too much to cover in one blog post, but if you’ve been putting off upgrading your dealer software, now is the time to do so if you want to raise your dealership productivity and profitability seamlessly.
