Durran Cage Why CRMs are Underutilized
Transcript
Reid : Well, let’s talk about CRM. Since you brought that up, why do you suspect CRMs aren’t being used to the fullest extent? Is it the complexity of them? Is it the human buy-in element or lack thereof?n
n Durran : So I would say number one, and this is where a lot of things come down to, it’s the the leader, the leadership. Yeah, you know, because I’m going through this with my company. Now, just being fully transparent with you guys, you know, talking my wife about this, like, we have to stop working with dealerships from the bottom up and start working from the top down. Because you know, we spend a lot of time teaching internet people, sales people, all these tools and how to use this CRM, but the people that need to embrace it and put it in the most is the leadership, the leadership at the store. So once they really understand how powerful that tool is, and how to hold your team accountable, and set that system up to where they’re using it, the sales teams using it, even service can be using it. n
nOnce that gets implemented at the top, then that’s when that CRM takes off. But if what I see a lot of times is you’ll have leaders and sales managers, the dealership they kind of like let the salespeople do the all the little follow up stuff and the CRM, and then they kind of just stay put, like I don’t really do that stuff. But what’s funny about this, because I know you both probably been in the business for a while, if you go back, like I think 20 years, the sales managers are actually the biggest controllers of the follow up because remember, you haven’t read those old desk logs, the old paper log, and you have to put the customer’s name in, their salesperson name, and you have to put in did they do a demo write up, I remember the managers used to have that. And they had to say, hey, Duran, who’s that customer, you were just with? Here’s, here’s all the information. But then when the CRM came in, it’s kind of like we flipped it, you know, and we made it to where we want the salespeople doing more BDC doing more, but the manager is the biggest glue to that CRM.n
n Reid : You know, Duran it’s kind of funny you say that, because your stories are very familiar to mine. I swear to you, not the last podcast we had, I was talking to the guy, I just started working with the dealership in California, they have DealerSocket. And they haven’t touched it since they started in 2014. Same exact stories, you know, it’s absolutely crazy. You know, as far as CRM usage, it just seems like you would think that if you were a self type, you know, motivated, kinda like, you know, a sales person, you know, it’s, it’s, that’s kind of like what we’re supposed to do is prospect, you would want to use it.n
n Durran : Absolutely. And this, there’s a stat that I heard this morning, that’s, I guess you can fact check that this came from cars.com. So it was on a clubhouse call. And they did a huge survey. And it says dealership loyalty is 35% on the consumer side. So that kind of, to me, that’s almost the exact equation of the CRM. Because if you’re doing what you’re supposed to do in that CRM, and if it’s set up the right way, then your retention will be on that 70% side where you’re getting more retention. But like to your example, what you just said, that would explain it. Because if if you’re not using that tool, and it’s not set up to keep that cycle going with sales and service, then that would explain why the customer loyalty for dealerships is so small, because the lack of communication. So I didn’t mean to interrupt but…n
n Reid : No, you’re 100 you’re 100%. Right. So what do you think are the key elements of a CRM that they’re missing out on? What are they missing out on, and what features are being underserved? Sorry.n
n Durran : So normally, what I teach is to make sure we’re prioritizing our flow and how we work the CRM. So I advise you to make sure you’re using the CRM to work for you, you don’t work for the CRM. And so what I mean by that is, you’ll see a lot of sales teams, where they’re so focused on completing tasks, but they’re not focused on engaging with the right people. You know, I mean, so you’re just kind of just going in and you’ll see a dial, dial, dial, dial dial, that’s all they’re focused on, but they’re not prioritizing. So what I teach is, you know, to make sure you start your day with your new opportunities. n
nFirst, you need to have your plan, but start with your new opportunities, then you know, your unanswered communication. So, you have unresponded emails and texts. This sounds simple, but I could pull up a lot of CRMs right now and there’s some that still have 90 people with unanswered communications because they’re not dialing in to engage with the right people. But then after you’re taking care of those unanswered replies, you know, you’re making sure your appointments are good for the day. You know, you’re sending videos to those customers, hey, I’m looking forward to seeing you – this could be managers. n
nAnd then the next step should be spending time with your most engaged shoppers. You know, those people from the last week or two that have been talking with you that you want to get with and then do the rest of that follow up. But what happens, Reid, is that most people will come in and they’ll just start pounding tasks, and most CRMs the first task they asked you to do will be like Happy Birthday calls? You know there’ll be sold follow up calls. That is important. You know I love I love both of you happy birthday, but I’m not going to call you first or send you a video first until I take care of my engage shoppers who are actually needing help and they want to get a vehiclen
n Durran : So I would say number one, and this is where a lot of things come down to, it’s the the leader, the leadership. Yeah, you know, because I’m going through this with my company. Now, just being fully transparent with you guys, you know, talking my wife about this, like, we have to stop working with dealerships from the bottom up and start working from the top down. Because you know, we spend a lot of time teaching internet people, sales people, all these tools and how to use this CRM, but the people that need to embrace it and put it in the most is the leadership, the leadership at the store. So once they really understand how powerful that tool is, and how to hold your team accountable, and set that system up to where they’re using it, the sales teams using it, even service can be using it. n
nOnce that gets implemented at the top, then that’s when that CRM takes off. But if what I see a lot of times is you’ll have leaders and sales managers, the dealership they kind of like let the salespeople do the all the little follow up stuff and the CRM, and then they kind of just stay put, like I don’t really do that stuff. But what’s funny about this, because I know you both probably been in the business for a while, if you go back, like I think 20 years, the sales managers are actually the biggest controllers of the follow up because remember, you haven’t read those old desk logs, the old paper log, and you have to put the customer’s name in, their salesperson name, and you have to put in did they do a demo write up, I remember the managers used to have that. And they had to say, hey, Duran, who’s that customer, you were just with? Here’s, here’s all the information. But then when the CRM came in, it’s kind of like we flipped it, you know, and we made it to where we want the salespeople doing more BDC doing more, but the manager is the biggest glue to that CRM.n
n Reid : You know, Duran it’s kind of funny you say that, because your stories are very familiar to mine. I swear to you, not the last podcast we had, I was talking to the guy, I just started working with the dealership in California, they have DealerSocket. And they haven’t touched it since they started in 2014. Same exact stories, you know, it’s absolutely crazy. You know, as far as CRM usage, it just seems like you would think that if you were a self type, you know, motivated, kinda like, you know, a sales person, you know, it’s, it’s, that’s kind of like what we’re supposed to do is prospect, you would want to use it.n
n Durran : Absolutely. And this, there’s a stat that I heard this morning, that’s, I guess you can fact check that this came from cars.com. So it was on a clubhouse call. And they did a huge survey. And it says dealership loyalty is 35% on the consumer side. So that kind of, to me, that’s almost the exact equation of the CRM. Because if you’re doing what you’re supposed to do in that CRM, and if it’s set up the right way, then your retention will be on that 70% side where you’re getting more retention. But like to your example, what you just said, that would explain it. Because if if you’re not using that tool, and it’s not set up to keep that cycle going with sales and service, then that would explain why the customer loyalty for dealerships is so small, because the lack of communication. So I didn’t mean to interrupt but…n
n Reid : No, you’re 100 you’re 100%. Right. So what do you think are the key elements of a CRM that they’re missing out on? What are they missing out on, and what features are being underserved? Sorry.n
n Durran : So normally, what I teach is to make sure we’re prioritizing our flow and how we work the CRM. So I advise you to make sure you’re using the CRM to work for you, you don’t work for the CRM. And so what I mean by that is, you’ll see a lot of sales teams, where they’re so focused on completing tasks, but they’re not focused on engaging with the right people. You know, I mean, so you’re just kind of just going in and you’ll see a dial, dial, dial, dial dial, that’s all they’re focused on, but they’re not prioritizing. So what I teach is, you know, to make sure you start your day with your new opportunities. n
nFirst, you need to have your plan, but start with your new opportunities, then you know, your unanswered communication. So, you have unresponded emails and texts. This sounds simple, but I could pull up a lot of CRMs right now and there’s some that still have 90 people with unanswered communications because they’re not dialing in to engage with the right people. But then after you’re taking care of those unanswered replies, you know, you’re making sure your appointments are good for the day. You know, you’re sending videos to those customers, hey, I’m looking forward to seeing you – this could be managers. n
nAnd then the next step should be spending time with your most engaged shoppers. You know, those people from the last week or two that have been talking with you that you want to get with and then do the rest of that follow up. But what happens, Reid, is that most people will come in and they’ll just start pounding tasks, and most CRMs the first task they asked you to do will be like Happy Birthday calls? You know there’ll be sold follow up calls. That is important. You know I love I love both of you happy birthday, but I’m not going to call you first or send you a video first until I take care of my engage shoppers who are actually needing help and they want to get a vehiclen