Customer management solutions are unavoidable in the current business climate. Without a customer engagement strategy, even the most steadfast sales department can come up short, and this is especially true when trying to convince your customers to make a purchase as large as a car. But while many auto dealerships have ILM systems in place, there are still some that are slow to adopt auto dealer CRM solutions. While Internet lead management is at least part of a healthy strategy, it is a separate entity all together for CRM.

Internet lead management systems do not track the lifecycle of a customer relationship; they treat it based solely on possible interest. CRMs take this elementary utility and extend its usefulness past only a sales tool and into a customer service tool as well.

Auto Dealer Socket is a provider of CRM software designed to this end. The company’s CEO Jonathan Ord pointed out, “When a lead comes into your Internet department, what happens to that lead after they have come in for a test drive? Does the system you use follow that customer through to sale, and more notably these days, through to service? No. CRM is designed specifically to be able to track a customer from first interaction, through sale and on through into loyalty and, most importantly, to be able to communicate with them over time in a way that drives future and frequent purchases.”

The value of loyalty cannot be understated, and much more so than with an ILM CRM provides a tangible track to get customers from their first purchase to their second, third and so on. In a down economy managing every relationship is essential, auto dealers should heed this lesson and ditch their outdated lead management software for one that takes every aspect of customer service in to account.

Chris DiMarco is a Web Editor for TMCnet. He holds a master's degree in journalism from Quinnipiac University. Prior to joining TMC (News - Alert) Chris worked with e-commerce provider Suresource as a contact center representative and development analyst. To read more of his articles, please visit his columnist page.

Edited by Janice McDuffee