Dealer management software, or DMS, is a type of computer program that allows dealership personnel to have a new, technologically advanced tool for increasing their businesses efficiency. Installing a new DMS system can also be the perfect reason for finally organising your dealership's business processes.
When you have a high quality DMS deployment, you'll have, among other things, a complete evaluation of your current business practices, via a team comprising your dealership's staff and your DMS provider. With this joint project, friction surrounding the implementation and usage of your new software system will be minimised. What you want to use DMS for is to strike a balance between that new set of tools and your existing dealership practices, which your joint team concludes have been successful and can continue to be successful with the new system.
What else do you want to look for in a high quality DMS system? Below I’ve compiled a quick list of features:
* Essential training for those employees who need to learn the new software and do so in a short period of time.
* User manuals going over FAQs and the most commonly used work processes.
* Advanced training that allows your dealership team to use the system to its full potential.
* Having the provider's DMS consultant come to your dealership with an ongoing training plan customised to your particular needs.
* Specialised training which focuses on specific topics that involve your dealership's different areas.
* Online training with which you can contact the provider's DMS experts for learning and reviewing specified topics in a one-on-one setting facilitated via the Internet.
* User seminars for clients of your franchise, through which they can compare different work experiences and come up with action plans in concert with your DMS provider.
You'll also get in a high quality dealer management software system a great CRM component. With this component, you should be able to easily and readily track, analyse, or create:
* Contact objectives
* Customers indexed by activity, vehicles owned, location, and so forth
* Customers who own other makes of vehicles
* Customers who've not been contacted since a certain date
* Directional marketing reports
* Exports to the Internet, text files, Word, Excel, HTML,XML, PDF.
* Printed labels
* Management reports for evaluating customer profiling, sales staff effectiveness, and any delays in decision making
* Purchases made within a date range
* Sales calls made within a date range
* Sales objectives vs. actual sales per salesman
What are some other benefits of the DMS CRS component?
* Fast recall of detailed customer information with user-definable windows on customer information
* Tracking sales estimates and proposals
* Analysing lost sales
* Ensuring constant and recurring contact with your customers
* Controlling your sales force via reviews of sales calls, success ratio analysis, and comparisons of projected sales with objectives
* Tracking of lost customers
* Sales statistics
* One-on-one marketing
* Assigning sectors and areas to sales staffers
* Microsoft Word mail merging using your customized sales letters
As you can see, good dealer management software is a very powerful tool that will keep you in step with, or steps ahead of, your competitors in dealerships of the 21st century. Seriously consider making use of it.