Cold thoughts on the hottest CRM automobile indust

CRM: Cold Thinking of the automotive industry

in the past year, we have seen "diving shows" of various manufacturers and dealers in turn, as well as hundreds of thousands of vehicle inventories overstocked in manufacturers and channels. At a time when all windfall profits are facing the end and all gimmicks are being snubbed, how to obtain differentiated competitive advantage in order to survive has become the most urgent task in front of all automobile manufacturers

"how can my car sell better than other brands?" Presumably, the sales bosses of those auto manufacturers are thinking about this problem day and night. Indeed, they have too much to worry about: how to make those increasingly picky and complaining (quasi) car owners feel satisfied; How can we make those 4S stores, dealers and service stations that follow the rules of the sun and violate the rules of the sun and play their own tricks to serve the company wholeheartedly. These bosses may not realize that what they are worried about is precisely what customer relationship management (CRM) - this advanced modern enterprise management strategy focuses on

crm helps increase sales

generally speaking, automobile manufacturers will have one or several models that will appeal to consumers in some aspects. Nike's efforts to promote sustainable development are mainly reflected in three key areas: reducing the environmental footprint, reforming the supply chain manufacturing process, and exploring personal potential. For mass consumer goods such as automobiles, consumers usually make a detailed investigation before deciding to buy, so there are often a large number of potential users in the call centers and stations of major automobile manufacturers to consult on all aspects of their products. These potential users are the most direct and sincere objects to achieve the manufacturers to increase sales, and there is no reason not to pay special attention to this group. There is still a lot of work to be done to successfully increase sales through potential users

first of all, potential users will use a variety of different contact methods to contact manufacturers, such as, e-mail, contact, fax, SMS, etc. Manufacturers need to deal with a large number of complicated information received every day in a timely manner, identify and screen out those sincere potential buyers, and do a detailed collection of their personal data for 6 and 1 machines: equipped with different sensors (repeated inquiries are unacceptable), and record the detailed contact information of each time in an orderly manner for reference when contacting next time. In this way, every potential user can feel valued, and the manufacturer can provide appropriate purchase suggestions to different potential users more specifically, so as to improve the actual purchase rate of potential users

secondly, the information of tens of thousands of potential users is a rare wealth for any manufacturer. These valuable data can be used in many ways. For example, through the analysis of potential user groups, manufacturers and dealers can be guided to carry out promotional activities in various places to make them more targeted; Through the analysis of potential user groups, we can formulate and modify the sales plans and delivery plans of different sales regions to reduce unnecessary losses; Even through the analysis of potential user groups, the production plan can be revised in time to determine production based on sales, which not only ensures timely supply, but also reduces the possible inventory pressure

finally, the manufacturers not only need to carefully maintain the information and historical records of these potential customers (prospective car owners) and car owners mentioned later, which took a lot of manpower and material resources to collect, but also need to ensure that they can appear in front of the right people at the right time and in the right way, so as to give full play to their best results

celsioziman, the former vice president of Coca Cola, said from absolute experience, "every marketing activity must be treated as an investment behavior, and the investment must be rewarded. Don't make excuses for yourself with the words of" penetrating the market "

crm improves after-sales service satisfaction

due to its own characteristics, the automotive industry is an industry that places special emphasis on customer after-sales service. It is difficult to think of Britain as an automotive manufacturer that cannot provide good after-sales service to gain a foothold in the industry. At the same time, the good reputation of an automotive brand in the user group can undoubtedly play a huge role in promoting its future sales

unfortunately, it is so difficult to further improve the satisfaction of customers' after-sales service, because providing after-sales service to customers is a very huge systematic work, which needs the cooperation of various departments within the enterprise, including customer service, claims, technology, finance and so on - the customer service department is responsible for communicating with customers and relevant internal departments, and tracking the progress of problem handling; The claim department will judge whether the claim is allowed according to the actual situation of the vehicle and deal with the claim; The technical department is responsible for dealing with complex technical problems in after-sales service; The financial department is responsible for dealing with the financial transactions involved in the after-sales service, etc

within the enterprise, the seemingly well-organized performance of their duties often masks the fragmentation between departments and the inability to share customer and related business information. The crux of this situation lies in the traditional concept and the application reality of information system in the current enterprise - each department does its own thing and operates with the Department business as the center. The result is that the cycle of dealing with customer problems is too long and the efficiency is low

to fundamentally change this situation, we must start with changing our concepts and dealing with customer needs completely. The trend of global EPDM production and automobile production is basically parallel. We should not plan business processes based on department business content, and build a unified management information system to help departments use unified and complete customer and business data

however, in the automotive industry, the vast majority of the sales and after-sales service work dealing with (prospective) car owners in the front line is done by those manufacturers' painstaking efforts to establish channels (4S stores, dealers and service stations) all over the country. Obviously, in order to improve sales and customer satisfaction, it is not enough for automobile manufacturers to cultivate their internal skills by themselves

crm strengthens channel management

for the automotive industry, it is not too much to emphasize the role of channels, because usually automotive manufacturers do not directly contact end users, and almost all sales and services are completed through channels. Therefore, how to strengthen the management of channels is a subject that almost all automobile manufacturers have been studying. Large and small channel providers are really not very worry free, such as random goods, private sales of accessories, not timely return of sales and owner information, and other phenomena that make manufacturers headache are repeated prohibitions

on the other hand, channel merchants are also full of bitterness: first of all, usually a set of owner information needs to be input repeatedly in multiple systems (own and submitted to the manufacturer), which is easier for large dealers. How can there be so many people in smaller dealers? Secondly, after the manufacturer ordered the whole vehicle and accessories, it is difficult to know clearly when they can arrive, and the channel merchants can hardly respond to the users' inquiries. In addition, when the market is bad, we need to do marketing activities, but it is difficult to get support from manufacturers in terms of capital, technology and information. There are many such cases

although various automobile manufacturers have formulated various strict indicators and assessment methods to regulate the behavior of channel providers, assessment can only be used as one of the means, and more importantly, it is necessary to help channel providers solve the difficulties they encounter in reality. Only when the channels are handled well, the interests of manufacturers can be truly guaranteed

to achieve a win-win situation between manufacturers and distributors, the following points must be achieved: 1 Automobile manufacturers can view and monitor all kinds of information of channel providers in real time, such as the remaining inventory and sales of complete vehicles and accessories of channel providers, and can further combine the financial settlement of channels and manufacturers to truly realize the effective control of channel providers. 2. The channel provider can independently consult the manufacturer for the required information, such as the delivery progress of the ordered goods, the financial settlement with the manufacturer, and the latest technical data. 3. It is necessary to strengthen the control of information security and permissions to ensure that information can only be viewed by authorized users, and users with different authorizations can access different data. 4. The ultimate goal of the manufacturer is to incorporate the channel into its overall business activity plan. In other words, from the time of planning the business process, it is necessary to consider the automobile manufacturer and the channel business as a whole. The manufacturer should share its business management system and data with the channel business in a planned way to complete the relevant links of marketing, sales or after-sales service. Only in this way can the end-to-end whole process management of the business process be truly realized

the realization of the above management objectives can effectively improve the competitiveness of automobile production and sales enterprises, but it requires not only the formation of new ideas and the formulation of new rules, but also a lot of difficult process reconstruction, data maintenance and processing. Happily, those software manufacturers who have long paid attention to enterprise management systems have made extremely in-depth research and development in the field of customer relationship management. If automobile manufacturers can choose advanced management information system and acquire advanced experience in customer relationship management process according to their needs, it will undoubtedly improve their core competitiveness. (end)