Customer Relationship In The Retail Automotive Industry

My experience in marketing started early in my career when I took control of the internet sales department, a relatively new concept in the retail automotive industry. A lot of this knowledge was gained through trial and error, as the industry was in the middle of a change at that point, and I was handling an uncharted territory by myself. The question approach in the sales process helped me uncover a lot of what it took to get a potential customer to move from looking at a website to walking into the dealership. This led me to take a lot of approaches that were uncommon at the time, such as adding a searchable inventory of our cars to the company website. In addition to the marketing of the individual vehicles via the internet, rather than …show more content…
The follow-up stage of the sales process is a part of customer relationship management and a rather valuable one. It provides not only an opportunity to sell the same customer more products and services as the need arise, but it helps to generate referral business as well. It also helps to identify problems your customers are having with your product and provides information on how to fix them to build loyalty to your company. CRM is a great example of how technology is used to improve the effectiveness of a sales force. CRM software is a growing industry with many options to choose from, and a vast improvement over older systems that were used before. The most important change that technology has had on CRM is that in addition to providing a customer database, it is now an integrated piece of software that not only can be used to communicate with your customers, it can provide real-time data about your sales at a glance, rather than waiting for data to come in and be compiled. In addition to instant data and reminders, CRM software also allows you to instantly react to pain points and new sales opportunities, a process that used to take much longer. Properly utilized CRM software can give a company a competitive edge by providing superior service. My knowledge of CRM, like my knowledge of other ways to leverage …show more content…
Money and other material incentives work well, but they need to be coupled with intrinsic rewards as well. Sales is a profession that tends to attract competitive people, so keeping a sales force updated on their rankings in comparison with their co-workers is often very effective. Non-monetary perks, such as a better parking spot are effective as well. It is also important to know what your competitors are paying, as your employees knowing that other are being paid more for the same work elsewhere is not only demoralizing, it also increases your risk of turnover. Retaining salespeople is tough, and properly motivating and compensating them is only part of the equation. Offering new challenges and a path upward through the company are important in order to give them a reason to stay with your company rather than move to a competitor.
Like my previous sales management knowledge, this was gained through on the job experience. With Hyundai, Mercedes-Benz, and Million Air, I was involved with the hiring and training of both salespeople and customer service representatives. At Million Air, I was the primary person who did all training of the front of house staff.
In short, a sales manager’s job is to direct the company’s sales team. They set sales goals, analyze data, hire salespeople, and develop training programs for the sales representatives. They plan, direct, and coordinate the actual movement of a product from