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Notes: 2 / 3 years ago
CRM: The cornerstone of the Taylor AutoMall commitment to complete customer satisfaction
by Sheila Howe, The Whig Standard, January 2010
Building on the tradition established by his father, Jerome, the new owner of Taylor AutoMall understands that focusing on customer satisfaction is an excellent business strategy. Jason Taylor is taking that firm foundation to the next level. Exceeding customer expectations is now the new norm at Taylor AutoMall.
“To improve something implies you know where you are today and where you want to be tomorrow. That is why we have developed a CRM (customer relationship management) strategy that approaches the customer experience systematically and efficiently. They need to know the dealership is there for them,” Jason points out. “It’s essential to create a relationship with the customer to ensure that when any automotive issue arises, Taylor AutoMall comes to mind immediately.”
To excel, he has enlisted the assistance of Sheri Bird. She is the owner of BlindSpot Strategies, a consulting company that develops marketing strategies dedicated to customer retention by enhancing customer tracking and satisfaction. “In today’s hyper-connected world, your guests have plenty of choices,” she explains. “If you provide a consistently excellent guest experience, you will win and retain the loyalty of your guests— even as your competitors attempt to lure them away.”
BlindSpot Strategies provides Taylor AutoMall with the best practices, expertise and integrated solution knowledge to help the dealership deliver a great guest experience. The first step is to define a ‘Guest Experience Statement’. Establish what is valued by your customers, and then use that to drive all actions in guest interaction, in every department, including communications in person, by phone, by e-mail, sales, marketing, promotions, customer satisfaction surveys and a dedication to internet features such as Taylor AutoMall’s website and the dealership’s Facebook and Twitter accounts.
“The key to success,” Sheri adds, “will be continuously ensuring all team members are ‘checking their BlindSpot’ by asking themselves, when dealing with a customer, ‘Does this make the guest feel valued and cared for?’ BlindSpot Strategies also educates, entertains and assists the dealer with the latest news in automotive CRM”. It draws the dealer’s attention to industry trends and innovations, along with the hottest ideas on the market. Taylor AutoMall has acted on this advice by embracing social media networks and micro-blogging services, including Facebook and Twitter. The dealership is the leader in the Kingston market and has dedicated much time and resources to these two popular internet destinations. It is without a doubt the best way to share and discover what is happening right now.
At its core, CRM is a business strategy, not a technology. Industry Canada reports that in today’s competitive environment, finding and keeping customers is more critical than ever. A business needs to understand its customer management methodologies and its customer preferences and behaviours. To truly be effective, a CRM system needs to capture data accurately, be able to analyze that data, ensure that the right people are seeing it and that the information is ultimately used correctly.”
CRM is highly recommended as it “facilitates keeping track of key customer information such as contacts, communications, accounts, buying histories and preferences, matching customer needs with product and service offerings. Companies can analyse the data to identify their best customers, enrich and individualize customer contact, manage marketing campaigns, reduce customer response times and serve wider geographical regions.”
The most effective CRM systems, however, require a comprehensive, company-wide effort to attract and retain customers through an integration of information, people, policies, processes and technology strategies. Taylor AutoMall has established a central database to view and update customer data, uses customer analysis to suggest customized marketing or sales campaigns and provides customers with the ability to self-order and self-help through their website. A competent reporting system tracks prospects, analyzes trends and forecasts revenues to result in better decision making for the business.
GM Canada supports the customer focused strategy. They have created a user friendly website to help you get the most out of your vehicle— even when you’re not in it. “At GM Canada, we want to make your driving experience as rich, fun and exciting as possible. The GM Canada Owner Centre is an information hub to use as a gateway to all the services, support and information you’ll need during your ownership.” Check it out on the homepage of taylorautomall.com for the link to GM Canada’s Owner Centre. -
3 years ago
Why the Guest Experience is Critical
In today’s hyper connected world, your guests have plenty of choices. That’s why you have to do everything in your power to make sure they have plenty of reasons to buy from you - and no good reasons to take their business to a competitor.
If you compete on price, you’ll hurt profits. If you try to compete on product alone, you’ll always be vulnerable to the innovations of others. But if you provide a consistently excellent guest experience, you will win and retain the loyalty of your guests - even as your competitors attempt to lure them away.
BlindSpot Strategies has the best-practices expertise and integrated solution knowledge to help your dealership deliver a great guest experience quickly and with unmatched efficiency. So if you have the dedication to guest retention, you’re ready to get started.Learn more about how BlindSpot Strategies enables dealerships like yours to cost effectively achieve guest experience excellence.
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Notes: 1 / 3 years ago
What is the Guest Experience you are trying to deliver?
To improve something implies you know where you are today and you know where you want to be tomorrow.
Often when I conduct a preliminary discovery meeting one of the questions I find myself asking anyone who is struggling to wrap their arms around CRM is, What is the Guest Experience that you are trying to deliver? To my astonishment, I have discovered that most Dealer Principals struggle to answer what is perceived to be a simple question. I have asked multiple department managers that same question as well. Each time, I seem to get the same blank faces, with a glimmer of a light bulb that has just turned on, as people realize they don’t know the answer.
I challenge you to try this. The next time you have a team meeting, ask everyone to write down the experience you are trying to deliver and then have each team member share their response. I am sure you will discover all the descriptions are different.
Without clearly defining the experience you are trying to deliver, typically, everyone winds up doing what he or she thinks is the right thing. Characteristically, this means that the Service Department does what they think is right, as do Sales, Parts, and all the other departments. Little surprise then, your guests ‘feel’ differences in their experience as they interact with the different departments of your dealership.
In my opinion, the first thing you have to define is what I would call a “Guest Experience Statement”. This needs to be something that is valued by the guest. Once established, this should drive all actions in the guest experience, from all of your departments, including guest communications: sales, marketing, web, Facebook, Twitter, etc.
The key to success will be continuously ensuring all team members are ‘checking their BlindSpot’ and asking themselves when dealing with a guest ”does this make the guest feel valued and cared for?”
To summarize, to create a valued guest experience, your dealership needs to define what it is; hint, it needs to be based on guest research; and it needs to consider emotions. The great news is that once this is defined and implemented, you can save money and, at the same time, provide a guest experience that is valued and allow you to differentiate yourself.Check your BlindSpot.
BlindSpot Strategies is meant to educate, entertain and assist dealers.
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