Automotive Dealers Shift to Cloud-Based CRM Solutions to Meet Customer Expectations

Automotive Dealers Shift to Cloud-Based CRM Solutions to Meet Customer Expectations

Forward-looking CRM vendors to offer integrated systems that ensure holistic access to customer data and seamless integration with other dealership systems, finds Frost & Sullivan

As automotive retail adapts to changing customer expectations, dealers are shifting from a product-driven to a customer-centric business culture. They are increasingly installing customer relationship management (CRM) software in their backend systems to proactively identify opportunities and build customer loyalty. By 2025, automotive CRM will evolve to integrate customer data across multiple retail channels for dealers.

“CRM vendors incorporating smart messaging tools, social media integration, and a predictive analytics engine in their solutions will be best poised to make the most of the emerging opportunities in the market,” said Dorothy Amy, Senior Research Analyst at Frost & Sullivan. “Cloud-based CRM solutions such as Dominion Vision are gaining prominence due to their benefits of reduced capital costs and lower maintenance overheads. Globally, cloud CRM will gain traction among smaller dealerships and increase penetration to 35 percent by 2025.”

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Frost & Sullivan’s recent analysis, Global Automotive Customer Relationship Management Market, Forecast to 2025, analyzes the competitive landscape and future focus areas of dealerships, dealership management system (DMS), and third-party vendors in the automotive CRM market. It also identifies the most preferred engagement models among dealers, pricing analysis, and the ways in which the market is expected to change in the future.

As the omnichannel retailing trend intensifies, automotive CRM vendors will find growth opportunities in:

Providing sharp customer insights, better segmentation, and proactive sales and service initiation.

Delivering cloud-based CRM models. However, European dealerships will be relatively slow in migrating to cloud CRM due to stringent data privacy laws such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

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Presenting training modules to educate dealers and help them efficiently make use of the analytics features in the CRM tool.

Fostering partnerships with DMS providers that offer an open integration platform, such as the Auto/Mate.

“The market is experiencing a surge in consolidations, as DMS providers currently lack advanced CRM capabilities,” noted Amy. “Solutions resulting from the partnerships between open DMS vendors and CRM service providers will help dealerships capture customer data from multiple online retail channels. New-age CRM solutions seamlessly synchronize customer data and analyze it using data mining algorithms to maximize customer engagement and drive profitability for automotive dealerships.”

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