Never have successful conversions of customer leads been more important for car dealerships than in the current economic situation. A strong relationship with the customer is very important for this. In order to support its automotive retail customers in this area, Konica Minolta has developed Automotive CRM. Built on Microsoft Dynamics 365, this Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solution provides a powerful tool for capturing, managing and successfully utilising customer information in an car dealer’s marketing and sales activities. Konica Minolta’s Automotive CRM has now been certified by Microsoft as one of a very select group of independent software vendor (ISV) solutions. It is therefore also available via Microsoft AppSource (kmits.cz/appsourceautomotivecrm), the company’s store for business solutions. The product has been developed in the Czech Republic and Konica Minolta is planning to roll out the solution to its customers in other European countries as well as, in the next stage, globally.
“In today’s digitalised, highly competitive world, trusting relationships between customers and retailers are a deciding success factor for businesses,” explains Martin Pondělíček, Managing Director of Konica Minolta IT Solutions Czech, where the solution was initially developed: “Strong relationships are even more important when the investment for the customer is high – particularly in the current economic situation. Apart from buying a house, the decision to buy a car is the second highest investment many people make in their life.” To build this trust, businesses need to ensure well-informed, individualised long-term communication with their customers. They must address their exact needs via the channels they prefer. “We have built Konica Minolta Automotive CRM exactly for this purpose, matching and integrating all processes in the car dealership that lead to a successful sale,” Pondělíček explains.
Automotive CRM supports the management of the showroom as well as sales representatives and simplifies marketing processes for the dealership. It has been specifically designed as an open system that allows for direct connection with other business applications such as an enterprise resource planning (ERP) tool or an automotive dealership management system (DMS). This means it can provide a true 360-degree view of the customer, ensuring all information needed is available at a glance, be it contact details, specific preferences or additional insights such as trade-in requests. The system can collect leads from various sources and present them to sales representatives in a fashion that they can quickly qualify and work on. Opportunities for sales can be managed, suitable vehicles quickly found and presented to interested clients and test drives organised. As a fully open business cloud platform, Automotive CRM allows for very specific retailer requirements to be implemented with minimal development and management costs.
Konica Minolta IT Solutions Czech could draw on the knowledge and experience to bring such a project forward. “We have been able to aggregate extensive expertise in both the implementation of projects for the automotive industry as well as in developing solutions based on Microsoft products,” says Pondělíček. The organisation currently holds five gold and five silver memberships in Microsoft’s four competency categories: Modern Workplace, Business Applications, Apps&Infrastructure and Data&AI.
Konica Minolta’s Automotive CRM is available via all sales-channels of Microsoft’s Commercial Marketplace approach: It can be purchased via AppSource, where customer can test the product directly. Microsoft sales executives will also offer this solution to their portfolio of managed customers. And of course, Konica Minolta will distribute it via its internal and external direct and indirect channels.
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