Automotive & Dealership Software 

What is Automotive Software?

Automotive software for dealerships and the automotive industry encompasses a wide range of applications designed to streamline operations, supporting every department in working more efficiently and effectively.

Categories include Customer Data Platforms (CDP), Dealer Management Systems (DMS), Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software, and other systems to manage inventory, servicing, parts, and digital marketing.

In an increasingly competitive landscape, it’s imperative that you incorporate automotive software to ensure the success of your dealership. These tools can help your dealership by:

• Increasing efficiency and productivity by automating repetitive and time-consuming tasks;
• Improving customer experience through more seamless and personalized interactions;
• Encouraging data-driven decision making with valuable updated insights available instantly. 

CDPs in the Automotive Industry

Automotive software systems and applications are transforming the way the industry manages operations and sets KPIs. Gone are the days of relying on spreadsheets that are already outdated by the time you’ve clicked download. Today, Customer Data Platforms (CDP) are at the forefront of this digital transformation, revolutionizing how dealerships handle operations and measure their success.  

CDPs for the automotive industry are a dealership software that act as a central hub for all your operations and data, integrating different activities in the dealership – from sales and customer service to marketing and OEM offers. This unified approach provides real-time visibility into every aspect of the dealership, creating more reliable and data-driven decision making. 

By offering a clearer picture of your current dealership operations, you can make better predictions for KPIs that are attainable and motivating. Before using an automotive CDP, you might look at your sales as ‘customer X bought car Y from salesperson Z.’ After integrating a CDP into all of your departments, you see the engagements leading up to the decision to purchase car Y, how the dealership can extend customer X’s lifetime value, and what sales opportunities are available to salesperson Z. 

With this kind of information available at your fingertips you can gain deep insight into your operations and opportunities to build more relevant and impactful KPIs. This is just the beginning of what a CDP can do for your dealership. Learn more about CDPs here.

Dealer Management System (DMS) & Software

A Dealer Management System (DMS) is a specialized software that helps automotive dealerships manage and streamline their day-to-day operations and business processes. It’s a powerful tool that can integrate various aspects of your operations into a unified platform, including inventory, vehicle sales, accounting, and services. 

The DMS’ ability to consolidate data from across your dealership’s operations unlocks a multitude of advantages:

• Keep track of your inventory, including features, specifications, and prices. 
• Automate financial transactions.
• Calculate loan terms and rates, and prepare customer quotes and offers.
• Schedule and track service and maintenance appointments.
• Deliver valuable insights into dealership performance. 
• Provide remote access to your data and systems.
• Measure dealership KPIs. 

CRM Software 

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems are built specifically to support and manage customer activities. They centralize all customer interactions, ultimately enhancing the capabilities of your customer-facing teams.

An automotive CRM is specifically intended to help dealerships manage their interactions with all leads and customers, enabling dealers to find the contact details and conversations notes, and create high-level segments. Whether it’s receiving an email or text, or scheduling – or perhaps canceling – a meeting, your team can keep it all updated in the CRM to be used at a later date.

Take the following experience of a salesperson, let’s call them Alan. 

Alan successfully connected with a website lead, spoke with them on the phone about their interests, scheduled an in-person meeting, and offered a couple of relevant deals. However, without a CRM system, this valuable customer information remains isolated, accessible only to Alan. Should Alan be unavailable when the customer decides to make a purchase, the rest of the team lacks the necessary details, potentially leading to a frustrating restart for the customer. Furthermore, if the customer returns years later, the absence of readily available information hinders personalized service, diminishing their sense of value and loyalty towards the dealership.

In short, if you haven’t already started using an automotive CRM, the time is now. 

Automotive Marketing Software & Platform

Embracing automotive and dealership software is no longer a luxury, but a necessity for maintaining your competitive edge. The more information you have readily available, the more impactful your marketing efforts are going to be. Once you can clearly see what your customer preferences and needs are,  you can begin to understand how to market to them. 

Fullpath’s Customer Data Platform (CDP) brings your automotive software, including the CRM, DMS,  and other data sources into one place. Fullpath CDP leverages your unified data to build 360° shopper profiles that can be used to enhance digital marketing efforts and boost sales. Using filters such as equity, email clicks, and salesperson, you can see full customer journeys going years back to better understand and serve your dealership’s customers. Once you have the full view of your customers’ historic and more recent actions, Fullpath’s marketing automation tools will use your first-party data layered with AI to create personalized advertising and customer experiences from beginning to end of the customer journey. 

With the right automotive software, you can get a leg up by easily determining what your customer needs and wants. By the time your competitor has finished jumping between different platforms and spreadsheets to find their customer data, you’ve already contacted the lead with a personalized offer on a new car for less than they are paying now. 

To learn more about how Fullpath’s automotive software can give you the competitive edge, get in touch with our team at get.started@fullpath.com or click here to schedule your personalized demo today.