Essentials of a Lead Management System

We get asked a LOT about Internet Lead Management Systems (ILMS). Here are some of the essentials to consider when shopping for a new system:
- House your database of potential customers.
- Be certified compliant by your OEM.
- Be able to accept leads from all your lead suppliers. Website, Inventory sites like Auto Trader, Third party lead providers, Phone tracking services like Who’s Calling , OEM, etc.
- Be able to ‘read’ the incoming lead, automatically ‘pull’ information from it and plug that information into outgoing emails using <>
- Allow for manual lead/customer creation to log phone and floor-ups
- Be accessible away from the store using any computer connected to the Internet
- Provide an action plan for lead handling and follow-up including, Calendar function, To-do lists, Both manual and automated lead follow-up schedules based on status of lead
- Be able to house a library of quality HTML email templates and be able to pull from that library to semi-automatically send emails
- Supply you with templates at the touch of a button, and allow you to insert your own
- Provide a ‘SPAM-checker’ feature to assure deliverability of emails and templates
- Allow you to run the reports you need to track your business like: Cost per lead by source / cost per sale by source, ROI by lead source, ROI by Salesperson, Closing ratio by lead source, Closing ratios by sales person, Response time
- Have the ability to send Bulk Emails.
- Allow you to sort leads and owners based on several criteria e.g.; age, contact, model requested, trade-in, etc.
- Allow you to market to your current owner base.
- Allow you to easily edit/update customer information.
- Provide two-way communication with the Dealer Management System.
- Accepts leads in ADF, XML and XADF format.
- Multiple levels of user access and control with ‘director’ notification of ineffective sales activity
-Provide inventory integration.
- Allow for ISM schedules to be inserted and automatic ‘round-robin’ dispersal of leads, based on availability
- Allow a ‘director’ to suspend a ISM’s reception of new leads based on performance
- A “30-day Out” clause in the contract – no long term commitments required. Technology changes.