The power of having a website integrated with his CRM was furthest from Internet Sales Manager Adam Nobles’ mind when he sought to replace J. Pauley Toyota’s prior website, which had become a major source of consumer complaints. He says he demoed every website vendor out there before landing on DealerSocket’s DealerFire. He hasn’t heard a single complaint since.

"DealerSocket closed me, and they also wanted my CRM business and my marketing,” he says, noting that DealerFire’s white-glove approach to digital marketing and its responsive, mobile-native websites were major influencers in his decision.

Nobles was also in the market for a new CRM at the time, noting that his former CRM provider “didn’t check all the boxes that I wanted checked.” He was intrigued by the idea of having his website tied to his CRM and made the switch two months after signing on for his DealerFire website.

"The thing I love about the DealerSocket product family is how well everything integrates,” he says. “If a serious customer clicks on my price-unlock button, now I get to follow them.”

 

Unlocked potential

The move to DealerFire proved especially helpful as he continued perfecting his new price-unlock feature for his website. In a four-month span, J. Pauley's website captured 796 leads — 99 of which resulted in sales. That's up from 335 leads and 63 closed sales during the same period the previous year.

"It's not that the market sold more Toyotas; I'm just capturing a higher percentage of the market," he says. "And a big reason for that is my DealerFire website."

The results also revealed the true potential of DealerSocket CRM’s integrated CrossFire tool, which tracks customer behavior on a DealerFire website and routes that information into the CRM. That connection is especially useful when Nobles gets a lead in the CRM and begins communicating with the customer.

Sometimes, the customer will ask about a specific model while listing features equipping another vehicle. "I can't tell you how many times I've gone in to see the trail of vehicles they looked at," he says. "Then it makes sense because I can see they clicked on the hybrid RAV4 17 times but are talking about another model."

 

Added visibility, added customization

The integration also allowed Nobles to confirm a trend he began noticing among his most loyal customers. "We had one yesterday. The guy bought five cars here. But instead of calling the salesperson he bought those cars from, he went online to look around and came in as an internet lead," he says. "I've been noticing this for the last five to six years, but I feel like we've hit a tipping point."

That’s why Nobles utilizes the CRM's List Builder feature. He’s created a list targeting lost opportunities, with the CRM automating a series of follow-up emails designed to get those customers back in the store. He also created a list targeting customers who paid for a high-cost repair. The strategy is to encourage them to trade for a new vehicle.

“The biggest thing with DealerSocket’s CRM is I can customize it, which means I don’t have to live in a cookie-cutter world,” he says. An example is the custom labels he created for the CRM's follow-up reminders. There's one labeled "5 PM call," which tells a salesperson an attempt to reach a prospect was made earlier that day and to try again at 5 p.m. Then there's Nobles’ CRM home screen, which he customized to display only the information important to him.

“I love that I’ve been able to go in and create all these custom widgets, and I’ve probably got a dozen of them we built just the way I want them,” Nobles says. “DealerSocket did a phenomenal job. The customization has been a big deal, and the user interface is fantastic. I just love it.”

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