After conducting in-depth research, including interviews with over 20 dealers and a thorough assessment of their pain points, we have identified a critical gap in how the automotive industry interacts with its online and in-store toolsets. The CRM project has been formulated to address these challenges, which stem from the fragmented nature of existing tools.The CRM project aims to resolve a multifaceted issue affecting the automotive industry's interaction with their online and in-store toolsets. This issue was identified after extensive interviews with our existing user base, revealing that these diverse tools are disparate, existing in silos rather than interacting efficiently. This disjointed framework imposes several problems that can hinder operational efficiency, consistency, and user experience when using their CRM, DR, and Desking solutions.

Currently, dealers must navigate multiple disconnected platforms to manage their CRM, Digital Retailing (DR), and Desking solutions. This siloed approach leads to inefficiencies, inconsistent data across tools, and an increased risk of errors. Dealers have expressed frustration over the lack of a unified platform within AutoSync, as it disrupts workflow, impacts decision-making, and weakens customer interactions. Without a seamless integration between these essential tools, operational efficiency and business performance suffer.

The CRM project aims to bridge this gap by creating a cohesive, integrated solution that enhances usability, ensures data consistency, and ultimately improves the dealer experience.This journey, along with the key pain points identified, is captured in the customer journey and pain points diagram, which serves as a reference for understanding the full scope of the problem and the need for a more connected solution.

The "Deal" tab in the sales progress section was designed to replace the "Wanted Vehicles" widget. This new tab captures vehicle details and allows users to build deals within a full-screen deal builder view.

Previously, the "Wanted Vehicles" widget was limited in functionality and did not provide a comprehensive view of the deal-building process. By introducing the "Deal" tab, users can now access a full-screen view that simplifies the deal-building process and captures all relevant vehicle details.

This new tab provides a more intuitive and comprehensive tool for building deals. Users can now easily access and manage all aspects of the deal-building process, from vehicle selection to pricing and financing options.

Similar to the “Deal” tab, which structures a deal for the sale of a vehicle, the “Trade-In” tab is used to appraise a vehicle brought in by the user for trade-in.

Through continuous conversations with dealers during our design iterations, we identified additional data points required for a comprehensive vehicle appraisal. These include vehicle repairs, modification work, damages, warranties, and more.

To streamline this process, we integrated with vAuto, a commonly used tool in the industry. This integration allows dealers to push all relevant information to vAuto directly from our platform. This eliminates the need to re-key data and provides dealers with an appraisal value within our platform itself.

Currently for our MVP, these tabs will be used to track activities within dealership. These include everything from appointment and road test in the presentation tab, to the vehicle preparation and hand-off in the Delivery tab. It ensures that all customer interactions are efficiently logged and managed. It also helps when there are more than one dealers working to close a deal or if the General Manager/F&I manager needs to take over.

As a future vision for these tabs, the dealers will be able to generate a Bill of Sale within its tab and get it electronically signed by the customer. Similarly F&I/Credit will display menu selling options for different F&I products and the dealer will be able to submit a Credit Application within the platform.

I designed the custom fields and custom tab to offer flexibility for dealerships. Recognizing that our predefined fields may not cover all dealership needs, I introduced the ability for dealerships to add their own fields to each tab. This allows them to track specific information unique to their operations.

Additionally, I created a custom tab to serve as a catch-all for fields that don’t neatly fit into any other tab within the sales progress. This customization capability ensures that the platform can adapt to the diverse needs of different dealerships, providing a tailored experience that enhances efficiency and effectiveness.

As part of our roll-out plan, the first phase was to release the new CRM lead page as an integration to the Trader Marketplace. We conducted interviews and survey with 7 dealerships to get some first reactions before other dealers would be onboarded. The interview notes were analyzed and a survey was sent out at the end. The cumulative conclusions from the 2 are as follows:

Moving forward, the focus will be on integrating credit application submissions and decision-making directly within the platform in addition to pushing the Quote to the DMS system. This will streamline the financing process for dealerships, improving efficiency and enhancing customer service. Additionally, automations for scheduling appointments and managing vehicle deliveries will be implemented to simplify dealership workflows, ensuring seamless scheduling and smooth coordination of deliveries.