Eliminate Data Silos and Unlock the Power of Connected Data With Anvil Pro
8/6/2024Digitization is transforming the equipment dealership landscape, and the next step in this transition is connecting all this data in one place. How? Through system integration. The newest generation of dealership operations software links external and internal business systems, creating a comprehensive connected data platform for all users in one location.
By eliminating data silos, integrated systems enable seamless data flow across various dealership functions, enhancing efficiency and decision-making. In this article, we'll explore how an integrated and connected dealership platform like Anvil Pro can revolutionize your operations, unlock the power of connected data, and drive your business toward extraordinary growth.
Why consolidating data is important to dealership success
“Connected data” refers to the seamless integration of data from various sources into a single, unified system. For equipment dealerships, this means bringing together customer information, inventory details, sales data, and service records into a single, accessible platform. The benefits are manifold: Improved accuracy, real-time updates, and a holistic view of the business, all of which contribute to better decision-making and enhanced customer service.
Let’s take a look at some of the benefits that connecting all your data can bring to your dealership.
Improve inventory and customer visibility
Connected systems let users see all elements of their dealership: Customer information, inventory flow, sales data, marketing leads, service requests, and more. Here are just a couple of ways that consolidating your data improves visibility.
Inventory flow
Integration with inventory management systems lets dealership users see, track, and manage their inventory flow in real time, allowing them to identify in-demand and slow-moving equipment and adjust inventory strategies to reduce holding costs.
Anvil Pro’s connected solution: Inventory Manager
Inventory management software provides real-time visibility into every aspect of your equipment inventory, from monitoring stock levels to spotlighting customer interest. By connecting customer history with specific stock units, dealerships can make informed inventory decisions and improve customer satisfaction. By connecting inventory and customer data within Anvil Pro’s platform, you gain the power to streamline inventory processes, ensuring optimal stock levels and enhanced operational efficiency.
Customer relationships
A CRM system centralizes customer data, including demographic info, interactions, behavior, preferences, and purchase history, providing a complete profile of your customers and prospects to target marketing and sales strategies and provide a personalized buying experience.
Anvil Pro’s connected solution: Dealer CRM
While most CRM systems do give dealers an understanding of their customers and prospects to tailor campaigns to specific customer segments, they don’t connect this customer data to data from other business systems. Anvil Pro’s Dealer CRM integrates with multiple systems, consolidating customer account details, activity tracking, and purchase history into one platform. Customer records are tied to quotes, purchase and service history, open trade evaluations, and other relevant inventory and process information, enabling dealers to identify sales opportunities, optimize the customer experience, and foster loyalty.
Anvil Pro Dealer CRM case study: How United Ag & Turf Unified 25 Dealerships with Anvil Pro
Streamline dealership operations
Connecting all your business systems enables automation of updates and workflows, increasing efficiency across dealership processes. Here are two specific processes where efficiency is strengthened through connected data.
Sales and settlement workflow
With quote system integration, the workflow process can be automated, from finalizing a sale to the settlement process, ensuring swift invoicing upon the sale of a unit.
Anvil Pro’s connected solution: Order to Cash
The Order to Cash solution helps teams bring deals to settlement faster, visualize the workflow separated by deal stage on a Kanban board, and collaborate on all stages of a deal internally through the Salesforce Chatter feature – all from one shared platform. With increased efficiencies gained through a streamlined PO and settlement process, teams can spend more time refining sales strategies and building new relationships with customers.
Anvil Pro Order to Cash case study: How Wright Implement Reduced Errors by 50% with Anvil Pro Order to Cash
Trade assessments
Consolidating key equipment and market data points in one location enables quicker evaluations, eliminating bottlenecks and delighting customers with a pain-free trade-in process.
Anvil Pro’s connected solution: Trade Assessments
The Trade Assessments solution within Anvil Pro transforms the trade-in process by integrating data from quote systems to streamline workflows and eliminate bottlenecks. This connectivity enhances appraisal accuracy, leading to better margin optimization for dealerships. Additionally, by reducing trade-in wait times, dealerships significantly boost efficiency and improve the customer experience.
Anvil Pro Trade Assessment case study: How Hutson Inc. Expanded Trade Assessment Capacity by 300% with Anvil Pro
Drive sales and marketing success
Surprisingly, many dealerships still rely on spreadsheets and siloed reporting methods. But this is far from optimal for sales performance, as CRM systems have been shown to increase conversion rates by as much as 300%. By consolidating customer, sales, inventory, and marketing data in a single accessible database, sales teams can maximize the effectiveness of their efforts and update their strategies based on reliable performance metrics.
Sales pipeline
By consolidating information from quote systems, inventory management systems, and the dealer CRM, sales reps can take a “command center” view of their entire pipeline. Additionally, using software that includes automations and visualizations further enhances this visibility, allowing sales managers and reps to zoom in on specific deal opportunities or zoom out and see the entire pipeline to gain strategic insights.
Anvil Pro’s connected solution: Sales Pipeline
The Sales Pipeline solution enhances pipeline visibility and management by integrating data to provide a comprehensive view of the sales process. The Visual Pipeline Manager allows sales managers to proactively oversee their teams, ensuring deals move efficiently through the sales funnel. With robust sales forecasting capabilities, businesses can make informed decisions, predict trends, and allocate resources effectively.
Anvil Pro Sales Pipeline case study: How PrairieCoast Equipment Hit Their Sales Targets with Anvil Pro
Lead management
Centralized lead management helps sales and marketing teams stay on top of all incoming traffic and opportunities, making sure that all leads are followed up on and increasing conversion rates.
Anvil Pro’s connected solution: Marketing Requests
Anvil Pro’s Marketing Requests solution enhances inbound lead management by integrating data to track and manage leads proactively. With features like lead assignments, comprehensive lead tracking, and an inbound sales dashboard, dealerships can refine their inbound marketing strategies and process marketing requests more efficiently. Having a real-time snapshot of the entire sales funnel empowers sales teams to act swiftly on leads, catching all opportunities and optimizing conversion rates.
Anvil Pro Marketing Requests case study: How Wright Implement Increased Lead Conversion by 20% with Anvil Pro
Enhance the customer experience
While spreadsheets (whether paper or digital) can be sufficient in recording and updating customer information up to a point, dealerships large and small can benefit from management software. At dealerships with more sizable inventory or multiple locations, these manual methods are mostly a thing of the past. CRM systems have become the standard software solution for managing customer relationships – and one thing that all CRMs have in common is that they centralize and connect customer data.
However, using a standalone CRM system has limitations due to its connectivity only extending to customer information stored within a dealership’s customer database. Users must still move between multiple systems to access inventory, quote, DMS, and workflow data. Integrated dealership platforms optimize the customer experience by importing data from these various systems and centralizing it in one platform, allowing dealerships to more deeply understand their customers’ needs, preferences, and purchasing behavior and provide a more tailored experience.
Here are just a few of the ways an integrated platform enhances the customer experience and fosters loyalty:
- Brings deals to settlement faster: Streamline and automate the workflow from finalizing a sale to the settlement process, ensuring swift invoicing for customers while reducing your dealership’s carrying costs.
- Speeds up the trade-in process: Provide a smooth trade-in experience for customers by securing quick and accurate appraisals from external or internal quote systems.
- Helps you better connect with customers: Improve response times and nurture customer relationships with personalized interactions via integrated email and text-messaging tools, letting you engage with customers and prospects across multiple channels.
- Provides a tailored experience: Leverage demographic information, purchase history, and buying patterns to present the right deals or service recommendations at the right time.
Obtain analytics insights for strategic growth
Connecting multiple systems via integration can provide valuable insights about nearly every aspect of a dealership’s operations. These actionable insights can be used to identify inventory and purchasing trends, optimize campaign strategies, and create a roadmap for growth.
Consider what the following analytics reports and insights could do for your dealership:
Customer analytics
Gain insights into customer behavior, purchasing patterns, and marketing campaign effectiveness.
- Actions: Predict consumer trends, refine sales strategies.
Sales analytics
Gain insights into revenue potential, dollars by deal stage, and equipment sales trends.
- Actions: Forecast sales and revenue potential, allocate resources, improve management and sales strategies.
Inventory analytics
Gain insights into inventory flow, slow vs. quick-moving equipment, and purchasing behavior.
- Actions: Align inventory with customer demand to increase turn rate and boost long-term growth.
Marketing analytics
Access performance reports on marketing tactics and campaigns.
- Actions: Identify campaign effectiveness, refine outreach practices, and plan a winning long-term marketing strategy.
Connect your data in one place with Anvil Pro’s integrated dealer platform
For dealers who want to see and manage everything in one place, Anvil Pro’s integrated dealer platform is the ultimate operations and sales management solution. Experience unparalleled visibility into your inventory, sales, and customer interactions. By consolidating data from your various systems into one cohesive platform, Anvil Pro provides a single source of truth across all dealership departments.
Enhance operational efficiency, streamline workflows, ensure data accuracy, and make informed decisions with confidence. Unlock the full potential of connected data and take your dealership to the next level with Anvil Pro’s end-to-end integrated dealer platform. Book a demo to learn more about what Anvil Pro can do to advance your dealership’s success.