Salesforce Chatter: A Game-Changer in Dealership Communications
7/15/2024Effective communication is the backbone of any successful dealership. Sales teams, service departments, and management all need to be on the same page and equipped with the right information at the right time.
However, achieving smooth collaboration among your team members can be challenging without a centralized communication platform. This often leads to missed messages, duplicated efforts, and general inefficiency.
Because team coordination is crucial to optimizing all your processes, the Anvil Pro platform includes Salesforce Chatter as a standard feature with every implementation. As many dealers who use it can attest, this relatively basic feature has become a fundamental tool for increasing efficiency and enhancing nearly all of their dealership’s operations.
One of the most powerful tools that has come out of Anvil has been the Chatter functionality within Salesforce. It's absolutely huge to be able to jump off of a existing deal or a stock unit, or even a customer, and shoot a note to someone else that generates a notification they can click on to open and respond. - Brian Marshall, United Ag & Turf
What is Chatter in Salesforce?
Salesforce Chatter is an enterprise social network designed to centralize communication and collaboration among employees within a business.
In a dealership setting, Chatter enhances interactions among sales teams and across various departments, allowing employees to share updates, files, and data and stay current on deal status, customer requests, and more. Additionally, team members can follow each other, join groups, and stay informed about critical dealership operations, ensuring everyone is aligned and informed.
How Chatter helps dealership departments stay connected
More than just a texting and email app, Chatter enables users to communicate from within various views and applications to share specific details related to a customer, a piece of inventory, a particular invoice, and other connected data.
For Anvil Pro users, this means that integration with external business systems – such as quote management software, Dealer Management System (DMS), inventory management software, and workflow systems – allows employees to create chats, send photos, and communicate other relevant information conveniently from a particular record, stock unit, customer profile, or other view from within Anvil Pro’s unified platform.
According to Brian Marshall, Corporate Systems Director at United Ag & Turf Northeast, Chatter has been a surprise powerhouse feature of Anvil Pro, helping to coordinate departments at over 17 regional store locations.
“Whether you are talking about admin, sales, or service departments, Chatter helps solve problems and makes everyone more efficient,” says Marshall. “We would have never guessed that feature would save us as much time or eliminate as much confusion as it has.”
Marshall emphasizes the benefits of being able to use Chatter from any device to send internal messages from any record, keeping everyone up to date and on the same page no matter the circumstances.
“When a problem comes up, Chatter gives us the ability to start a chat directly out of an existing deal, stock unit, or customer record,” he adds. “It sends out an immediate notification via phone and email. Team members can click on it and directly access the conversation. It then brings them straight to the record you messaged from, so they see exactly what you see — no lengthy explanations necessary.”
Examples of using Chatter to enhance team collaboration
Marshall highlighted four examples from across his dealership where Chatter enhances critical communication or resolves issues faster, leading to improved customer satisfaction and higher turn rates. When broken down into processes for specific teams and roles, it becomes even clearer how an internal communications app can help streamline dealership operations.
Here are some ways Chatter helps dealership departments process deals and handle issues more efficiently in daily situations, according to Marshall.
Settlement team
If a deal comes through missing a tax-exemption form or other required document from the Sales Pipeline, the settlement team can flag the deal as “escalated” and tag the salesperson and store manager. This immediate notification links them directly to the issue, ensuring quick resolution. Additionally, by using Chatter Groups, the team can discuss recurring issues and share best practices to prevent future documentation problems, fostering a collaborative approach to improving the settlement process.
Sales representatives
When a deal is pending, salespeople can use Chatter to communicate the stock number and customer ID, notifying the rest of the team that the unit is sold, whether they are in the shop or in the field. When used alongside the Inventory Manager to check updates in real time, salespeople can ensure inventory accuracy while accelerating any next steps. Sales reps can also use Polls within Chatter to create surveys and gather quick feedback on customer preferences or pricing strategies from their peers, enhancing their sales tactics.
Service team
If a question arises about a get-ready request, the service manager or technician can start a conversation in Chatter directly from the service request, tagging the appropriate salesperson. This real-time clarification keeps the workflow smooth and prevents delays. The service team can also use Topics to categorize common issues or service tips, creating a knowledge base accessible to all team members.
Location-to-location
To transfer equipment, United Ag & Turf requires it to be released by the location’s general manager before it moves to another location. Chatter puts those requests front and center, so there is no complaining that someone didn’t get the message or is not returning phone calls. Competing interests can be resolved and deals can progress immediately.
Parts department
Parts managers can use Chatter to manage inventory levels and coordinate with the sales and service teams. For example, when a critical part is low in stock, the parts manager can use Chatter to alert the relevant teams, ensuring they are aware and can plan accordingly. By creating Chatter Groups for specific parts or suppliers, they can streamline ordering processes and maintain optimal inventory levels, preventing downtime and improving service efficiency.
Marketing team
Marketing teams at dealerships can use Chatter Groups to coordinate campaigns, share promotional materials, discuss inbound lead forms tracked in Marketing Requests, and gather feedback from sales and service teams. This ensures cohesive messaging and timely execution of marketing efforts, improving overall campaign effectiveness and dealership visibility.
Create visibility and foster accountability in sales teams
In addition to streamlining communication, speeding up deals, and coordinating campaigns, another major benefit to using Chatter in Anvil Pro is the sheer visibility it provides. Marshall says that using a centralized platform to communicate has enabled his dealership to eliminate redundant messages and capture every detail in the conversation between employees.
“It eliminates a tremendous amount of emails being sent back -and -forth,” Marshall says. “Everything gets tracked within Anvil Pro. It also creates accountability, letting everyone involved know WHO you’re waiting on or WHAT you’re waiting for. There’s also a date and time stamp on each communication. This ensures things get dealt with in a timely manner, because everyone can see it and nothing gets lost.”
And as his business grows in locations and lot inventory, Marshall sees Chatter as only becoming more important to his operations as complexity increases.
“We’re deploying two portals for inventory and parts,” he says. “That’s going to promote better communication between our parts and service departments. They can use Chatter to respond to a service team request for a particular part or customization bundle, confirm the order and relay the expected delivery date.
“Or they can tag the service team on updates if a critical part is backordered, causing a potential delay,” he continues. “It really enhances that communication and accountability."
Chatter is just one of many features within Anvil Pro that make your staff more efficient, informed, and productive. Find out how United Ag & Turf consolidated multiple systems with Anvil Pro, and how Anvil Pro's integrated sales enablement tools can improve your dealership’s operations, keeping customers engaged and coming back to your dealership.