VoIP & CRM Blog TMC

ARKONA Developing Web-Based CRM for Auto Dealers

January 27, 2005

Today we received news that ARKONA, a provider of Web-based dealer management solutions for automobile and powersports dealerships, is developing a CRM solution especially designed for this market segment:

ARKONA Announces Automotive CRM Solution; Dealership Selling and Customer Information Processes Streamlined

They seem to have a good approach. In general, I like the idea of Web-based applications -- and an application that is designed with a particular niche market in mind in a lot of ways has more promise than one bought off-the-shelf (one size fits nobody).

I do worry a little when I go to the Web site of a software provider and have a hard time finding screen shots. To sell a system, I think you need to give the customer plenty of opportunity to see what the product looks like and what kind of a user experience to expect. I did find a PDF brochure on their site that had this screen shot from ARKONA's dealer management application, which might give an idea what the CRM solution will look like:

arkona.jpg

Also, their press release does a better job than many in explaining what the new CRM application will be like. See this excerpt:

ARKONA's New CRM Includes

-- Customer Contact -- Data acquisition, customer/prospect contact history, and customer value

-- Daily Work Plan -- Customer and prospect follow-up activities refreshed daily, appointment scheduling, customer and prospect lists, DNC compliance, survey management

-- Showroom Management -- Sales process management for leads, appointments, demos, appraisals, offers, and deals with form generation for process control

-- Showroom Analysis -- Real-time analysis of showroom sales process statistics

-- Active Prospect Analysis -- Prospect status for key sales process indicators

-- Prospect Performance Analysis -- Advertising analysis and prospect source, performance, and disposition analysis ratios for salesperson and sales teams

-- Database Marketing -- Renewal management, flexible customer follow-up scheduling, database cleansing, and follow-up phone, e-mail, and letter generation

AB -- 1/27/05




Related Tags: , , , , ,

Listed below are links to sites that reference ARKONA Developing Web-Based CRM for Auto Dealers:

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for ARKONA Developing Web-Based CRM for Auto Dealers:
http://blog.tmcnet.com/mt3/t.fcgi/1211

Comments to ARKONA Developing Web-Based CRM for Auto Dealers

  1. RE: ARKONA Developing Web-Based CRM for Auto Dealers
    Jeff Kershner :

    Have any dealers had the opportunity to work with this CRM. Auto dealers really need a good crm that works well with walk in customers, phone calls AND Internet leads. Too many CRM's have not been able to effectively incorporate all 3 methods of customer contacts. There also needs to be a robust inventory management and admin that would allow the sales people to email and print off brochures for specific vehicles. I could go on for hours about this subject.

  1. RE: ARKONA Developing Web-Based CRM for Auto Dealers
    Daryl Bannister :

    Please let me know the latest status of your product. We are a Cisco certified reseller and we sell Cisco VoIP. We are interested in marketing to auto dealers and your product is of interest.

    Thank you!