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Impel Partners with Xtime to Create the Industry’s First End-to-End Conversational AI Scheduling Solution. | Details

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Impel Partners with Xtime to Create the Industry’s First End-to-End Conversational AI Scheduling Solution. | Details

Impel Blog

The Top 10 AI-Compatible Automotive CRMs for Dealerships

Automotive CRM software helps car dealers manage leads at scale and move their customers through the sales pipeline. Here are our top 10 AI-compatible picks.

Online leads are the starting point for nearly every customer’s car-buying journey, and Customer Relationship Management systems (CRMs) are vital for dealerships to manage and nurture these leads effectively. 

Choosing the right CRM for your dealership can be overwhelming, especially with the growing emphasis on AI compatibility. As dealers search for the best CRM solutions, the question of AI integration is becoming increasingly important. This article highlights why AI capabilities should be a top priority for every dealer’s CRM checklist, and which automotive CRMs are AI-compatible.

What is automotive CRM software?

Automotive CRM software is a technology solution designed specifically for the automotive retail sector. It aids sales, marketing, and service teams in recording, reporting, and analyzing customer interactions at scale. The software is crafted to move customers through the car buying process and retain them post-sale in the service bay.

At its core, automotive CRM software is a centralized database, typically cloud-hosted and accessible via a web browser. It serves as a central repository for lead and customer records, enabling dealers to communicate with consumers from one platform. Many automotive CRMs also seamlessly integrate with dealer management systems (DMS) and inventory management systems.

Why do dealerships need CRM software?

Dealerships of all sizes benefit from CRM software.  Not only do they organize customer interactions, they are crucial business planning tools. Automotive CRMs generate sales reports that indicate whether a dealership is on track to meet its financial goals, how each sales rep is performing, and some even offer desking capabilities.  

Whether you’re running one or many rooftops, automotive CRM software is vital for running a healthy, competitive and digital-first business. Choosing a solution that’s both tailored to your unique dealership’s needs and able to integrate with Automotive AI solutions will set your staff up to operate more efficiently, attract and convert more customers, and increase customer lifetime value.

Limitations of Mainstream CRMs

Mainstream CRMs like Salesforce, SAP, and Oracle are popular in large enterprises and offer tailored solutions for dealerships. However, they can be expensive and time-consuming to implement, often including features irrelevant to dealerships. These solutions aren’t specifically designed to manage the automotive customer journey or industry-specific processes and outcomes. Additionally, they lack the extensive integrations needed with dealer systems, workflows, or processes that automotive CRMs offer.

Therefore, dealerships should explore specialized CRMs tailored to the specific needs of the automotive retail sector.

Why more dealers are choosing AI-compatible automotive CRMs
Consumers are eight times more likely to buy from a dealership that responds fastest, leaving dealerships with no excuse to delay lead response. But it’s nearly impossible to do with humans alone, so dealerships are turning to Automotive AI to meet consumers’ expectations for immediate and effective interaction.  And unlike busy sales reps who are pulled in different directions across the dealership, AI never forgets to update the CRM with the latest customer status. 

Using a CRM that integrates with Automotive AI is proving to be crucial, given consumers’ clear preference for dealerships that respond the fastest. 

Impel Chief Product Officer Matt Muilenburg explains how AI powers next-generation dealership data strategies.

Pairing a CRM with Automotive AI also ensures consistent customer engagement at every touchpoint along the customer journey—from vehicle search to service appointment scheduling or vehicle trade-ins. Here are just some of the ways AI complements CRM functionality:

  • Lead Engagement: Automotive AI provides immediate, humanlike conversations with inbound leads 24/7, surpassing traditional autoresponders or template-driven responses.
  • Appointment Setting: While CRMs track appointments manually entered by sales reps, Automotive AI can convert leads into appointments during conversations, schedule them, and update the CRM automatically.
  • Lead Follow-up: CRMs remind sales reps to follow up with leads, offering templates to assist. However, showroom customers often take precedence over follow-ups, leaving the task unmet. Automotive AI platforms handle follow-ups independently on the customer’s preferred communication platform.

Car shoppers crave the personalization and immediacy that humans cannot provide without help from AI. That’s why so many dealerships are building AI compatibility into their CRM requirements. Here’s an alphabetized list of the leading AI-compatible automotive CRMs for dealerships and auto repair shops:

  1. CDK Modern Retail CRM: The CDK Modern Retail Suite by CDK Global includes three main components: The Roadster platform is a digital sales platform with remote-selling and showroom tools to support a unified customer experience between remote-selling and showroom interactions. Elead is the CRM and desking component, providing a full-fledged virtual BDC that uses data-driven insights to maximize customer engagement and sales team efficiency. Finally, the Doc Cloud provides a secure cloud storage solution for easy archival and retrieval of purchase-related documents.

    Best for: Dealerships of all sizes looking for an automotive CRM platform incorporating desking, digital retailing and secure online storage and desking tools.

  2. DealerPeak: DealerPeak streamlines lead collection and management and helps sales teams close deals. Its easy-to-use interface provides full visibility into customer histories and contact information, inventory status, and daily store activity. Its cloud-based enterprise-level capabilities span the entire automotive customer journey, establishing a cohesive sales and service solution across every business function. To that end, it offers a role-based architecture tailored to the unique needs of BDC teams, sales directors, customer service representatives, and more. 

    Best for: Multi-location dealerships looking for a comprehensive automotive CRM platform with extensive support and training options.

  3. DealerSocket: DealerSocket from Solera Vehicle Solutions is a one-stop shop for dealer sales and marketing. By consolidating customer information in one system, it helps teams build and manage faster and more efficient sales processes. The software enables teams to manage and view performance at the store level, making it an ideal choice for large franchise dealerships. DealerSocket offers several platforms for digital retailing and integrates with most mainstream automotive sales and marketing tools. 

    Best for: High-volume dealerships, especially large franchises and chains spanning hundreds of locations.

  4. Eskimo: Eskimo is a lead-management system that helps automotive dealers generate and track leads, manage their showrooms, and accelerate the sales journey. It integrates with many popular online vehicle advertising and retailing solutions to help consolidate customer journeys across multiple touchpoints. Thanks to easy data tracking, it provides transparency and accountability for sales and marketing teams, emphasizing team focus on lead management. 

    Best for: Small and midmarket dealerships looking for a user-friendly lead management tool with the ability to create appraisals and sales order forms.

  5. FOCUS: FOCUS by Reynolds and Reynolds is an automotive CRM software solution that prioritizes customers who are most likely to buy. It supports a seamless workflow between mobile and desktop devices, making it suitable for sales personnel who are regularly on the move. The CRM also includes features that enhance sales efforts.

    Best for: Dealerships of all sizes, particularly those with smaller sales teams that must ensure they’re dedicating their time to the most promising leads.

  6. iTrackLEADS: iTrackLEADS by London-based MAD DEVS Ltd is a digital lead aggregator built specifically for the automotive sector. It automates the collection and delivery of leads to your sales team and includes pre-configured mail templates to facilitate quick responses to customer requests. It tracks lead status in real-time, and it includes a reporting interface that simplifies monitoring and evaluating every activity throughout the sales process. There’s also a mobile app that allows individual sales staff to claim the leads they want to respond to within a predetermined period. 

    Best for: Smaller dealerships looking for an easy-to-use, mobile-ready lead monitoring solution that includes professionally designed email templates.

  7. Momentum: Momentum is an end-to-end automotive CRM suite that helps dealerships manage the entire customer journey. The core product is Momentum CRM, a lead-management solution offering out-of-the-box integrations with popular DMSs and other tools. Extensions include modules for managing the service drive, F&I operations, and securing email communications. There’s also a mobile app that allows personnel to search customers and inventory, add prospects, and complete other daily tasks while on the move. 

    Best for: Dealerships, including sales teams and service departments, of any size looking for an easy-to-use, mobile-friendly solution.

  8. ProMax: ProMax is an all-in-one automotive CRM suite that helps teams manage every aspect of their sales and marketing operations, from tracking and following up with leads to managing deals and post-purchase interactions. Sales and marketing teams can sort prospects using the filters provided and run reports to track productivity, compliance, profits, and inventory status. It also includes a desking solution for front-end sales personnel to match vehicles with lenders to maximize the profit opportunity of every purchase. 

    Best for: Large dealerships and franchises interested in maximizing their ROI and streamlining both online and showroom operations.

  9. Tekion: Tekion is an intelligent, cloud-native CRM and a component of the vendor’s Automotive Retail Cloud; a comprehensive platform for connecting all dealership business operations. The CRM itself aims to break down data siloes and eliminate the need for multiple sign-ins. The built-in machine learning models ensure data stays synchronized and relevant, learning from past customer interactions to continually enhance efficiency. Tekion also tracks the lifetime value of each customer’s household, providing valuable insights into customer trends. 

    Best for: Larger dealerships and franchises looking for an all-in-one DMS and CRM solution with machine learning capabilities.

  10. VinSolutions: VinSolutions by Cox Automotive aims to turn every contact into a business opportunity. The vendor provides a full range of integrated automotive software solutions, including desking, inventory management, marketing automation tools, and more. It offers a highly customizable reporting interface and filters for sales teams to search for leads based on the vehicle makes and models they’re interested in. Other features include data mining, trackable analytics, and sales and marketing campaign creation tools.

    Best for: Dealerships of all sizes looking for an integrated sales and marketing suite that’s highly customizable and spans interdepartmental operations.

Choose an AI-compatible CRM for a better customer experience. Proper integration between the two technologies ensures prospective customers can interact with your dealership when and where they want to, receive instant answers to questions and inquiries 24/7, and that sales and service reps have a record of everything the customer discusses with the AI assistant in the CRM before calling or meeting them in person. This connectivity allows customers to seamlessly navigate across digital channels, the showroom, and the service drive.

Automotive AI enables dealers to elevate the customer experience and provide continuous personalization at a scale and speed that wasn’t previously attainable. While choosing the right CRM ultimately depends on your dealership’s goals, size, and support requirements, prioritizing an AI-compatible CRM should be a critical deciding factor for your business.

Impel provides a full range of AI-powered merchandising, communication, and imaging tools for dealers of all sizes. We also integrate with all the CRMs we’ve covered here to ensure hassle-free performance and a rapid time to market. Book a demo today to see how Impel can help prepare your business for the new era.