Data Consolidation and Why It Matters to Auto Dealerships

In simple words, data consolidation is about bringing all your car dealership’s data sources together so that you maximize productivity, create impactful marketing campaigns, unlock your dealership’s true potential for high returns on investment (ROI), and stop losing money.

Research has revealed that the price of disconnected data is high, reaching over $140 billion, which shows just how important data consolidation really is. 

In this article, we’ll explain this concept in better detail and point out how it can be used to improve your bottom line.

1. Consolidating Data Across Website Tools

Using tools on your car dealer website that brings data together is important to ensure that your prospective customers are getting the right attention. 

For instance, if a website lead converts on a special offer or promotion, this data must be used to present a relevant follow-up interaction. In this case, it would be an opportunity to test the vehicle they were interested in or an offer to value their existing car for a trade-in. 

Additionally, if customers interact a second time, it should already have all their information so the customer doesn’t have to repeat it. Data consolidation ensures this, making the purchasing process hassle free.

2. Consolidating Car Dealer Data Across Digital Platforms

Consolidating data across marketing platforms enables car dealers to continue engaging customers regardless of where they are, and you can keep both your website and email ads highly personalized and relevant. 

Invest in tools and platforms that can connect the data across all of these touch-points, and make it easily accessible. This will help you provide your customers with a better overall experience.

3. Consolidating Data Among Your Staff

Make it clear to the entire team that everyone is working towards the same goals, instead of competing for individual credit. This information sharing culture will avoid the creation of isolated data silos.

Proper access to all relevant data channels, and a communication system that keeps your team connected can then be put in place in order to run a well organized data sharing process that keeps all of your staff on the same page. 

Consolidated data can go a long way in improving customer relations and support.

4. Unconsolidated Data Problem 1

Data that hasn’t been consolidated can also result in duplicating efforts across the different departments at your auto dealership, which will definitely lead to missed sales opportunities.

The most dangerous situation would be if a customer connects with your dealership call center and gets a specific price quote on a car that they’re interested in, and then getting a different price quote from a sales agent when they visit your showroom floor. 

In addition to wasting their time, unconsolidated data can even cause the potential customer to lose trust in your car dealership and possibly walk away as a result.

5. Unconsolidated Data Problem 2

When your data is not consolidated, there are several areas of a car dealership’s operations that can get badly affected. For instance, your dealership could face difficulties in meeting customer requirements due to the inability to provide the right engagements at the appropriate time. 

Your customers could get the wrong re-targeting ad after an in-store visit or a mistaken email follow up if your email marketing tool doesn’t have access to the dealership’s CRM system.

6. Unconsolidated Data Problem 3

Having a wrong idea of your car dealership’s ROI is a very dicey problem, and you run that risk if your dealership data isn’t consolidated. 

Even if you have your prospective customers’ lead data, it sometimes doesn’t connect accurately with details such as the vehicle they eventually buy, their service histories, their interactions with your ad campaigns and so on.

This means that you are unable to track your ad expenses and know whether it is actually bringing in sales and repeat business. If you can’t measure the performance of your marketing budget, you will also most likely have a false picture of your car dealership’s ROI. 

All of these points indicate the importance of data consolidation for any auto dealer, so we recommended very strongly to have it implemented at your dealership in order to stay ahead of the competition.

7. Unconsolidated Data Problem 4

When data consolidation isn’t in place at your vehicle dealership, it can also result in a large amount of lost time. For example, if it usually takes long to access a report, can you imagine how much cumulative time you’re losing in the grind?

The more time you waste in doing tasks like accessing data, the less time you have available to actually analyze that data and put it to use in making money for you.

For more information on data consolidation and to know how izmo can support your auto dealership, Contact Us.