FOCUS CBT News NADA Interview

CBT News on location in Las Vegas for the 2020 NADA Show.

Jim Fitzpatrick: Your booth is on fire over there, as it always is. Reynolds and Reynolds is such a household name in the auto industry. Talk to me about how the show’s going. 

Greg Uland: Man, it’s been awesome this year. It’s the best one that I can remember. But the folks at NADA always put on a great show and this year’s no different. But I’ll tell you, the one thing that I’ve noticed that has been a little different is the grouping of the booths. So you have CDK, and you have Cox, and you have the Reynolds and Reynolds booth kind of altogether. 

J: That’s interesting!

G: But it’s fantastic because it gives dealers a real opportunity to look at products and compare them. So it’s been great. We’ve been packed since the bell rang, you know, on Saturday morning and it hasn’t slowed down.

J: That’s so cool. So I’m sure that there’s a lot out there going on with new products. Talk to me about the launch that you’ve got here at the show.

G: Yeah, so yesterday we launched our new CRM, FOCUS, and based off of feedback from customers, it is, I mean it redefines what a CRM is and what a CRM does. You know, over time I’ve had a chance to try to prospect out of a CRM as a BDC person, try to work out of a CRM as a salesperson, and eventually try to manage out of a CRM as a sales manager, and even market out of a CRM as a marketer, and none of those things are easy.

J: I know, I know.

G: It’s so tough because you’re cutting through so much clutter to try to get any value whatsoever and once you find the information because you’re so reliant on manual entry from salespeople a lot of times its incomplete or inaccurate so  it just makes it really tough. And that’s what we’ve really tried to tackle and address with FOCUS is taking care of all of that and clearing it out. So, you know, taking everything and automating a lot of the processes has made a huge difference.

J: What do you say to the dealers who are watching who says does the automotive world really need another CRM?

G: Yeah it does. And the reason is really at the heart of your question, which is everything that’s out there is kind of the same. You know, 40 years ago CRM’s came around as electronic rolodexes and over time they’ve been built out and they’re pretty powerful tools that at this point can get people into the store and can follow up with them to try to get them back later. But pretty much everything out there is built on the same basic principle so a lot of the functionality is really the same.

J: How has Reynolds and Reynolds approached the CRM different?

G: Well, you know, when you look at what’s out there today everything’s really cumbersome to use. So we’ve really just tried to simplify everything and make it easy.

J: In fact, it’s so cumbersome some of the others in the space will report back that their CRM’s only used maybe 30% to its capacity. Right?

G: Yeah, and that’s a pain point for dealers obviously, so if you can automate a lot of that stuff, because the reason it’s not utilized is because it’s tough. We expect a lot out of every person in our dealership whether that’s somebody in the BDC or a salesperson or a marketer or even a service department right? We expect so much out of them that they end up really actively avoiding the CRM because it’s so much work for them with minimal benefit really.

J: We’ve spoken to other personnel at dealerships and they report the same thing. It’s just too much. So they avoid it altogether. What else has Reynolds and Reynolds done to make this not just another CRM?

G: Well one of the really cool pieces is prioritizing a lot of the work for salespeople. Right? So taking the ownership off of them and looking at what should be done. Not just chronologically, but what’s going to have the biggest impact on the store today right now. So a salesperson, should I kind of handle those six birthday emails that I need to or should I follow up with the person who responded to my email last night? I mean the short answer is both, but..

J: But one’s got a little more priority than the other.

G: Yeah there’s obviously a priority.

J: Yeah of course.

G: So with FOCUS, you’re able to take that ownership off the salesperson where they don’t have to prioritize their day the night before or every morning or try to figure out what they need to do, it tells them what to do.

J: What about sales managers? What’s in it for them on the CRM?

G: First of all, there’s actually information in there they can coach from. That’s the biggest thing.

J: Imagine that.

G: Yeah. And you can do a lot as a sales manager for your team when you can both reactively coach so help your team get better long term, but also proactively coach where you can make sure you’re not losing the deal in the first place. You know, you think about that sales manager role, when they’re not forced to the sidelines where they’re only getting to play when the salesperson says “come help” but instead they can monitor in real time what’s going on.

J: That’s nice!

G: Right… with every prospect, every step of the sales process, how long it’s taken. So you know somebody’s back from a test drive and its’ been forty minutes and you haven’t penciled a deal yet, you should probably go introduce yourself to that conversation.

J: Right.

G: So FOCUS enables that and alerts you to go do that without you having to have a clock on everybody in the store.

J: That’s nice, really nice. So also a sales manager can then work with ten salespeople in real time at any given just by managing that tool.

G: Absolutely.

J: That’s a beautiful thing. So you know you started showing it off at the booth yesterday… what’s the reaction been? What’s the reception been to the dealer community?

G: It’s been overwhelming positive.

J: Has it really?

G: It really has. So I’ve been to a lot of these and some years are better than others, but this year we’re standing on that corner, we’re showing this tool, and you can literally see the light bulbs going off for people.

J: I bet, I bet.

G: It’s so fun because, you know, they’re sitting there and they’re going “wow so that means I don’t have to do this? And that means I can do this?” And frankly it’s what we expected but you’re always a little anxious when you’re launching a new product, but for us, we’ve been testing it with dealers for a few months really fine tuning making sure we’re ready to roll.

J: And it all boils down to creating a better customer experience for the dealers’ customers right? I mean that’s what it’s all about is to have it much more seamless, much more streamlined than what it’s been thus far. And I spoke to one of the dealers that took a look and he’s with another CRM company right now he’s going to move over to yours. He took a demonstration from one of your associates over there and it blew him away. And he said what we’re looking to do is to streamline the process. And he saw it as really a better management tool more than anything else.

G: That’s great to hear. Yeah that’s a lot of the feedback we’ve been seeing. It’s been fun because, you know, we already have really a queue lined up of installs ready to roll and it’s great to be able to leave the show and go “okay let’s go.”

J: Sure. And how quickly, if a dealer wants to get on board, what’s the ramp up time to get them up and running?

G: Yeah we’ll get them rolling as quick as we can. Which will be… It’ll be fast. And one of the cool parts, as we’ve seen as we’ve been rolling this out and testing with dealers, is there’s not a ton of training that needs to be done. So CRMs usually, right, you have a ton of setup and you have a ton of training, but everything is so intuitive from a user interface perspective that you get a weekend with it and salespeople are like “please don’t take it away.”

J: That’s what you want right?

G: Exactly.

J: It’s, it’s, it’s like they’re addicted to it.

G: Yeah.

J: Yeah, that’s awesome. Greg Uland, marketing director for Reynolds and Reynolds. Go see this guy if you’re at the NADA Show right now. He’d love to talk to you. If you’re not able to make it out to this year’s show as some of you dealers were not able to make it, go onto Reynolds and Reynolds, check it out. Or maybe even give Greg a call.

G: Absolutely.

J: Right? They can contact you directly and you or one of your associates will help them through it, but, but you want a CRM that works. CRM companies have been telling me for the last eight years since we’ve been on CBT News, their clients don’t use them to the full capacity. Some as little as 30%. Reynolds and Reynolds is going to change that in the CRM community and I would take them up on the offer to take a look at it. Again, thanks so much, it’s always a pleasure having you on the show.

G: Thank you Jim.

J: This is great, so thanks. Thanks.