Oh, here's one for your sales teams. Print up all your actual data security measures in place and hand it to all your salesmen. I called about 7 CRM's back in april and NONE of them could answer what type of security they were using to protect my data without asking the IT department. Fortunately most came back with good answers, but it was very off-putting to hear that "No one else asks that question so I don't know the answer off the top of my head"
edit: Ahh, I'm feeling talkative today.. here's some more stuff that you may or may not do that I think is important for a CRM
pre-fab ticketing system for software problems
web chat that links to the ticketing system
training available in 3 forms: onsite, pre-made videos, online classrooms
Easy to use opt-out system for emails ; ability to create different sections to opt out (service vs. sales vs. body shop for example instead of just one big lump)
search customers by VIN with wildcards for recalls
ability to attach photos to customers. this can be used to take a picture after the sale, as well as take pictures as cars come into service with dings and dents
save drivers license photos securely in the software somewhere, ability to delete these after a set amount of time with no activity ; ability to read drivers licenses to pre-fill customer info
ability for salesmen to email through the system using their work email address, not a @CRMcompany.com email like the incoming leads.
used car wish lists; attach salesmen names and notes next to what they are wishing for and then the buyer can maybe find some good stuff on auction
ROI reports on leads coming in
reverse phone number look up
AD integration (like I said before)
Ability to attach people to other customers in a family or group setup. This is for many many reasons. First of which being simply allowing one salesmen automatic assignment to a family member. Second being mass emails can be worked around sending to the same family members multiple times. etc. I'm sure there's other stuff people could think up if the functionality exists.
Attach service records and previous financials to a customer record. I envision this as a mini-report showing a customer or family's worth to the dealership. If that family has bought 7 cars here in 10 years and always services here with premium service.. they'll get that extra 500 for their trade no problem
Pre-made templates for eeevveryyythinggg. And sort/categorize them a few different ways so each person can sift through the list in their own way.
Ability to put new templates in a folder by default and limit access to root folders. This way a folder could be made for each team or even each person and they don't have access to create forms that everyone would have to sift through.
Ability to customize reports. every single field should be customizable but it has to be easy to use.
and last but not least:
Everything has to be incredibly easy to use and yet have powerful behind the scenes administration. The last few items on my list emphasize that most easily, but it applies to all other parts of the software too. If a salesman has to sift through 5 different popups/windows to enter a customer then it's not designed correctly. Add a customer and add a vehicle can and should be done on one screen only. Just click through your software and find anything that either opens a whole new window or refreshes the entire screen and fix that.
(and get rid of memory leaks, because that advice will cause a few, especially if you use javascript LOL)
