BlogVoyager RV Q-GPS Case Study
Q&A with Jason Friesen, Sales Manager at Voyager RV, one of the largest RV dealers in British Columbia, Canada
Voyager RV has been a Q-GPS customer since early 2012. They have gone from a manual system where each sales person was left on their own to a fully integrated ILM/CRM used by every sales person on every lead. This phone interview took place in March 2013.
Click here to listen to this interview
Q: Why did you need a lead management system?
A: Before Quantech GPS, we tracked sales opportunities the old fashioned way, which wasn’t very good. The problem was that individual sales people or managers doing their own follow up system based on stacks of paper led to errors and dropped leads. We needed to be able to respond to our customers with the service and attention they expect. That’s why we got in touch with Mike about GPS and had Quantech come and do a demo for us.
Q: What difference does a lead management system make for your dealership?
A: GPS gives us way more potential to follow up with customers who have inquired with us. In the RV business, we have a very long buying cycle. We’re talking it’s 12-18 months on average, from the first time someone thinks, “You know what, it might be nice to have an RV to go camping” to actually purchasing the RV. That’s a huge buying cycle and people approach us in all different stages of buying. Just because they don’t buy in the first week or two after contacting us doesn’t mean they won’t buy from us down the road. Our job is to give them the proper service and make sure we have the products they are looking for. GPS organizes everything so we keep in contact with those customers as they’re shopping and researching and reaching the stage of their lives where they can buy. GPS has helped us with that, for sure.
Q: As sales manager, what difference does GPS make for you?
A: GPS helps me manage things better. I can see on an individual customer basis what’s happening and make sure they are getting responded to when they’ve requested it, and things like that. Also some of the charts and reporting in GPS are really useful to see where we’re bringing our different customers in from. You know we can always measure the ones who bought from us, but what about the folks that are just inquiring with us or reaching us by phone or through the website? Where are they? I find it helps with some marketing decisions and that’s been a neat bonus.
Q: Has GPS impacted sales results?
A: GPS has made a difference. I’ve been here almost 10 years and it’s always really difficult to predict how sales will go. But GPS gives us a better feel of what’s happening based on the fact we are able to stay in touch with our customers, track their interest level, and answer questions when they need it.
Q: Any problems switching to an automated lead tracking process?
A: We didn’t really have growing pains when we switched to GPS because it is pretty user friendly. We have a wide variety within our Sales team, from people who are very efficient and good at using computers and technology and we have some guys that struggle a bit more to grasp those concepts. Once our staff bought in and realized that what they put in is what they’re going to get out, then it really started to take off. We’re trying to refine and continue to do it better, use it to its fullest capacity, but it’s definitely something that doesn’t have a ton of growing pains. The system is more efficient than a stack of paper and our guys see the difference it makes to help them track customers.
Q: Tell us about integration with other systems.
A: GPS integrates with DealerVu, our internal dealership management software. GPS can hand off any deals to our Business Manager through DealerVu. That’s been an added bonus for sure because the two systems communicate and so we don’t have to do things twice. Once the customer information is in GPS, we are good to go.
Q: Does it matter to you that GPS is web-based?
A: Because GPS is web-based we can always use it, even when away from the office. I encourage the guys to take days off and do some work from home. If the customer contacts somebody on their cell phone or on their day off, they can look into it. I also get all my management reports online, so if I need to see what’s happening when I’m on a day off, or if I’m away on business, it’s really simple. You just log in the same way you do as when you’re at your office desktop.
Q: Future plans for GPS?
A: We’re looking at ways we can integrate our service department into the process and that’s something that we’ll probably be doing in the future. Our first goal has been to get the sales and management side of things really using this efficiently so it becomes second nature. Eventually we can start involving different areas of the dealership.
Q: What is Quantech like to work with?
A: Quantech has been great for us. In the year we’ve been using GPS, they made a number of changes and improvements to the system, including responding to suggestions that we came up with. They’re not just resting on their laurels but are constantly trying to move forward and make GPS even better for the needs of our business.