Lead Manager System To Help Auto Dealers Manage Internet Leads and Measure Online Success
7 February 2000
The Cobalt Group Launches Lead Manager To Help Auto Dealers Manage Internet Leads and Measure Online Success
SEATTLE Jan. 7, 2000--Leads to Sales
The Cobalt Group , a leading provider of Internet solutions and business-to-business services to the automotive industry, today announced the formal rollout of Lead Manager, an Internet-based customer relationship management application.
The tool integrates Internet leads from multiple sources and enables automobile dealers to manage prospective customers and follow-up activities through a browser-based software application.
"Lead Manager represents the pivot point of Cobalt's customer relationship management program going forward," said John Holt, president and CEO of The Cobalt Group. "Our goal is to ensure that dealers have the tools to effectively and efficiently communicate with online shoppers, and this tool will help increase lead-to-sale conversion and build long-term customer relationships."
"Internet leads are an important and growing part of my sales operations, so Cobalt's Lead Manager is an essential business tool," said Kelvin Mackey of Darrell Waltrip Honda Volvo in Franklin, Tenn. "Lead Manager helps dealers respond quickly to customer inquiries, a critical factor in successfully converting Internet leads into paying customers."
Lead Manager is the first major product developed by Cobalt's newly formed dealer technology center. Lead Manager utilizes state-of-the-art Java technology to create a powerful, easy-to-use tool that allows auto dealers to manage sales inquiries and measure success.
Lead Manager's features include:
| -- | Automatic lead routing to individual salespeople or department heads, which shortens response time and increases customer satisfaction and closure rates. |
| -- | Wireless messaging to alert sales staff of the arrival of electronic leads. Paging devices or cellular phones that support e-mail wireless messaging are easily configured to receive these alerts. |
| -- | A variety of pre-written e-mail responses. Dealers can create custom automated responses for their dealership, enabling dealership staff to handle leads more efficiently. |
| -- | An archive database for storing and organizing complete contact information on current and potential customers. |
| -- | Extensive reporting options that show the number of leads by source, sales rankings and more. |
Unlike hardware-based systems, Cobalt's Web-based Lead Manager tool allows Internet sales professionals to login to the system from multiple locations and respond to leads on a seven by 24- hour basis.
"With Lead Manager we have developed key infrastructure to support and manage transactions from dealer Web sites, assist dealers with initiating and managing lifetime customers and allow sales managers to leverage their staff over a greater number of customers," said David Potts, Cobalt's vice president of business development and product management. "By integrating Lead Manager's messaging capabilities with our other product families, we can offer dealers compelling Internet marketing and e-commerce capabilities."
"One of the key features of our lead management product is the ability to generate reports that allow dealers to measure the success of their online initiatives," said Erik Krause, product manager at The Cobalt Group. "Lead Manager helps dealers determine which referral sources are working and which ones are not."
Based on feedback from participating dealers during Lead Manager beta testing, Cobalt will enhance the wireless messaging capability in its next release of the product due out in April 2000. Additional information specific to the lead will be sent with the alert, giving sales personnel contact information as well as the basic elements of the lead. This messaging capability is intended to enable dealerships to respond as rapidly as possible to online shoppers, and integrate them into the sales process supported in Lead Manager.