Gosselies, 12 May 2009 – D’Ieteren, the leader in automobile import and distribution in Belgium, has chosen the Selligent solution to run the different phases of its sales cycle (marketing, pre-sales, sales and customer care). The Selligent solution currently being deployed throughout the entire D’Ieteren network (350 automobile dealers) will give a thousand users direct access to a database centralising over 2 million consumers, independent professionals, companies and fleet managers, together with the confidentiality required. Selligent also enables the sales force to optimise follow-up of its proposals as well as of the increasingly numerous requests made over the Internet or at open-door events and motor shows.
D’Ieteren in Belgium holds close to 21% of the market share; it distributes VW, Audi, Skoda, Seat, Bentley, Porsche, Lamborghini, Bugatti and Yamaha vehicles, has a fleet of 960,000 vehicles out of the 5,500,000 vehicles in circulation and nearly a million active customers.
This project for automating the sales cycle will equip D’Ieteren to meet 3 major challenges:
- management within a single application of the specific features and processes for 5 major makes (Volkswagen, Audi, Seat, Skoda and CVI);
- providing incentive for 350 automobile dealers and 1,000 users, and convincing them of the need to manage customer relationships efficiently;
- integration of new factors into its sales cycle such as the emergence of use of the Internet by consumers and professional buyers.
“After trying out a tailor-made CRM solution developed in-house, we have opted for a highly adaptable software program” says Jean-Louis Brancart, Director of Research & Marketing Logistics at D’Ieteren Belgium. “Selligent’s ability to integrate with other D’Ieteren applications and its adoption by our automobile dealers warrants our choice even further.”
André Lejeune, Selligent’s CEO, points out that “This contract with D’Ieteren Belgium is a fantastic demonstration of the agility and pragmatism of our solutions. These are two assets attracting a number of companies today that until now have used software developed in-house, similarly to D’Ieteren. After their initial CRM experience, these companies are turning to Selligent because they are looking for a user-friendly, functionally comprehensive, highly adaptable solution using state-of-the-art technology to guarantee seamless integration in their information system and ensure that it will be adopted readily by their users”.
Structured customer relationship management
D’Ieteren has opted for the agile Selligent solution in order to structure the different phases of its entire customer relationships and prospects cycle from promotional communication to monitoring of signs of dissatisfaction, along with lead generation, conversion of purchasing intentions into firm orders, fostering loyalty to dealers’ maintenance and repair shops, and monitoring of complaints.
For each of these stages in the customer relations cycle, Selligent proposes the appropriate communication channels (telephone, e-mail, SMS, etc.) for enhanced personalisation of contacts with each customer. Together, they contribute to better knowledge of the customer throughout all channels and enable customer loyalty strategies to be developed.
This structuring tool also facilitates monitoring and analyses. Each automobile make requires dealers and salesmen to provide detailed business reporting which used to be done on hard copy after which salesmen had to input the information into an Excel file every week for line managers. Today with the Selligent solution, this entire sales cycle is computerised.
A central database
D’Ieteren has also chosen the Selligent solution so that it can give its 350 automobile dealers direct, user-friendly and secure access to a central database updated regularly by the dealers themselves. The database contains the contact details of some 2 million prospects, owners and drivers of D’Ieteren Belgium vehicles.
Although the database is centralised, each automobile dealer has access solely to its own data through an application that protects the identity components that are the pride of each of the makes distributed by the Group. D’Ieteren thereby makes use of the IT synergies to the full while at the same time protecting the realm of each make and its specific features.
