A Decade with VinSolutions.
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
VinSolutions is our CRM - Customer Relations Manager. It is used in our sales department (the service uses a different platform). Vin is our go-to for interacting with customers, making notes, working leads, etc. All leads from all sources enter into VinSolutions and notify the proper employee/s to start communicating. We use it to email customers about everything and anything, we make notes and tasks for employees so as not to forget things. Essentially, VinSolutions is super important for the sales department. In Marketing, I also use VinSolutions to pull customer lists to be able to market to them in email campaigns.
Pros
- Receiving leads from all website and third-party sources, and notifying employees when leads come in.
- Looking up reports. There are premade reports, and you can create your own reports to pull, or even to pull automatically at certain times.
- Settings roles and authorizations for employees, so they do not have too much access to alter the way they want to use it, but it's set upper manager's request.
Cons
- Because VinSolutions is able to pull customers lists, they also made a campaigns manager that allows you to create marketing emails and send them out. However, after the initial launch they never updated it, it seems. It would be the best thing...if it was 2005.
- This customer lists that I like to export to upload into my own email software, I can't get the actual list myself - I have to contact my Vin rep for them to give me. These lists are not the same, nor have the same filters, as the report lists that Vin does provide dealers. So, I prefer the other.
Likelihood to Recommend
It is well suited to customer communication - emails/calls/texts. It helps with all those. You are able to get personal by adding notes to remember in the future, or tasks to complete down the road. It keeps history, so no salesperson can argue who did want and who gets the credit. Essentially, it is the final word - if the employee doesn't record it in Vin - then it didn't happen and anyone can help a customer. Seems to be less appropriate for actual marketing-related activities (as mentioned with their campaign manager).
