HOUSTON -

Dealers have customers who are in-market for a new vehicle every month, says CAR-Research XRM, and it has launched a new product to help find them for dealers.

On Monday, the company announced the release of its trademarked CAR-DealFinder tool on Monday, an Internet shopping monitoring program for auto dealers.

The new tool is designed to integrate with any CRM and monitors dealers’ customer database for in-market buyers among sold, service/parts/body shop and unsold prospects.

“Industry statistics show that up to 2 percent of a dealer’s database is in-market shopping every month and that repeat buyers close at a rate as high as 60 percent,” said the company’s president and chief operating officer, Patrick Kelly.

“The fact is that dealers do have customers who are in-market for a new vehicle this month and every month — but they don’t contact the dealership. CAR-DealFinder can find them for the dealership,” Kelly said.

The new CAR-DealFinder uses Internet shopping behavior technology to find dealership prospects who are currently shopping on automotive websites, the company said, then notifies the dealership of any activity through its Internet Lead Management Tool to put potential buyers in front of the dealer. 

According to Kelly, CAR-DealFinder effectively protects the dealership from losing its owner base to the competition.

“Traditional marketing is putting the dealership in front of potential customers. CAR-DealFinder puts in-market shoppers in front of the dealer,” said Kelly.

The tool can enable a dealership to know when owner-base customers, unsold floor customers, and aged unsold Internet leads are in-market and shopping online, along with the sites they are shopping and vehicle preferences, the company said.

It also can help improve closing ratios by knowing the competition and which other makes customers are considering, and can deliver relevant marketing messagesto customers that are derived from actual shopping behavior. 

“According to a recent study from J.D. Power and Associates, 78 percent of in-market shoppers never submit a lead to a dealer,” Kelly noted. “They are lurkers that view info on the Internet, look at numerous websites, do their price and product comparisons, decide what they want, then go into a dealership and buy it.”

He went on to discuss how DealFinder aims to help the dealer reach these prospects  before they go to a competitor.

“It is similar to pulling a lease customer forward, when the dealer gets that deal before the customer contacts other dealers and starts shopping,” he said.