Best Automotive CRM Software | Top 10 Reviewed for 2023

The best automotive CRM software helps you streamline your workflows, automate your sales process, customize your offers and marketing campaigns according to prospects’ specific needs, and close deals faster. However, the market is jam-packed with options, which makes narrowing in on one best suited to your business a challenging task.

In this guide, we’ve put together a list of the best automotive CRM software tools and reviewed and compared them, looking at their features, customization capabilities, level of automation, integrations, and prices. Read on to learn how leading CRM solutions like Salesforce, Pipedrive, and Zoho CRM can help you turn leads and prospects into paying customers.

Best Automotive CRM Software | Top 10 Shortlist

There are dozens of automotive CRM providers on the market, all offering different functionalities at varying price levels. Our top pick for the best automotive CRM software is the almighty Salesforce, followed closely by Pipedrive and Zoho CRM. Here’s a full breakdown of the top 10:

1. Salesforce — Overall the Best CRM Software for the Automotive Industry in 2023 | Test it Free for a Full Month Now
2. Pipedrive — Intuitive, Easy-to-Use CRM Software for Automotive Businesses With Email Automation | Try the 14-Day Trial Today
3. Zoho CRM — Popular Automotive CRM Solution With Native Google Ads Integration | Try it Free for 15 Days
4. Monday Sales CRM — Fully Customizable CRM With Advanced Automation and Data Visualization
5. Zendesk Sell — Sales CRM Designed to Facilitate Team Collaboration and Streamline Customer Communications
6. HubSpot — Powerful Sales CRM With Built-In Call Recording | Create Your Free Account to Test HubSpot in Practice Today
7. Freshsales — Award-Winning CRM Solution With AI-Powered Chatbots and Advanced Sales Automation
8. Maximizer CRM — Fully Customizable, Cloud-Based CRM With APIs for Seamless Integrations With Your Software Stack
9. Less Annoying CRM — Simple, Easy-to-Use CRM that Removes the Complexity from Customer Relationship Management
10. Oracle NetSuite — Popular Automotive CRM With Advanced Sales Process Automation

Best CRM Software for Automotive Businesses | Top 10 Reviewed

Every CRM solution offers different functionality at varying price levels. To help you make an informed decision and choose the best one for your car dealership, we’ve put together in-depth reviews of the 10 most popular solutions, so you can see how they compare.

1. Salesforce — Overall, the Best CRM Software for the Automotive Industry in 2023

Salesforce is a cloud-based CRM solution for the automotive industry that lets you streamline service delivery, personalize customer engagement, facilitate communication with OEMs (original equipment manufacturers), and turn customer insights into closed deals.

Salesforce lets you automate your processes and simplify integrations, helping you build a branded dealer and customer experience more efficiently, all without coding or complex configuration.

Everything’s done with drag-and-drop ease, so you can build a customized flow for your automotive business. Besides this, the software provides a wealth of data on your leads, customers, vehicles, and fleets.

This lets you:

• • Make strategic, data-backed decisions in real-time
  • Helps you engage customers more efficiently at every touchpoint
  • Craft customized messages and fast-track their customer journey
  • Set up alerts for your team so they can take advantage of opportunities and close deals faster

As a retailer, you can leverage Salesforce’s powerful AI to streamline the customer’s buying experience by crafting fully customizable offers and finance plans, build brand loyalty by engaging them at the right time, and get accurate insights into the performance of your marketing campaigns.

If you’re a supplier, Salesforce’s accurate sales forecasting can help you:

• • Speed up RFP (Request for Proposal) responses
  • Improve team collaboration
  • Meet production commitments

You can also use the app to grow aftermarket parts revenue with efficient digital commerce — through product education, co-marketing, and demand forecasting.

2. Pipedrive — Intuitive, Easy-to-Use CRM Software for Automotive Industry With Email Automation

Pipedrive’s automotive CRM system helps you improve the customer experience, approach and nurture leads at every touch point, shorten the sales cycle, and optimize your sales efforts.

With Pipedrive, you can build a centralized database of potential and existing customers. You’ll have all their contact info in one place and can generate valuable insights into their behavior, interaction with your marketing campaigns, and potential buying objections.

This lets you be proactive and approach your leads and customers at the right time, as well as customize your offers according to their needs. Additionally, Pipedrive lets you automate time-consuming tasks like email follow-ups and reminders.

With this, you eliminate the need for manual data entry, which allows your agents to focus on closing deals rather than spending valuable time on dull administrative tasks.

Pipedrive also unifies customer communication, allowing you to manage live chat, inbound calls, and email inquiries from a single dashboard. This makes it much easier to engage your prospects via the channels they prefer, so you can communicate more effectively and turn opportunities into closed deals.

Another incredibly useful functionality of Pipedrive is customer referrals. It allows you to:

• • Collect valuable feedback from your customers
  • Gain actionable insights to improve your offers and customer experience
  • Display customer testimonials on your landing pages to build trust with your target audience

Pipedrive also seamlessly integrates with the project management, chat, and marketing tools you’re already using, such as Slack, Kixie, Domo, Textline, Triggerbee, and Autopilot Journeys.

On the whole, it greatly facilitates team communication and collaboration and ensures you have easy access to all the data you need to maximize productivity.

3. Zoho CRM — Popular Automotive CRM Solution With Native Google Ads Integration

Zoho offers a feature-rich automotive dealer CRM software that helps accelerate your sales, improves customer relationships, and streamlines communication.

In the ever-changing automotive industry, Zoho CRM helps you stay ahead of your competitors by delivering a fully customized end-to-end customer experience — from the moment they take a car for a test drive to the final purchase decision.

What makes Zoho stand out from other automotive CRM providers is that it comes with built-in inventory management features that let you manage vehicle and item stock with ease, track every order, and generate invoices directly from the CRM.

Zoho CRM also facilitates servicing and repair by letting you assign tasks from the dashboard, track jobs, and schedule service appointments with a single click.

You can also take advantage of Zoho’s in-depth reports to identify market trends, monitor customer behavior, and leverage valuable insights to make strategic marketing decisions that will improve your bottom line.

Another unique functionality of Zoho CRM is the ability to create and offer a self-service portal for your vendors and customers, which helps ensure they always know:

• • What service stage they’re in
  • Any outstanding invoices they have
  • Real-time updates on service orders

Zoho natively integrates with Google Ads, meaning you can track your campaigns directly in the CRM, quickly identify which keywords are bringing you the most qualified leads, and tweak your advertising budget and marketing approach to maximize your ROI.

4. Monday Sales CRM — Fully Customizable CRM With Advanced Automation and Data Visualization

Monday sales CRM is a fully customizable CRM for the automotive industry that allows you to automate repetitive tasks, effectively nurture your leads, and simplify decision-making with real-time, actionable insights.

Monday CRM is an ideal auto dealership CRM software, given that you can develop optimized workflows, track all your marketing efforts, manage meetings, and handle customer communication from a single dashboard.

The UI is modern and intuitive, and it relies on drag-and-drop functionality and visual boards, so it’s easy to use even if you have no previous experience with CRM software.

The app allows you to visualize all your work and organize lead and customer data however you want, as well as choose from multiple views, including Gantt, Kanban, Calendar, Timeline, Chart, and Map views.

The best part about Monday CRM is that you can further streamline team collaboration by uploading documents related to specific tasks, as well as converting meeting notes, summaries, and comments into tasks with a single click.

You can tag coworkers, co-edit in real-time, share documents, create charts and tables, and format any note you like. Monday even lets you:

• • See task dependencies
  • Set up due-date alerts and email reminders
  • Get real-time status updates
  • Track the time spent on each task

Another reason to opt for Monday is that it integrates with the tools you already use, such as Zoom, Slack, and Google Calendar. This ensures you have all the information in one place, eliminates miscommunication issues, and boosts your team’s overall productivity.

5. Zendesk Sell — Sales CRM Designed to Facilitate Team Collaboration and Streamline Communication With Prospects and Customers

Zendesk Sell is a sales CRM that helps you improve team collaboration, maximize team productivity, and deliver better customer experiences that result in more closed deals.

Zendesk offers a variety of sales engagement tools, letting you build targeted prospect lists and providing your sales reps with all the data they need to effectively convert leads into customers.

You can create customized email lists based on user behavior and their position in your marketing funnel, import your existing email list, and leverage email alerts and automatic tracking to facilitate lead nurturing and streamline your sales process.

Your agents will have all prospect communication readily available within Zendesk’s dashboard, so they can review previous messages and respond to customers regardless of what platform they used to get in touch with your business.

This includes everything from your inbox to all your social media profiles. Additionally, the app automatically logs and records all calls and stores every text message, so you’ll have all the data you need to close the deal at your fingertips.

Another useful feature your sales team will greatly benefit from is a power dialer that automatically cycles through customers and prospects. This eliminates the need for manually punching in numbers and saves your agents precious time, letting them reach more prospects daily.

Zendesk Sell also offers APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) that make it easy to integrate with your existing software stack, so you won’t have to tab back and forth between half a dozen apps to get the data you need to make smart business decisions and close deals.

6. HubSpot — Powerful Sales CRM With Built-In Call Recording

HubSpot’s Sales Hub is a powerful sales CRM that helps you engage customers, manage your pipeline, and close deals more effectively.

The Sales Hub merges all your communication channels into a single, easy-to-use platform, making it easy to connect with your team members and customers, share information, and collaborate on tasks and projects.

You can send emails directly from the Sales Hub dashboard, as well as convert your top-performing marketing emails into templates that you can use to develop high-CTR email campaigns.

The platform features built-in email tracking, so you’ll get notified the moment a lead opens an email or clicks a link, so your agents can follow up at the right time and close deals faster.

The main reason to choose Sales Hub over other sales CRM solutions is its Conversation Intelligence functionality. The software automatically:

• • Logs all calls and key call details
  • Records calls and lets you turn recordings into coaching opportunities and sales scripts

In addition to sales automation, Sales Hub also lets you schedule meetings with team members, business partners, and potential clients, connect with prospects on live chat, and send and receive payments through a commerce-powered CRM platform.

Other noteworthy features include a sales management playbook, branded quote generation, account-based marketing, pipeline management, and in-depth analytics and reporting.

7. Freshsales — Award-Winning CRM Solution With AI-Powered Chatbots and Advanced Sales Automation

Freshsales is an award-winning sales CRM developed by Freshworks. It helps businesses personalize engagements, shorten the sales cycle, and maximize their revenue through smart automation and AI-powered chatbots.

The software gives you a 360-degree view of all customer interactions and allows you to leverage real-time data to craft personalized offers and close deals faster than ever before.

It also automates time-consuming tasks, eliminates the need for manual data entry, and gives your sales agents the much-need context that helps them start engaging in conversations with potential customers.

Thanks to an AI-powered chatbot and smart lead capture forms, you can understand each visitor’s intent, capture their information, and match interested buyers with the right cars, as well as offer them the most appropriate financing solutions.

Thanks to contact scoring, your agents can quickly identify the best opportunities and proactively engage the prospects that are close to making a purchasing decision.

Frashsales also lets you seamlessly communicate with your leads and existing customers across multiple channels (phone, email, text, live chat) from a single, unified platform.

When it comes to sales automation, Freshsales lets you set up assignment rules to ensure contacts are handed to the right sales agent, plus:

• • Create personalized outbound campaigns
  • Categorize contacts by territory
  • Streamline your workflows

You can also create effective live chat campaigns to ensure you engage your website visitors at the right moment, qualify your leads according to multiple criteria, and make announcements regarding deals and discounts..

Freshsales integrates with Zoom, Slack, business WhatsApp, and your business phone number, so you can manage all customer interactions from your CRM dashboard.

8. Maximizer CRM — Fully Customizable, Cloud-Based CRM With APIs for Seamless Integrations With Your Software Stack

Maximizer CRM is a fully customizable, cloud-based CRM solution that lets you automate your workflows, effortlessly map your sales process, and personalize your user view according to the information you want to see in the CRM.

The app offers a 360-degree view of your business through graphs, charts, and reports that contain all the crucial sales and contact information you need to make smart business decisions on the spot.

You can also leverage Maximizer CRM’s advanced analytics to:

• • Forecast your revenue based on team, territory, and marketing/communication channel
  • Set KPIs and track sales goals
  • Set up real-time alerts and notifications for different events

The main advantage of Maximizer CRM over its competitors is the fact that it offers cloud and on-premise APIs (Application Programming Interface) that let you effortlessly pull information from your customer database and integrate the CRM with hundreds of different apps.

This ensures you’ll always have the information you need at your fingertips without having to navigate between ten different applications to complete a single task.

Additionally, the app greatly facilitates sales pipeline management, standardizes your processes with customized action plan templates, and allows you to store all contact info, notes, and documents in one place for easy access.

9. Less Annoying CRM — Simple, Easy-to-Use CRM that Removes the Complexity from Customer Relationship Management

Less Annoying CRM, as the name suggests, aims to simplify customer relationship management with a simple, clean, minimalistic UI and straightforward pricing plan.

Less Annoying CRM is perfect for small dealerships, especially if you’re not particularly tech-savvy and have no previous experience with CRM software. It prides itself on being the “easiest to use CRM software” on the market.

There are no pricing tiers, paid add-ons, complex surveys, or trials you must request. You simply pay $15/user/month and get access to all the features.

With Less Annoying CRM, your sales managers will have access to all contact information they need in one place, including their name, email, phone, address, job title, and other key info they need to close the deal.

You can also easily manage your team by adding tasks to a shared team calendar and tracking the progress of different projects. Plus, you can sync with your Google Calendar, so it automatically pulls all your scheduled meetings, eliminating the need for double entry.

Less Annoying CRM will also provide you with detailed lead reports, so you’ll always have an up-to-date list of all lists in your pipeline. You can then easily sort the list according to lead status and priority and review notes you’ve left during your last conversation with a specific lead.

Despite being simple and easy to use, Less Annoying CRM lets you streamline your workflow by creating custom fields for your contacts and pipelines, so you can easily store, track, and organize all the data you need to keep your business running efficiently.

10. Oracle NetSuite — Popular Automotive CRM With Advanced Sales Process Automation

Oracle NetSuite CRM lets you create a single view for all your prospects, customers, partners, and vendors, so you’ll have all the data you need to deliver extraordinary customer experiences and close sales faster — in a single dashboard.

Oracle NetSuite’s CRM lets you automate every part of your sales process, from opportunities and upsells to sales forecasting, order management, and commissions.

Your agents will have easy access to contact information to handle order management, quotes, and fulfillment with maximum efficiency. The CRM also enables you to:

• • Automate your marketing campaigns
  • Track and measure each prospect’s activity
  • Sort qualified leads with one click
  • Personalize offers according to your prospects’ needs

You can also use NetSuite CRM to create a Knowledge Base for your customers to elevate the pressure on your customer service department by answering all of their common questions.

If they require help from one of your agents, the first free agent can quickly jump on a customer’s support ticket and reply with follow-up communication in seconds.

Another reason to opt for NetSuite CRM is the advanced partner relationship management functionality. This greatly facilitates information sharing between you and your partners, suppliers, and OEMs, giving you a clear overview of all joint campaigns and making it easy to manage leads and navigate complex pipelines.

In addition to sales and marketing automation, NetSuite CRM provides your business with in-depth reports and real-time analytics, letting you monitor your team’s performance, gauge the effectiveness of your campaigns, and make data-driven business decisions.

Best CRM Dealership Software | Top 10 Compared

To help you narrow in on the one best suited to your needs, we’ve compared them head-to-head in the table below:

The Key Benefits of CRM Software for Automotive Businesses

If you want to optimize your sales process, automate time-consuming administrative tasks, improve your customer experience, and close deals faster, CRM software is a must.

In addition to giving you full visibility into your funnel, a CRM solution greatly facilitates team communication and collaboration, plus allows you to deliver fully customized experiences to your customers and tailor offers according to their specific needs.

Here are the main benefits your automotive business will enjoy after implementing a robust CRM solution:

Better Customer Engagement

Nowadays, customers expect businesses to respond to their inquiries within minutes. If you don’t have a centralized communication platform, it can be difficult to keep up with all the emails, social media posts, texts, and calls.

With a CRM solution, you’ll be able to communicate with prospects and customers from a single, unified platform. This makes it much easier to:

• • Review past communication
  • Identify the customers’ wants and needs
  • Address their buying objections
  • Move them through your sales funnel

And, of course, close deals.

More Effective Email Campaigns

Generic email campaigns with unimaginative offers simply won’t cut it in today’s business climate. To gain an edge over your competitors, you must segment your audience and customize your email campaigns according to their:

• • Behavior and specific interests
  • Previous interactions with your business

The best automotive CRM solutions provide a wealth of data on your prospects and allow you to take advantage of triggers to create fully customized email campaigns that help convert leads into paying customers.

Increased Team Productivity

Most CRM solutions let you keep track of all tasks assigned to your team members, so you can monitor their progress, help remove bottlenecks, and ensure everyone’s on the same page.

On top of that, your agents will have all the necessary information on prospects and customers they need to close deals faster.

Some CRM solutions also integrate with chat and video conferencing apps like Slack and Zoom, so your team members can easily communicate using a single app instead of tabbing back and forth between half a dozen different programs.

Some CRM solutions like Zendesk Sell even let you record all calls, so you can review your sales agents’ performance and use the recordings for training.

Improved Bottom Line

Thanks to workflow and email automation, data visualization, and streamlined team communication, automotive CRM solutions help improve your business’ bottom line.

By providing you with all the data you need to optimize your sales funnel and marketing strategy, automotive CRMs save you valuable time, shorten the sales cycle, and make it easier to close deals, ultimately resulting in more sales and higher profit.

How to Choose the Best CRM Software for Your Automotive Dealership

When choosing the best CRM app for your business, there are quite a few factors you need to consider, from the tool’s functionality and ease of use to the automation and integration capabilities.

Most CRM solutions charge per user, and the pricing depends on the number of features you want.

That’s why it’s always a good idea to hold an internal meeting with your team and discuss what aspects of their work could be streamlined and how much time and money different functionalities would save.

Before making a final decision, we strongly suggest you ask yourself the following questions:

• • How difficult is the CRM to implement and use?
  • Will your sales agents require additional training to use the software?
  • Can you customize the CRM according to the specific needs of your business?
  • Does it offer email templates, and can you use it to craft personalized email offers?
  • Can you integrate it with the tools you’re already using in your business?

It’s always a good idea to schedule a demo of a few products you’re considering or take advantage of free trials/free plans to test out several tools before committing to a monthly or annual subscription.

Your team will give you valuable feedback, so you’ll be able to guarantee that you’ve chosen the CRM software that best aligns with the needs of your business.

Automotive CRM Software FAQs