Walcu, the lead management system for independent car dealerships!

The universal car company and the follow-up of online leads… that’s often a fine combination! After all, most universal car companies are small in setup, and more manageable than, for example, a dealer company with multiple branches. Leads are generally better picked up in the first line, only often there’s a lack of insight, and the second and third follow-up of the leads is often more problematic.

Walcu CRM now available in the Netherlands and Belgium!

Meanwhile, we’ve been working with Walcu CRM for a year, a European Lead Management System that we use at the Ligier Store and Experience Store Doesburg. A year of adjusting, developing, and moving forward, with the knowledge that it’s never finished. Now is the time ripe to introduce Walcu to independent car companies in the Netherlands and Belgium.

What does Walcu do

Walcu is a Lead Management System that puts all online and telephone leads in a clear system and immediately makes visible with which leads contact has or has not been made and what the next status is.

Additionally, Walcu is a Marketing Automation Tool, with possibilities for nurturing and following up on ‘older’ leads. Existing sales and service customers are also not forgotten by Walcu!

Finally, Walcu is a powerful Power BI! In other words, you can create any report you’d almost want to have. Want to know where you can improve? What your ROI is? And what the next steps in follow-up could be? Walcu helps. In short, it’s a Lead Management System, a Marketing Automation Tool, and a Power BI in 1.

The Action List

We start at Walcu with the action list. This list contains everything a salesperson needs to do. Which new online and telephone leads are there? What responses have come in to emails, SMS, and WhatsApp, and what tasks are there? Is the task list ‘clean’? Then everything is done! Below is an example of the action list:

There’s a showroom appointment, a task for the salesperson, and an incoming call of eight seconds from customer A. Additionally, there’s a task for customer X, and there’s a missed call that needs to be followed up. Everything is in there!

Furthermore, there’s a task open for customer Y to add a conversation report, and there’s a missed call from an anonymous caller. All things a salesperson wants to know and needs to anticipate!

Lead Management System

For most universal car companies, the Lead Management System is the core and the reason why Walcu is the right solution for everyone! Many car companies follow up on leads using flags in Outlook email and will answer every lead from there. If the customer responds, they’re kept; if not, they’re often forgotten. Not consciously, but because the overview is lacking.

Walcu works differently! Firstly, all leads come into Walcu through the known interfaces (Lead coupling Hexon, JSON, etc.). This is visible in the overview below:

All columns can be customized to show what you want. Currently, the order is as follows:

• Salesperson’s name
• Date of entry
• Customer name
• Customer email
• Customer phone number
• Status
• Substatus
• Campaign/source
• Medium

These columns and the order of information can be adjusted. What’s important to me may be less important to someone else. A different layout with tabs is also possible instead of the list above. Below is the same list, but in a layout that’s clearer for me.

“`html

The lead’s detail page

When clicked on the lead, all relevant information appears immediately and clearly. The image below is above the fold. On the left, information about the car the customer is interested in is visible. Also, the source (e.g., own website) and the campaign that brought the lead to the source are displayed. See this article for more information: https://www.dcdw.nl/een-nieuwe-manier-van-leads-opvolgen-met-walcu/

And: https://www.dcdw.nl/waarom-er-een-standaard-moet-komen-voor-het-doorsturen-van-leads/

On the right side, there is customer information, where ideally the name, email address, and mobile number are known. If this information is available, the customer can be called directly from Walcu via Calldrip. Contact can also be made via SMS, WhatsApp, and email, among others.

The most important thing about Walcu is that all communication, regardless of the medium (SMS, WhatsApp, phone, and email), including the customer’s response, is visible in Walcu! So there is no need to send WhatsApp messages via a private phone or answer emails via Outlook! Everything goes through Walcu!

Above is a WhatsApp conversation between the seller and the customer. Everyone in the car dealership can see what has been discussed! Below are the emails with an overview of whether the messages have been read or not!

Any form of communication can go through Walcu, making it exactly clear which customer has or has not been contacted. If the customer has read the email but not responded? Then you can automatically create a task to call or email the customer again. Something like this is only possible when working with a system that can both send AND receive!

Smart integrations

Walcu contains a lot of fun and familiar interfaces from the market. Of course, the lead connection from Hexon is present, allowing us to receive virtually all leads from the market, but we are also connected to the bi-directional connection from Marktplaats, Calldrip, and Autotelex!

Calldrip

Of course, our own Calldrip system is not missing! Calldrip ensures that the potential lead is called immediately by the seller. Calldrip receives the lead information in real-time from Walcu. If a conversation takes place? Then Calldrip sends the conversation back to Walcu. That means that every conversation and all information from that conversation are returned via Calldrip, including the response time, who answered the call, and the summary of the conversation. See below.

This creates a complete overview of all conversations the seller has with the potential customer. And not just the first conversation, but all inbound and outbound calls made through the click-to-call (Call button).

Calldrip also has automated follow-up via SMS! That means that if a flow is created (see Market Automation), Calldrip does the work. The customer can be fully automated followed up, and reaching out to unreached leads can be taken over. Everything is 100% AI-driven and 100% automated. When the customer raises their virtual hand again, it becomes the task of the seller to take action.

Autotelex

There is, of course, a connection for Autotelex. Within Walcu, quotes can be created in a custom template, see below for our template. Customers can digitally sign the quote, but of course, with a pen in the showroom as well.

Many quotes have a trade-in car! For that, a connection has been made with Autotelex! Within the Walcu environment, a valuation tab can be opened. Once the license plate and mileage are entered, the connection with Autotelex does the rest! Depending on how Autotelex is used, but due to the new platform of Walcu and Autotelex, virtually all functionalities within Autotelex can be performed in Walcu, see also the example below!

The valuation can be used directly and without additional work in ADS from Autotelex or in the various valuation channels of Autotelex.

Marketing Automation

What is marketing automation according to Wikipedia?

Marketing automation is a software-based method for automating marketing and sales processes. User profiles are enriched with information based on their user behavior to set up automated campaign processes for individual communication.

And that’s exactly what is possible with the basic package of Walcu. No additional tool or subscription is required; the above functionality is part of the basic package!

How does it work?

Suppose there has been contact with a potential customer for a new (used) car. The customer is very interested but is still in the exploratory phase. The agreement is to keep each other informed until the customer is really in the market to make a decision. For new cars, or in our case “brommobielen,” we use the system, for example, when requesting a brochure.

Smart flows

The customer then receives a ‘flow’. At Ligier Store Doesburg – Experience Center, we call that flow a ‘farmer status.’ This means that the customer needs ‘water’ to grow him into a real customer. So, every two weeks, we send information about our store and our products. These are messages of our own design that go into the flow. These can be emails, but also SMS or WhatsApp messages!

Another example: a lead comes in; at Ligier Store Doesburg, we then have a set flow that goes as follows:

• Activate Calldrip (outbound calling)
• Send email (Automatic)
• Send WhatsApp (Automatic)

If the customer does not respond, after being called several times, he gets the ‘no contact’ status. In this phase, the customer receives various follow-up emails, SMS, and WhatsApp messages for six weeks, for example, to get in touch with us so that we can help him. This is not manual work. Once all the information is entered once, all messages go automatically to the customer.

This happens through a flow. In the basic set, two are active, the others can be activated and adjusted by most users themselves.

Even after delivery?

The same automation can be used for deliveries! Once a car is sold, a flow can be created with various steps. Below are some examples:

• Car polishing
• WO creation
• Car technically ready
• Delivery appointment
• Delivery
• Happy Call 7 days
• Happy Mail after 365 days

All these things can be automated through this tool, after which both the internal and external customer receive notifications, emails, SMS, or WhatsApp messages.

This standard tool offers many possibilities. Virtually everything related to leads and customers can be automated in Walcu. And it doesn’t matter whether it’s a sales, service, or rental customer.

Power BI

Power BI is a program from Microsoft and a collective term for a powerful reporting tool! The system does not just offer a standard report but any type of report that a car company could wish for. In the screenshot below, there is a report from Ligier Store Doesburg. The document is called ‘today’ and is an overview of what has happened online today and in lead follow-up. (date set now for a month)

I can see everything I find important, and I can click on everything to get more background information about these 117 leads. It is also possible to create an overview for a month! See below.

I hear you say, “I want to know where my leads come from.” That is also visible; I can even create a report. See below:

In other words, everything is visible. Calculating the ROI of marketing efforts? Tracking salespeople’s follow-ups? Everything can be made clear in clear reports. You simply put together your own reports!

For independent car companies

Walcu CRM is super suitable for the independent car company! Of course, also for the dealer. As Ligier Store, we also use the system, of course! However, many independent car companies track leads with Excel or Outlook lists, and there is now an easy and affordable alternative with Walcu!

We have been using Walcu for more than a year now, and we have a lot of experience with all the options and possibilities of the system. That makes us best able to help the independent car company!

The costs are low. The basic license for Walcu starts from € 99 per license per month! Interested in a demo? Let us know via paul@dcdw.nl, and we will be happy to help you!