CodeIgniter-Based CRM Solution for an Automotive Business

The automotive industry is amongst the most rapidly developing ones and requires solutions that will help facilitate business operations and improve the quality of services provided to clients. Adopting a customer relations management (CRM) system might be one of the most popular options to drive business to success.

In the article, we are sharing our experience with building a CRM solution for the automotive business, analyzing core problems, and how the provided solution helps to solve them.

Our client is one of the leading car manufacturers who was seeking a solution that will facilitate their business process and customer interactions. The Agiliway team was approached as a web development expert to create a customized platform that seamlessly combines CMS and CRM functionalities.

This car manufacturer operates in over 100 countries and has distinguished itself in the automotive industry by adopting innovative technologies. The company’s success can be attributed to its implementation of cutting-edge features, such as enhanced connectivity, improved security, and eco-friendly technologies. Customers appreciate the brand’s innovative yet very minimalistic car designs, available at a reasonable price. To further enhance customer satisfaction, the brand sought to implement an efficient customer communication channel.

Facing huge competition in the automotive industry, the company urgently required a business solution to enhance its outdated CMS tool. Simultaneously, Agiliway was tasked with developing a more advanced and functional CRM system for car dealerships, enabling efficient contact tracking and customer retention.

Among the key requirements of the platform, the client pointed out the need for a complex CRM solution for dealerships, focusing on improved contact tracking, lead generation, prospect management, and customer retention. Additionally, there was a requirement to enhance website content management and interface for better usability. Car dealers desired a more integrated approach to organizing content, enabling block creation, data structuring, and seamless import-export capabilities from the manufacturer. Other objectives included optimizing web solution performance and adapting screen resolutions to various devices.

Given the absence of complete specifications or designs at the outset, our team faced a few initial challenges. Consequently, extensive business analytics were conducted to understand the dealership management nature and the overall market landscape.

The Agiliway development team devised a comprehensive solution to establish an integrated, cohesive, and well-defined collaboration platform between the manufacturer and dealerships. Leveraging our multifunctional expertise, we effectively streamlined the entire process. CodeIgniter, chosen for back-end development based on previous experience, and JavaScript for front-end development were utilized, surpassing the alternatives of Symfony, Laravel, and Yii.

As a result, we successfully developed a solution that provides dealers with enhanced CRM functionality that facilitates communication with potential customers, appointment scheduling, and negotiating deals, as well as optimizes company news and updates on promotions and discounts. The solution integration also improved dealership workflow organization, news management, and data structuring capabilities which eventually led significantly to improving business performance and reliability.

In addition, the solution became compatible across multiple types of devices and OS and has a streamlined content management process as its architecture and functionality were drastically transformed and enhanced. These changes also led to transformations in business promotions, as creating campaigns has never been easier. Now, there is better visualization, dealerships receive news and updates from the manufacturer, with users benefiting from an enhanced notification system (events, calls). Advanced real-time analytics with comprehensive reports and charts provides in-depth campaign performance assessment based on traffic and conversion.

Next, an enhanced module structure was introduced, allowing customers to access not only car models but also maintenance services, additional equipment warranties, and security guarantees. A versatile user interface empowers customers to configure car models based on personal preferences prior to purchase. Also, a test drive form underwent some transformations as the development team incorporated additional modules for location, vehicle model and type, year of manufacturing, and approval system.

Agiliway delivered an enhanced CRM solution that improved customer interactions, resulting in accelerated conversion and retention rates. The optimized CMS and CRM empowered the company to effectively showcase its services in different regions and successfully compete with other automotive brands in the market. Dealerships were presented with tailored communication channels with the manufacturer, receiving the latest news and updates. Potential customers enjoyed an integrated approach toward the vehicle picking process, including the ability to customize car designs before buying it and access to an improved test drive form. Agiliway has extensive experience in developing all kinds of web solutions utilizing the most popular PHP frameworks stack: CodeIgniter, Laravel, Yii, Symfony, etc.