Selling Service: Ask for the Business

Everyday customers call your service department and thousands of independent repair shops asking for information and prices about maintaining or repairing their vehicles. Walk out on your service drive and you will see just how many times the phone rings. It’s been said that 85% of all service customers call first. Wow! – 85%! So the question is – what do they hear when they call your store, and more importantly, will they do business with you after the call?

Well, usually, what they hear is not good. Call your store and see. Pretend to be a customer and ghost call to see what it feels like to be a customer at your store. What will you hear? All too often, advisors rush the call, blurt out prices, talk little about the reasons a customer should do business with you and almost never even ask the customer if they would like to schedule an appointment to bring the car in. Now think about this - your dealership spends thousands of dollars to get customers to call you – and then those valuable opportunity calls are totally wasted. So the big question is – how can you maximize those opportunities and convert more calls into repair orders, right?

Here are a few simple ideas that can help. First, make sure advisors remember to talk about features, benefits and advantages instead of just blurting out the price for the requested service. For example, if the request is for an oil change price, have them explain that a certified factory trained tech will do the work, that you use only genuine X brand parts, that you top of the fluids, air up the tires and give them a multi-point inspection at no charge. Add some value instead of just saying an oil change is $X.

Next, and this is a huge one – get your advisors to tell your callers that while they are in, you will check for any open recalls and complete them at no charge for your convenience. Now think about that one for a minute – no independent shop in the world can do recalls, and when customers hear the word recall, and they immediately think of two words – free and safety and it just makes sense to have the oil change or service done at your store while you check for open recalls, right?  Now you have a powerful hook that brings them in. 

And last, but not least – get them to invite the callers in for service. A simple question like, “let’s see when I can get you in for service; would today or tomorrow be better for you?” This will result in an unbelievable increase in repair order counts. Just asking to schedule the time to come in will make customers want to do business with you. Spend a little time on the drive and listen to your advisors when they are on the phone, adopt the simple changes I mention here and get ready to enjoy more traffic, more customer pay business and more profits from  your service department.