News and Events
|
|
The Future of Your Dealership is in Service
Posted on Feb 24, 2010 - 01:54 PM
No one can deny that the last few years for the car business have been easy. They haven’t been predictable either and they surely haven’t been fun. But – almost everyone you talk to will agree that they have been “enlightening.” As bad as this might sound, I think we have all learned some valuable lessons about our businesses – and to some degree, we have learned some valuable lessons about life itself. Here is what I have learned and what several dealers have told me they learned over the past couple of years. Some you have heard of before, some you probably haven’t – but here you go anyway.
Service Departments Can Carry the Store
Some dealers admitted to me that they didn’t think it was possible, but now they are believers – their service department actually carried the store through when sales we at their all time bottom. The stores with strong fixed operations are the ones that survived and the ones that depended totally on new and used car sales – quite simply went out of business or came awfully close to it. Either way, dealers learned that “service” is not a dirty word and that there is a lot of money back their in the “back end.”
Service Departments Can Be Fun
The dealers that actually rolled up their sleeves and weren’t afraid to go back and get involved in selling service told me that while they might have been apprehensive at first – they actually found out that running service is really a lot like running their sales departments. It’s about motivating people, taking care of customers and selling things. The faces and the uniforms changed – but really, they told me, it isn’t that much different – which is what I have been saying for years – “run your service department like a sales department.” Some also told me they actually had fun learning more about this new, very important part of their dealership (the service department) and that they found they weren’t that uncomfortable being back there after all.
Service Departments Need to Advertise
Well, this is not really rocket science, but some dealers for the first time got a real grip on what a service department is all about when it comes to advertising. They learned that price and convenience are the two keys to success and driving traffic. They learned that low price oil change offers work to bring customers in and that you have to have processes in place like multi-point inspections and menus to maximize every opportunity. They learned that while they may have cut vehicle advertising during the tight period for car sales, they needed to increase their advertising budget for service – and they learned – get this – that if you want more service traffic, you have to advertise – just like you do in the sales department.
Service Departments Need Sales Training
Smart dealers learned that the phone in service rings constantly. They learned that 85% of their service customers call first – and that if you don’t answer the phone your service traffic drops like a rock. They also learned that most service advisors don’t answer the phone the right way, that they don’t build a relationship with the prospect on the phone, that they don’t present features, benefits and advantages while on the phone – and get this, they found out that most of the time, the advisors don’t even ask the customer if they wanted to bring the car in and they didn’t even mention an appointment. Dealers I talked to jumped all over this problem and found that they could increase their service traffic and business by just answering the phone the right way.
Service Departments Need to Be More Convenient
Here is a simple one. If you are closed you do less business than if you are open – Wow, what a concept. Dealers I talked to during this weird time realized that if they opened their service department earlier and closed later – and were open all day on Saturday – they did more business and kept more customers from going to the competition. Not really a shocking result, right? Be open more and closed less. And that’s not all…convenient means not taking all day to do an oil change. It means making sure your customers have access to substitute transportation. It means if they want to wait, that you have a convenient, friendly, clean and professional waiting area with super clean restrooms. I told you this was easy.
Service Departments Need to Stay Honest
Some dealers told me that when they really looked at what their advisors were selling, they realized that they weren’t exactly selling what customers needed, but rather what they wanted to sell. “Customers aren’t stupid” was the remark I heard most from dealers that got involved in the actual selling of services to customers. They were surprised that advisors were flushing everything on the customer’s car – including the customer’s wallet and when they looked at the big picture, the short term greed was hurting the long term customer retention and that eventually will hurt their future. I am not throwing stones at fluid flushers – if the service is actually needed based on time, mileage or a performance concern, but come on…you don’t need to flush everything on the car at 5,000 miles – do what’s right – you can’t lose that way.
Service Departments Need to Give Customers Real Reasons to Return
Again, guys, not rocket science here. If you answer the phone, if you are nice, if you don’t over sell or over price, if you are honest, if you have a clean, inviting write up area and lounge and IF you give customers real reasons to come back, they will. All too often I see stores that don’t do any of those things and wonder why they have no service traffic. Bottom line is this – if you keep customers for service you will not just make more money, you will also sell more cars. Customers are much more likely to buy their next car where they have that one serviced – this is a fact. So in addition to the normal stuff, make your dealership different. Play bingo in the customer lounge for an oil change. Run mall shuttles every hour or take customers to the movie theater. Wash every car after every service. Make each customer a rewards club member so they will want to return and avoid your competition. Follow up when you get a complaint and Wow your customers with just how great you handle issues when they arise. Make sure your people are clean and professional at all times, and make sure you keep your eye on the ball here – the goal is not to skin the sheep, it’s to sheer it many, many times! It’s true, the future of your dealership really is in the service department – do it right and you win, do it wrong and you lose – it’s that simple.
Dealer Rewards
- Complete Rewards Memberships
- Online Transactions - No Hardware
- Consumer Website
Comments
I drive a 2003 (maybe 2002 I forget but its not any older than that) Cavalier. I was due for an oil change at about 45,000 miles which was in January. I didn’t have the money at the time so I let it go, hoping to get it done soon. Its now April and I still havn’t changed the oil, my miles are about 48,000ish. Is this horrible to do? Is my car going to break down on me? I’m planning on changing the oil soon, its just the money factor.
.
Stay connected: