First of all, excuse my french guys! Sometimes we get too tangled up in the processes for our own good – in other words, we make simple things way too complicated. Here’s what I am saying – When a customer calls your store they are telling you that they want to do business with you – it’s that simple. They believe you have better techs, parts and warranties – they believe you have better tools and equipment and they believe you are the experts – but they also believe you charge more and are not as convenient as they’d like you to be – and that is because we have constantly told them “that we are more expensive and that we aren’t convenient.” DUH!!!
Think about it – when customers call, we say stupid things like, “Whew, are you sitting down for this price!” or we tell them to bring it in “first thing in the morning and then pick it up at 5” – that’s just dumb. Sometimes, we are just too damn hard to do business with!
And, sometimes we are so focused on computer systems, checking history and getting them in the system -that we often miss the main point of the call – to get the customer in the store! So when customers call we need to keep the “get them in factor” as simple and quick and easy as we can make it. We have to make it easy to say yes and hard to say no!
I have seen service advisors spend countless, valuable extra minutes on the phone trying to lock a customer into an appointment on their “system” when all they needed to say was – “Just bring it in” – that’s it – “Just bring it in”. Sound too easy – worried about shop load? – well think about this – nothing happens until you get the car in the shop and you know as well as I do that if you get it there you will find a way to get the job done, get the customer a ride home or even get them a rental car – but you got the job and that folks is all that really counts!
They could have gone somewhere else and you would have lost the deal and the customer forever. Hey, set appointments for customers that want appointments. Set next service appointments for customers that come in your store today – like dentists and doctors do. Set appointments for customers in your database that you call to remind that they are do for service…but for customers that call in today – and want service today – get them in today! All you have to do is tell them, “Just bring it in today” and watch your repair order count climb.
You can’t keep doing the same old thing and expect different results. Learn More Now!