Service customers already think we charge too much, so don’t prove them right. You don’t have to be the cheapest in town but the offers you’re promoting should be consistently competitive.

When you advertise services that seem expensive to your customers they begin to assume that everything is going to be more expensive. Perception is reality.

Advertise basic services that customers will actually see value in. Oil changes and tire rotations are the top 2 services that customer know they need. These drive traffic.

Direct mail is still king for service advertising. Your real competition, the independent repair shops, are in the mailbox every single week. Are you?

Easily reduce time-wasting phone calls and empower your service customers simply by placing an express price sheet on your website with all of your most popular maintenance items.

Maximize the benefit of your online appointment scheduler by ensuring it’s set up properly so that your technicians stay at full capacity throughout the entire day.

Appointment schedule tools are often confusing for customers. Try to limit the information needed to create an appointment so you don’t make yourself hard to do business with.

Google “oil change near me” and see where your store shows up on the list. Search Engine Marketing is often overlooked in service. If sales can do it, so can you.

How do you think your customers feel when they get sent to voicemail? Have processes in place to ensure that every single phone call to your store gets answered by a real employee.

When a service customer calls, the only goal once you answer is to get them to visit your store. Always give reasons to visit that make your dealership service department unique.

Whoever answers calls for your service department should know the prices for your most commonly requested services. Your customers don’t want to chase down service prices.

If you’re service department is staffed accordingly, having someone conduct outbound reminder calls can really help you move the needle and increase service traffic at your store.

Make sure you have clear expectations laid out for how your employees are entering data into your DMS. These processes will save you a lot of time and frustration down the road.

Don’t forget to use tools provided by many of your vendors to help keep your data in line. You can use their information to check back against yours and ensure what you have is accurate.

Have your advisors verify customer information with everyone that comes into your dealership while they’re already in the DMS looking at the customer’s account information during write up.

Every dealership needs to have someone that is responsible for cleaning up your DMS data and it should be getting done on a regular basis to avoid bigger headaches in the future.

Your DMS database is a goldmine for past due and lost service customers. What are you doing to get these customers, as well as new one back into your store for their next service?

Don’t be afraid to advertise the features that make your dealership stand out from the competition. Why should your service customers choose you over everybody else in your market?

You probably already have prepaid plans being sold in F&I, but are you selling maintenance plans on your service drive? This is a great way to lock in service customers to ensure they keep coming back.

It’s a fact that loyal service customers spend more dollars on average. Make sure your have some form of rewards program in place to keep your most loyal service customers happy.

Service customers don’t want to wait two weeks for an oil change appointment. Have a “just bring it in” attitude for oil changes and save your appointments for repair jobs and recall work.

Dealerships should take notes from dentist’s offices on customer retention processes. Make sure everyone that leaves your store has their next service appointment tentatively scheduled.

Keep your service customers updated on their vehicles’ status while it’s in the shop. Even if you don’t have anything to report, call them and tell them that so they’re not wondering what’s going on.

How you treat customers when they leave will often determine whether or not they ever come back. ‘WOW’ your customers with an active service delivery right there on the drive.