Author Archives: Brooke Samples

Keep Your Service Customers Loyal With One Question

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Keeping Customers happy is essential to not only retaining your current Customers but in adding new Customers to your Service Department. To keep your Customers happy go beyond a Yes and No question and gather information you can use to improve the Service Customer’s experience.

To get good CSI scores, Service Advisors frequently ask Customers if there is any reason the Customer wouldn’t rate the service as excellent (or whatever the manufacturer deems the best score). Just like you might tell a waitress everything was fine, when in fact you may have no intention of returning, your Customers may be telling you the same thing.

But what if the Service Advisor asks the question “Is there anything I could do differently to make your next visit with us more enjoyable?” Not only does this reinforce to the Customer that you care and you expect him or her to return, it also gives you invaluable information to improve all of your Customers’ Service experiences. Make sure the Service Advisors thank the Customers with a smile for the Customer’s input, regardless of the Customer’s response. Have your Service Advisors do this for one week, log all of the responses, now look for areas where you can work to improve the Service experience at your Dealership.

Dealerships Can Generate More Profit By Eliminating Waste

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You can generate more profit without spending money – just resolve to eliminate wasted time at your Dealership or in your Department. I think you’ll be amazed at how much WASTE you can find just by looking. In most Service Departments, the average gross profit per Technician billed hour runs over $100, so it doesn’t take long for the savings to add up.  A Sales Person’s time can run between $95, to well over $150 an hour, depending on his or her abilities. It doesn’t always take a Time and Motion Expert to see what can be improved. Read below and think about some of the common areas of waste (besides being seduced to surf the Internet) at your Dealership:

WAITING: Employees waiting for Customer approvals or authorization, equipment to be repaired, parts to arrive, the finance manager to be available, etc. Waiting probably accounts for the biggest waste of time. If you increased the number of Customers making Service appointments would that help your sales? YES – You generate more income when you have the opportunity to prepare for the Service Customer’s visit. Would better Repair Order descriptions help? Yes – If the Technician can fix the vehicle without having to go back to the Service Advisor to get the answer to “how can we duplicate your concern?”

CORRECTIONS: Fixing a repair twice, re-ordering a needed part, re-contracting a finance Customer, etc. Taking the time to get it right the first time will save you time. Think of the saying, “If you don’t have the time to do it right, when will you have time to fix it?” Do we have the right Techs working on vehicles? Do we have properly trained Salespeople? When you spend your money on Advertising, and your Customers receive average treatment from their Salesperson, it is time AND money wasted.

MOTIONS: People, paperwork or equipment moving more than required. This waste is probably the easiest to fix. Start by streamlining processes, then updating or adding new equipment. Could barcoding parts and vehicles save you time and money when counting inventories? Are Technicians wasting time looking for a Customer’s vehicle on the lot? Do Salespeople roam the lot in hopes of finding the right car or truck to sell to their Customers? Fix these problems with efficient processes.

OVER PROCESSING: Are there process steps in place to overcome a poor design not required to take care of a Customer? Think of a title clerk hand addressing envelops for vehicle registrations that could easily be put into window envelopes.

UNDER-UTILIZATION: Underutilizing the potential of your people is also considered a waste. When you have a Tech (generating over $100 an hour), does it make sense to waste any of his or her time? Pre-pulling parts or running parts to Technicians would make better use of the Techs’ time. Should the Salespeople be gathering insurance information instead of the Finance Manager? Is the Sales Manager handling all of the Dealer Trades, when he or she could be coaching Salespeople or working with a Customer?

By eliminating or reducing waste, the result will improve the overall efficiency of your Dealership—thus providing time to generating more income. Involve your Employees to see how to eliminate wasted time in every Department.

My Profit Blueprints Analysis provides Dealership Managers with a monthly report that saves them time by highlighting underperforming areas with color and provides Managers with Dealership-Proven Action Plans to help them with a plan for an area of concern. Couple that with a monthly conference call and you are on your way to a fabulous year!

Make Your Job Easier with Better, Faster Decision Making

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If you’ve watched any football game, you have to be in awe at the speed at which coaches decide what will be the next best play, based on the current circumstances. There are enormous variables that dictate the best play. Third down and seven yards may call for an entirely different play if you’re in the first quarter compared to the last two minutes of the game, and you are behind. Now are you behind by 3 points or 5 points? How close are you to the goal? The coaches have less than 25 seconds to analyze all of the variables to come up with the right play for the desired outcome.

Decades ago, exceptional coaches knew there had to be a better way than just going with their gut. Bill Walsh, Bill Parcells, and Jimmy Johnson figured out that if you knew ahead of time what the decision(s) should be in specific situations, you would be more successful. They “invented” the laminated sheets that every head football coach now carries with 1st Quarter plays already scripted, and situational decision plays “decided.” It is much easier discussing play options sitting at a table with unlimited time than making split-second decisions when the outcome of a game depends on choosing the right play while the crowds are screaming, your starter left injured, and you are trying to think clearly.

A good decision maker makes for a good Leader. Establish a decision-making process for common issues, and you can be more efficient in your day-to-day work. In any given week, Managers make hundreds of decisions; some easy, some critical. There are daily decisions that can be made quickly using an analytical approach when you follow a Decision Tree. Decision Trees are used to select the right strategy for a current situation and operate much like flow charts. If this – then do this, if that – then do this. When do we take a short deal versus passing on a deal?  To finish a Service Customer’s vehicle – do we special-order a part or do we pick it up locally to get the vehicle on the road sooner?  Decisions Trees, not only free up Manager’s time, they improve the consistency of your processes.

When applied to everyday choices, Decisions Trees will help your staff know what to do in specific situations – even when you’re not available.
The goal is not to take emotions out of the decision-making process, but to prevent emotions from taking over. Remember the old way you decided which used vehicles would make it to your lot – the Manager buying them because “he knows what sells in his market.” The myriad of tools available to help Managers stock inventory for their market and price their vehicles for their market insure Used Vehicle inventories that are right for your Dealership.

Our past experiences dictate the decisions we make and will influence the way we solve problems. When we apply what we’ve learned to make smart choices, we can continually adapt and improve our processes. Think about the decisions you make every day, can they be put into writing or flowcharts for you and your staff to follow the path that will yield the desired result quickly? It works in championship caliber football, and it can work for you.

For examples of Decision Trees email Brooke@profits4dealers.com

 

 

Get the Most Out of Your Dealership Advertising

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You spend time creating ads, you spend money advertising and yet the sales don’t reflect those efforts.  Does this sound familiar? Let’s figure out why we don’t get the results we want before we spend any more time and money on advertising.

The following is a recent Service experience.  (Skip to the “Bottom Line” if you don’t need another story about a bad service experience)  I needed to replace a trim piece on a 10-year-old vehicle – easy enough, no diagnosis – just “do you have the part in stock?” before I spend an hour in drive time.  First, I called the Service Department and was able to get the voicemail of the concierge.  The voicemail, while pleasant, encouraged me to make an appointment online at my convenience; I guess that was so I wouldn’t have to bother her with annoying details or questions.  You can tell it is a highline dealership because they call their appointment setter/reservationist a concierge.  I left a message explaining the two items I wanted to have installed and waited 24 hours before calling the new Service Manager.  I knew he was new because he sent an email letting me know he was the new manager and he wanted my business with a “too good to be true” offer for service on older vehicles.

Me being me, I felt I should help him out (at no charge) and let him know how he could bring back old Customers…Answer the phone or return calls ASAP!  You don’t have to give everything away if you take care of the Customers!

 On day three, I decided I had to be smarter than their system and contacted the Parts Department directly to check on the availability of the part and after hearing “Parts, could you hold please?”  I knew I had hit gold; I didn’t have to leave a message and wait for it to not be returned.  I was prepared, I had the VIN and pictures of the trim part ready to email, unfortunately, the Parts Counter Person had been there two weeks and wasn’t familiar with the models of the vehicles or how to look up trim parts.  However, he was friendly and tried hard before he had to ask someone how to look up the part.  Good news, that part breaks so often that even though the vehicle is 10 years old; it is stocked in dove or ivory.  He promised to have a Service Advisor call me, which happened 2 hours later.

Thirty-six hours after contacting the Dealership, I had an appointment!  Yahoo!  Several hours after that, the Assistant to the new Service Manager called to see if there was anything he could to do to help me.  My first thought was, “Can you connect me to the Used Car Manager and see if he wants to buy a 10-year-old car with less than 70,000 miles?”  Maybe he had an in with the Service Department.  Side note:  The vehicles they sell new are on my short list for a new puppy transportation vehicle, but the Salesperson would have to put a gun to my head to buy a vehicle from them.  If I can’t get decent service, what will the sales experience be like?

A long story to get to the point – train your people on how to take care of your Customers, how to do their job and to take pride in doing the job well.  If you whittled out a percentage of your marketing budget and invested it in improving your process and people, you might receive benefits you are expecting.

Bottom Line: Train All of Your Employees:

  • If you’ve hired the right people, training will improve your employees’ skills,
  • Training will help employees feel appreciated and you are investing in their future,
  • Training reduces employee turnover, which is very costly.

The second and third points are a bi-product of what should be the most important reason – trained employees can take care of your Customers the way you want your customers to be treated.

Before you begin any training, answer the following questions:

  • Exactly what do I want to improve with training?
  • How will I measure the results of the training?
  • How will I measure the return on my training time and investment dollar?

If there is no way to measure the results, do you need to spend money on training?

Tips to make your training program a success:

  1. Get the buy-in from all who will be impacted: Management and Employees – what do they want to learn and need to learn?
  2. Get staff excited about the training by reinforcing the benefits. Think of it as learning…not training.
  3. Have a training agenda designed for your specific needs and one that focuses on the changes you want to make, leave out the “fluff and nougat.”

With a little training, your Advertising dollars will pay off!

Ten Ways to Say Thank You to Your Customers

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People like to be thanked, especially if they have spent money with you.  Customers have hundreds of choices, and they selected you to spend their money with today.  If you’ve done a good job, they will spend money with you in the future; if you’ve done a really good job, they might recommend us to a friend.  We have a lot riding on today’s Customers; so let’s never forget to sincerely thank them.

Besides the customary verbal thank you, consider some of the following ways to say thank you to your Customers.

1) Write a Thank You card.  How much the Customer spent should make no difference.  Imagine the “Wow! factor” when your Customer receives a handwritten note of thanks.  Make it personal and sincere, and reinforce your appreciation for the Customer giving you the chance to sell him or her a vehicle, or take care of his or her vehicle.

2) Give one Customer an over-the-top experience.  What could you do that would leave the Customer telling all of his or her friends about the experience?

3) Bring lunch to one of your Wholesale or Fleet Customers.  If not lunch; how about donuts and fruit first thing in the morning?  As the Department Manager, go out of your way to meet some of the Customers who make you successful.

4)  Reward your social media community with special announcements or exclusive specials.  If things are slow in your Department, what can you post that might attract a visit to your Dealership this week? 

5)   Help your Customers learn something new.  Think about your website, Facebook page or inclusions in email blasts – can you provide the Customer with useful information about maintaining their vehicle or an interesting fact about the history of your brand? 

6)  Host an afternoon of business Workshops for your small fleet Customers.  Use your showroom floor to promote a variety of services and your training room to conduct 30-minute workshops on topics important to small businesses.  For more information email us at brooke@profits4dealers.com.

7)  Start a club for your Customers with high-mileage vehicles or vehicles over 8 years old.  Special pricing and recognition can go a long way to keeping your Customers loyal.  Find a way to reward and recognize the owner of the active highest mileage vehicle in your Service database.  Celebrate milestones when vehicles’ mileage goes over 100,000, 200,000, etc.

8)  Throw a party.  Have a special event to celebrate (40 years in business) or group of Customers to thank?  Host a bar-b-q or luncheon at your Dealership.  Remember the new model launch events from the fifties through the eighties?  Chrysler gave away Fostoria crystal glasses in the early 80s and at our Dealership, we had Customers lining up. (I still have some of the glasses.)

9)  Have an “Ask a Tech” event for Front Parts Counter Customers during lunch hours one Friday a month.  Offer a training class on new products to Parts Wholesale clients.

10)  Give quality swag to Customers.  Delight your Customers with a hat, key fob, or T-shirt.  You’ll surprise your Parts Wholesale Customers when they open a box with koozies or coffee cups for their Employees.  Custom printing offers you a variety of options at affordable prices.

I’m sure you can think of more ways to say Thank You to your Customers throughout the year – not just at the time of their initial purchase.

Thank you for reading !