Category: Uncategorized

How To Empower And Retain Your Service Advisors

Fixed-operations directors and service managers all over the country will admit that the high-stress challenges facing their service advisors are many and varied. They will also candidly share the fact that their dealership’s most important employees are those same service advisors. After hiring and losing service advisors left and right over the years, many service […]

Are You Late To The Blog Party?

One day a service director at a large dealership told me that he thought blogs were a fad and they wouldn’t be around very long. He compared them to toys that came and went, like the Rubix Cube, Teddy Ruxpin and Silly Putty, for your older readers. He was explaining in a rather roundabout way […]

Get The Right Service Writers And Ride Them To Victory

I was recently talking to a Parts and Service Director at a large dealership that does several million dollars of service work annually. We were discussing how he is able to hire and retain top people to consistently hit better numbers every year. He told me that his service writers are probably the most important people in his operation and […]

Customer Engagement: Companies That Truly Excel Do It Well

It used to be called “customer engagement”, but they might as well call it customer entanglement. The reason? Companies in 2017 are more involved in their customers’ lives than ever. Instead of simply interacting with them before and after the sale, studies in marketing recommend staying engaged indefinitely to keep customers in the loop. Through loyalty programs, […]

Five Reasons Why Customer Loyalty Programs Work

Some service departments have embarked on customer loyalty programs in the past that didn’t work and left a bad taste in everyone’s mouths, including customers. So if you mention the idea of doing a loyalty program again to those service managers, they will likely tell you to hit the road. Like jilted suitors, they had […]

Can A Service Manager Lead Effectively By Being Nice?

An old baseball manager named Leo Durocher once said that “Nice guys finish last,” and in many ways, it is true. People who are naturally pleasant usually don’t like confrontations with people, because they just want to be nice. But, when you run a service department at a busy dealership while balancing 50 repairs jobs and supervising a […]

Can Minor Phone Mistakes Cost You Customers?

I called a service department to make an appointment one day and was left on hold for at least 10 minutes. I was listening to their on-hold music until I finally hung up. When I called them back, they tried to put me back on hold again, but I explained that I had already waited 10 […]

Image Perceived, Mission Achieved: An Inviting Facility Gets Customers Buzzing

In today’s world, first impressions are everything and surely an important part of any retail business.  In an age where car owners are more savvy and discerning than ever, your facility needs to look right to augment the entire customer service aspect of your operation. In the past 10 years or so, I have seen lots of […]

Show Customers You Care In Four Simple Ways

As we know, customer acquisition can be both expensive and time-consuming in any industry. And that’s why shop owners should always do whatever they can to retain every customer through their doors for the long-term. However, statistics prove that a disgruntled customer will tell more people that they’re unhappy with you as opposed to a satisfied […]

Dealership Service Departments Are More Customer-Centric

To compete against independent repair facilities, service departments at car dealerships all over North America are stepping up in areas of customer service, convenience, follow-through and almost every aspect of their operations. With so many options available for car owners today, dealership service departments are looking for innovative methods to attract new and existing clients for […]