Dealerships today are focused on digital marketing more and more. The world gets more digital every day, so the online attention makes sense. You always want to “skate to where the puck is going,” but what happens when all your competition is already there?

That’s when diversifying your strategies makes sense, even if it means pulling out an old playbook and sprucing it up a bit. The playbook we’re pulling out in this instance is direct marketing.

Direct marketing generally includes any direct communication to customers that doesn’t rely on third-party media advertising channels. You will find digital strategies included in the concept of direct marketing, and those are important to help you stay ahead of the game. But often when our industry talks about “direct marketing,” we’re still referring to highly targeted print mail.

At DriveSure, we make it easy for new car dealerships to offer unbeatable maintenance and bring customers back for service, tires, and unplanned repairs. So, the examples we’ll explore below are focused on firsthand experience increasing benefit package awareness and activation. But it’s important to note these direct mail tactics can be applied to many other areas of your dealership.

4 Direct Mail Tactics That Work

1. Make sure your offer stands out.

Most of us take action as customers when it’s obvious there’s value we couldn’t otherwise receive. Your dealership’s customers behave the same way. Their mailboxes are full of the same old “junk mail." To stand out, you need a message that promises unique and compelling value. 

Our minds tend to jump to things like discounts and coupons when we talk about grabbing customers’ attention. While that strategy can work, it has profit-eating downsides too. Plus, it’s what everyone else is doing.

Instead of simply mailing out a bunch of mailers with discounts or promotions, consider using a mix of personalization and differentiation.

For example, the direct mail we send out for dealerships that offer DriveSure are timed based on when the customer is due for service. The mailers also pack a 1-2 punch of value. Not only do they often include a coupon or two for service offerings, they highlight the suite of DriveSure benefits (renewable roadside assistance, tire protection, and alternate transportation coverage) that’ll be included with the service at no extra charge.

2. Repeat and remind customers of conversations from the dealership.

Direct mail is a great reminder channel for customers and prospects. New car buyers are the perfect example of who can benefit from direct mail reminders.

Buying a new car can be exhausting no matter how polished your processes are. Buyers may be worried about negotiating the price, anxious about making a big purchase, and overwhelmed by the sheer amount of information they’re getting. Plus, all they’re really thinking about is getting behind the wheel of their new car.

If there’s a particular piece of information you want to make sure they understand and remember, it’s a good idea to send a reinforcing message later. A simple thank-you for their purchase along with a quick recap of what you discussed can make all the difference. This is especially true for information that’ll keep them coming back to you for service and future purchases.

3. Send print mail to customers without an email address on file.

Without a doubt, it’s always a good idea to collect email addresses from your customers – a solid benchmark is to have 75% of your customers’ email addresses.

But how do you reach the other 25%? 

Email is our primary channel for DriveSure benefit reminders so this is a question we’ve had to address ourselves. Personalized print mail has been a great backup for the dealerships we work with. This combination of email (and text messaging) and direct mail ensures you reach all of your customers through the best channel for them. 

4. Use your database to drive retention and revenue pushes.

Whether it’s sales or service, sometimes you need a revenue push to meet or exceed monthly, quarterly, or annual objectives. The best way get sales quick is to turn to the people who already know who you are. 

Here’s a direct mail example we call Traffic Driver campaigns. First, we work with dealerships to pull a list of customers from their database who haven’t visited the dealership in, for example, nine months. Then, we send a direct mailer to these customers – usually with an offer to reactivate their DriveSure benefits or to announce the introduction of DriveSure benefits if it’s a new initiative for the dealership. It’s that simple, but effective.

To see a strategy like this in action, check out how Mazda of Orland Park used DriveSure direct mail to help generate a 6x return-on-investment in this case study.

The Goal of Dealership Direct Marketing

As we’ve covered before, digital marketing strategies do work. Channels such as text messaging, mobile alerts, and email are all effective because most customers spend time on those channels already. But it would be a mistake to abandon direct mail.

There are many tactics to consider for business development and customer retention. The question is: which ones are right for your current situation and needs? Pay attention to market trends and how things are changing, but don’t lose sight of the ultimate goal – business growth.

Let’s be honest, the car buying experience right now isn’t great for most buyers. Vehicles cost more (if people can even find one), and some buyers are waiting months for delivery. With the inventory shortage creating such negative impacts on customer experience, it’s more critical than ever for dealerships to focus on the things they can control to delight as many customers as possible.

While dealership profitability is higher now than in previous years, there’s no guarantee this windfall will last. Things will return to some version of “normal” eventually. The dealerships that’ll be most successful over the long term are the ones that take action now to make customers happy and ensure they keep coming back.

It’s time to play the long game and think about our customers now as our customers forever. Let’s explore how.

Set the stage for a return customer from day one.

As we say at DriveSure, the service experience starts with the sale. But dealerships should zoom out and look at the big picture of how sales and service are connected. As your number of service customers increases, so does your number of future vehicle buyers—not to mention all the revenue you’ll earn on return service visits in the meantime.

That’s why getting buyers to return for service is so important to preserving your high profitability. Customer satisfaction is largely driven by a feeling of comfort and removing friction. Keep it simple for vehicle buyers and make a low-pressure introduction to the service team. Grab a free copy of our sales-to-service handoff checklist for more guidance.

Train your team to delight every customer.

Employee training is key to the success of any dealership department. And in the current market, every team member needs to be sharp and understand how their roles fit into the bigger picture. The list of training areas for a dealership is endless, but the focus point right now should be on boosting customer satisfaction.

They are experiencing it firsthand, but make sure every employee has a strong grasp on the inventory shortage and other market realities. Talk about how this impacts the customer experience and consider creating some talking points for sales and service team members (like you would for a mock sales conversation). Over time, training your team to delight every customer will pay dividends when it comes to dealership customer retention.

Get good at selling without the test drive.

For as long salespeople have been selling vehicles, they’ve relied heavily on letting customers see and experience the vehicle a buyer may be interested in. Few things are as powerful as letting a customer sit in a new drivers’ seat, smell that new-car small, play with the latest auto tech, and feel the rush of accelerating on a test drive. But with so many lots empty, all that is quickly becoming replaced with showing a customer a vehicle on a computer screen. And with new entrants like Tesla exploring direct-to-consumer models and even Ford moving toward more build-to-order sales, this way of selling may remain popular even after supply catches up with demand.

While this change is a drastic one, it’s still early days. Figure out how to make your team great at selling without the vehicle in front of them. Explore new ways to get buyers excited and experiment with how your dealership can offer value beyond what a customer could do at home on a manufacturer’s website. Adapting to this change won’t be easy, but the future of your dealership may end up depending on whether you invest time and resources into embracing it as early as possible.

Prioritize customer loyalty.

There are many ways to build customer loyalty, including some tactics I’ve already mentioned in this article. During this inventory shortage especially, small details can make a big difference. Here are a few ideas to consider:

• Engage your customers on social media: In addition to regular content creation and posts, look at fun and light ways to keep people thinking about your dealership. This could be a funny video featuring employees or even an audience challenge where the winner gets a prize from the dealership.
• Provide special offers to your loyal customers: Show your most frequent customers your dealership appreciates them by offering discounts in your online store, service specials, free vehicle detailing, or even special gift packages.
• Send your customers cards on special occasions: Like I said, it’s the little things that make a big difference. Set up a system (to the extent it’s possible) for making sure your most frequent customers get birthday cards and holiday cards.
• Offer incentives with DriveSure: Building customer loyalty is where DriveSure shines – offering a suite of renewable benefits like road hazard tire protection, renewable roadside assistance, and emergency alternate transportation at no cost to your customers for the length of the service interval. With DriveSure, the customer just has to come back to the dealership for service or repairs to renew their perks. It’s never been easier to delight your customers and give them new reasons to return.

The key to keeping customers coming back despite bumps in the road is knowing where they are and how to get out ahead of them. Read our guide on avoiding potholes in the customer journey to learn more.

How to Keep Your Team Sharp & Satisfied

The average tenure for dealership employees in the United States is under two years.

It’s a huge challenge to grow a dealership if your average tenure is near that. Turnover costs your business valuable time, performance, and money. And it’s all connected.

The benefits of employee training are clear. When you invest in training your employees, they feel like valued members of the team and even perform better. What does a sharp and satisfied team mean for the dealership? A stronger bottom line.

We know the best ways to attract and retain top talent are to have a strong culture, clear (and promising) career paths, and effective leadership. With those big picture concepts in mind, let’s look at some specific ways you can keep your team sharp and satisfied.

Employee Training Tips: How to Keep Your Team Sharp & Satisfied

#1 Offer Platform-Specific Onboarding & Training

#2 Train for the Soft Skills

#3 Host Internal Workshops Led by Team Members

#4 Create Your Own Certification Program

#5 Give Access to Online Learning Programs

Offer Platform-Specific Onboarding & Training

Whether it’s a DMS or one of the many tools used by your service techs, sometimes new technology costs more time than they free up. Having appropriate team members consistently trained on these tools can save your dealership considerable time and money. Not only will they work faster, but they will be less likely to spend time on troubleshooting and ultimately make fewer mistakes in the system or with the tool.

Most software companies offer onboarding (aka implementation) for the main users. Often you can pay a separate fee to get that same training for other members of the team. If you want to avoid additional platform fees – and your dealership doesn’t have an IT Manager – consider making an employee your “platform expert” who can conduct trainings in-house. Beyond software, make sure your dealership has an employee handbook with documented instructions for every platform and tool. And if you have that, make sure someone on your staff is in charge of keeping it updated as instructions change and tools get added.

Train for the Soft Skills

We know from our research that few things are more important for your dealership’s success than a great customer experience. Even loyal customers have little patience for a bad experience, while an outstanding experience can go a long way towards improving your retention.

That’s why training for people skills is so important. Make sure you’re regularly role playing with customer-facing employees and take action on your customer reviews, both positive and negative. They’ll often point you to the behaviors you should reward as well as the ones you’ll need to coach.

Host Internal Workshops Led by Team Members

The best way to learn is to teach.

Another great training method that also builds team morale is internal workshops. With these, your dealership has a calendar of weekly or monthly meetings where a team member (or small group) trains their peers on a certain topic or tool.

Internal workshops led by team members work because they force the teachers to master a topic or tool. They also work because the training is being delivered by a peer, a team member everyone can align themselves with. Keep it light and make it fun! Consider ordering food and drinks for the team members since this may be outside of their normal working hours.

Create Your Own Certification Program

“Certification program” doesn’t mean your employees get a plaque; don’t get carried away with this one. We’re simply referring to a formal training checklist. Think about each job description on your team, and then create a list of imperatives your employees must learn and develop.

By reframing your different jobs as a certification program, you “gamify” the employee experience at your dealership. Instead of just waiting for a promotion (or leaving), employees can see exactly what they need to learn in order to advance. This will both sharpen your team’s skills and promote employee retention.

Give Your Team Access to Online Learning Programs

Online learning programs for dealerships like DrivingSales span far and wide. Once you choose a program you like the best, think about what your team needs to learn and how they will get individual access. From handling sales objections to industry compliance standards, there are many areas your team can learn more about through an online program.

Here are some of the main areas to focus on when searching for and designing your team’s online learning program:

• Customer communications
• Dealership operations
• Compliance awareness
• Conversational sales tactics
• General management concepts

Paying for your team’s access to an online learning program shows how much your dealership values professional development, and it will pay dividends over time as your employees learn and grow.

What will your team learn next?

It’s a commonly known, quoted, and understood fact that it’s at least 5 times more expensive to acquire a new customer than it is to keep an existing one.

Based on that statistic, it’s no wonder so many organizations (and dealerships) make customer retention a major strategy for improving overall revenue and profit. But what happens if, despite your best efforts, your customers just aren’t coming back? Without direct insight into your customers’ minds, it can feel like you’re fighting an uphill battle…and losing.

In our 2020 Dealership Service Retention Report, we explored exactly why (even loyal) customers don’t come back to your dealership and in this article we’ll highlight the top five reasons you could be losing your best customers and how to change that.

Top 5 Reasons Your Customers Aren’t Coming Back…

Whether it’s a bad first impression or a high price tag, these five reasons could spell disaster for customer loyalty and revenue.

1. A Previous Bad Experience

Nothing makes a customer walk away faster than a bad experience. Don’t believe us? According to PWC, “32% of all customers would stop doing business with a brand they loved after one bad experience.” That doesn’t leave much wiggle room.

And in the world of social media and Yelp reviews, that lost customer can cost you quite a bit. But bad experiences aren’t just limited to a customer thinking a service representative was rude. In fact, it can include:

• Having to repeat an issue to multiple people within the department
• Sticker shock, especially for the first visit after their warranty expires
• Feeling pressured into additional (potentially costly) services

…And Strategies to Change that

Customer experience isn’t just a skill for your service advisors, everyone on your team needs to be equipped to provide your customers with top-notch service. If you find yourself losing customers to bad experiences think about implementing a customer feedback loop to allow your team members to receive valuable customer insight or provide yearly training on customer service techniques.

2. Lower Prices at Other Service Centers

Sometimes it really is about the dollars and cents. And for many that can be a difficult problem to overcome. However, it’s important to note that discounts and deals don’t always equate to loyalty, so don’t jump to offer a lower price quite yet!

…And Strategies to Change that

Instead of focusing on cost, focus on value. Competing solely on price point is a losing battle, but providing customers with additional value with their service will keep them coming back again and again.

An easy way to do that? Partnering with a renewable benefits provider like DriveSure means your customer’s oil change now comes backed by roadside assistance, tire hazard protection, and emergency alternate transportation. An oil change will never look the same again!

3. The Services Needed are Minor

Small repairs or maintenance can be a gold mine for your service department, but only if your customers bring their cars to you. And when the repair is small enough for a relative, friend, or local shop to do, customers might be less inclined to bring you their business.

…And Strategies to Change that

Sometimes it really is as easy as improving awareness of your services. Make sure your customers know your service department can help with all kinds of maintenance and repairs…from the small to the extensive.

Bonus: This can be especially true when it comes to tires. According to that same Retention Report, over 20% of customers didn’t know if their dealership offered tire repairs or not. Don’t lose out on tire customers just because your service isn’t well advertised. Talk it up and gain some traction with your tire sales.

4. A More Convenient Location

In today’s world of overnight shipping and hour or less delivery, convenience is a big factor in customer loyalty.

…And Strategies to Change that

Unfortunately, you can’t up and move your service department to make it more accessible for every customer. What you can do is advertise using local SEO so nearby customers know where to go when they are in need of a repair.

Bonus: Providing customers with dealer-loyal roadside assistance means when or if they experience an unplanned repair, their cars go to your dealership and not the repair shop down the street.

5. A Referral or Recommendation from a Friend

Customers trust other customers. If a friend is recommending a different service department, even a loyal customer of yours may be willing to try them out.

…And Strategies to Change that

Loyal customers = more referrals for your business. By providing customers with a quality experience, better value for their money, and convenient access to repairs of any kind, you’ll be well on your way to developing a rolodex of referrals. To maximize this effect, make sure your happy customers are also encouraged to leave online reviews for your dealership too.

Don’t keep letting your customers just walk away. Implement these strategies and watch your customer retention and revenue skyrocket.

We help a lot of dealerships across the country attract and retain service customers, but many of our dealership partners are currently facing another challenge too: attracting and retaining quality auto technicians.

As the industry continues to experience a severe shortage of auto technicians, an issue which doesn’t appear to be going away any time soon according to a 2020 Tech Force report, service departments are faced with the seemingly insurmountable task of filling vacancies to serve vehicles.

In fact, according to that same report, “Although demand is strong, with 642,000 auto/diesel/collision techs needed between 2020 and 2024, the shortage continues to worsen.”

And while efficiency and scheduling have been proven to help service departments to some degree, the fact remains the same: we need more auto technicians.

How do you solve this seemingly impossible puzzle? While we may not have a crystal ball, we do have a few crystal-clear insights to help you find and hire your next auto tech.

10 Tactics to Finding and Hiring Technicians

Ready to start hiring? These 10 tactics will help you find, hire, and retain your top talent. Keeping your service bays filled, with cars and the technicians trained to service them.

Improving Recruitment and Awareness

First things first, if you want to hire the right people, the right people have to know you’re hiring. Getting the word out will drive demand for your job listings and broaden your candidate pool now and in the future.

1. Partner with Local Training Programs/Vocational Schools

The NADA Foundation has created a national repository of training programs and vocational schools for new technicians looking to enter the industry. Partner with the existing programs in your area to open the door for new technicians to find the right opportunity with your dealership.

2. Use the Job Boards

Indeed or Monster may be your first thought when you heard the words “Job Board” but don’t forget about industry-specific job boards as well. Posting your jobs there will ensure the right people are seeing your listings. Some automotive job boards include:

• Find a Wrench
• AutoJobs.com
• NeedTechs.com
• AutoServiceJobs.com
• AutoCare Careers

3. Host In-Person or Virtual Events

Recruiting events are a great way to engage a large number of potential hires. Make sure you are advertising your event with local training programs, through your social media, and on your website for the best turnout.

4. Leverage Your Technicians’ Networks

Chances are, your existing technicians know other technicians in the industry. Leverage their networks to get the word out that you’re hiring and find qualified individuals faster.

Bonus tip: Include a referral bonus for your existing technicians to incentivize your team and really get this program up and running.

5. Differentiate Your Service Department

Make it clear what differentiates your service department from others, whether it’s a stellar training program or an extremely loyal customer base. Highlighting the benefits and advantages of your service department will not only attract the kind of talented technicians you’re looking for but keep them around long term.

Creating the Right Employee Experience

The industry-wide technician shortage has given auto technicians the upper hand in the recruitment and hiring process – making employee experience a critical factor for technicians who are on the job hunt and even those who may seem happily employed. Get ahead of the curve and implement some of these best practices to draw attention and interest to your dealership while simultaneously keeping your best technicians happy.

1. Simplify the Interview Process

The employee experience starts with the interview, which means you need to make a great first impression if you want to win out over the other 10 dealerships a candidate may be considering.

2. Do Your Job Market Research

This can be especially helpful in determining fair market salary and other employee benefits. Making your employee compensation package competitive will be the difference between a great technician accepting your offer or passing for another dealership or repair shop.

3. Create a Mentorship Program

Not every new hire will be a superstar out of the gate. And even some of your more experienced technicians could stand to improve a specific set of skills or techniques. Creating a mentorship program allows your tenured technicians to pass down their knowledge and know-how to the new generation.

4. Send Your Technicians Back to School

Want to make sure your entire team is top of their game? Send your technicians back to school or start your own training program. Not only will this ensure your technicians can offer the services your customers are requesting, but when technicians feel like you are invested in them, they become invested in you.

5. Equip Your Team with the Latest Technology and Equipment

In any career it can be difficult to do your job without the right equipment, but even more so in the automotive industry. If your department isn’t spending the money to arm your team with the necessary technology and equipment, they may be more inclined to look for another dealership who will.

The supply and demand of auto technicians has created an extremely competitive market which has left many service departments wondering which direction to turn. But with these simple tactics, your next hire could be right around the corner.

Today’s service department is facing a supply and demand dilemma: increasingly busy service bays operated by increasingly less staff. A quandary which has led countless service department managers and directors to ask, “how can we do more with less?”

The answer: efficiency.

Calibrating your operations to make the most of the team you already have might just be the release valve you’ve been looking for. Because there will never be more hours in the day, but you can always do more with the hours you have.

To that end, we’ve gathered nine tactics to improve efficiency and scale your service department business to meet demand and maybe even grow revenue.

Top 9 Efficiency Tactics

“Efficiency is doing better what is already being done.” – Peter Drucker

The power of efficiency is seen best in the improved productivity and overall output of your team. Removing the timewasters and roadblocks allows your team to work better and work faster.

1. Training and Processes

No doubt your team has been thoroughly trained to do their jobs to the best of their ability, however, that doesn’t always translate to doing their jobs in the most efficient manner. By setting clear and precise processes (and then training your team accordingly) you can ensure that your entire team works to the same standard and productivity level – reducing inefficiencies by clearly communicating how every job is expected to be completed.

2. Finding the Right Schedule

Picture this: the first hour of the day your service team is slammed with business, every team member working feverishly to complete jobs on time. A few hours later, and your service bay is only half-filled, team members catching their breath from the early morning rush. The problem is clear, and the problem is scheduling.

Scheduling correctly removes the peaks and valleys that result in harried works left increasingly burnt out, balancing the workload to make the best use of your business hours and your team.

Pro-Tip: Offering pick-up and delivery not only improves the customer experience but allows your team to control the entire process. Meaning you can be certain your service bays remain busy throughout the entire day.

3. Removing Non-Billable Tasks

Your service team shouldn’t be wasting their precious billable hours on non-billable tasks. That helps no one. By reducing or completely removing these menial tasks you free up your service team’s day to focus solely on the jobs that will drive business and drive revenue.

4. Using a Business Development Center

In line with removing non-billable tasks, investing in a BDC is one of the best ways to support your service team. Instead of taking hours to schedule appointments and follow-up with customers, your service team can redirect their efforts to the jobs they were trained and hired to do.

Plus, BDC’s are trained to efficiently manage and support your service team, scheduling new appointments and bringing in additional revenue to your dealership.

5. Supporting Your Team with Technology

The right technology can be the difference between a team bogged down with tasks and one that continuously drives increased revenue. Whether that’s an improved system for tracking customers and their service needs or something as simple as a task management platform, finding the technology that enables your team to do their jobs better and faster is well worth the investment.

6. Improving Your Organizational Skills

Ever lost your keys and wasted a half hour running through your house checking under every couch cushion and in every cupboard? That kind of inefficiency can be the ruin of a perfectly running service department. Creating an organizational system (and sticking to it) means your team members never waste time hunting down the necessary car part or tool.

And while that may not seem like a huge improvement, these small moments can add up to afford your team a huge amount of additional time.

7. Streamlining Vehicle Pick-Up and Repair Order Close Out

Improving efficiency throughout the entire service process without improving the vehicle pick-up and repair order close out is kind of like running a marathon only to quit a mile from the finish line. Don’t let your team get hung up at the end by making the payment process a chore. Whether that means standardizing your billing or expanding the number of payment options you accept, your team and your customers will thank you.

Bonus: New technologies allow customers to pay remotely, removing the need to stop at the cashier altogether.

8. Investing in Your Customers

Speaking of customers, one of the best ways to ensure your bays are busy and your service team is running efficiently is to keep your loyal customers loyal. How? Offering incentives that service customers want, like the ones they identified in our 2020 research report.

Renewable benefit programs with those incentives promote customer loyalty and regularly scheduled maintenance. The benefits of which are twofold because happy customers are easier to work with and schedule around. Making your service team’s work easier and more predictable.

9. Reviewing Performance

Like any project, creating efficiencies in your team will require work and review. Check in to see how processes are impacting productivity. See how that new customer support system is being used by your service team. Analyze the scheduling to determine if you are still experiencing valleys of unused time. Continuing to look for new ways to improve will only help your team and grow your revenue.

Your service department has the potential to be a huge source of business and revenue. Don’t get bogged down with easy-to-fix inefficiencies – make the most of your team and see the revenue roll in.

Last year, dealership service sales were estimated to reach $49.5 billion in the United States alone. For dealerships focused on their business development (and even those who aren’t), stats like that are extremely promising – and point to a much larger opportunity.

It’s almost too easy to assume new vehicle sales would be the main source for business development. After all, the revenue off a new vehicle will always be much higher than that of say a typical repair order. But such a narrow focus on one source of business growth can leave your dealership stalled out – ignoring the potential profit center within your service department.

Bonus: A whopping 46% of service customers plan to buy their next vehicle from the same dealership servicing their existing car. That’s an opportunity you don’t want to waste.

Refocusing Your Business Development

Your service department offers a unique opportunity for business development – unlocking heightened revenue and sales growth. And who doesn’t want that?

But first things first, setting your benchmarks.

A couple of things you might want to consider when taking stock of your current metrics and future goals include:

1. How much revenue is your service department currently bringing in? What percentage of your total revenue does this make up?
2. How does that compare to your competitors or industry standards?
3. How many repair orders make up that revenue number?
4. How many sales are coming from repeat customers? If the number is low, why is it low?
5. What are your most profitable services? In number of sales and revenue per sale?
6.  

Answering these questions will give you a good idea of where your service department currently stands and where it can be improved. Plus, you’ll get a good idea of specific services that will lead to the most profitable growth in the future.

Tactics for Business Development

Business development doesn’t just happen. These four business development tactics have helped drive growth for dealerships and businesses before you, and could be your key to new sales, improved revenue, and exponential expansion.

1. Invest in Your Resources

Having the right team is crucial to your business development success, a key reason why so many dealerships have invested in a business development center (BDC). These centers focus on a variety of sales and business development goals, and can act as a key driver of service business – bringing in new appointments and getting referrals. Which lets your service department focus on what they do best.

While the up-front investment can seem like an unnecessary expense on an already crowded bottom-line, the customer service and experience these departments are able to provide will quickly prove to be worth the extra cost. And as they bring in more customers, they also bring in more revenue. Covering the investment and then some.

Putting it into Practice: Setting Appointments

Between setting appointments, meeting with customers, and actually servicing the customers’ cars, your team has quite the daily to-do list. By reallocating the precious time they would normally use to set new appointments, your team can focus on providing the customers in your dealership with the highest possible standard of quality and overall experience.

Meanwhile, your BDC can focus their efforts on setting additional revenue-generating appointments for your team: reaching out to repeat customers, scheduling first time visits, and getting referrals.

2. Regularly Communicate with Customers

Did you know that in a recent survey only 44% of dealership service customers stated that they prefer to get all their vehicle service needs performed at a dealership? That leaves a whopping 56 percent of customers that are taking their business and their revenue elsewhere at least some of the time – and that doesn’t even include people who never take their vehicle to dealership service departments.

Communicating with new and existing customers may seem like an obvious business development tactic, but it’s one worth repeating. If a car-owner isn’t aware of the services you offer, how can they be expected to come to you for that service? Regularly reaching out to customers, whether through an email campaign or a social media ad, keeps you top of mind for the next time they find themselves in need of an unexpected repair or just their regularly scheduled maintenance.

Putting it into Practice: Running a Conquest Campaign

This type of campaign specifically targets customers looking for a service or repair from a competitor. The best part about a campaign of this nature? You are reaching out to qualified individuals actively looking for a service you offer. Take advantage of that moment and make them a customer for life. Not sold? When we helped run a DriveSure direct mail conquest campaign for Mazda of Orland Park, they generated over $100,000 in revenue. Talk about growth!

3. Add Value to Your Service

Add-ons, incentives, loyalty programs. Whatever you call it, customers love it. And it’s the reason they come back again and again. When you can directly add value to what would normally be a typical repair or service, you win more than just customer loyalty, you win positive word of mouth.

Why does that matter? Because when you can rely on positive word of mouth, your customers will do your business development for you. Referring friends and family to your dealership the next time they need anything from a tire rotation to a transmission tune-up.

Putting it into Practice: Partnering with a Service Provider

Partnering with an incentive service provider, like DriveSure, makes it that much more enticing for your customers to return to your dealership for their regularly scheduled maintenance. With renewable benefits like premium roadside assistance and road hazard tire protection, the added value makes it even more enticing for vehicle owners to do business with you.

4. Align Your Service with The Customer Journey

Fact: A bad experience is the leading reason why customers don’t return to their dealership for ongoing service. It’s no wonder why customer experience has become such a hot topic. In today’s market, customers expect an outstanding experience, and more than that, they expect it to be personalized to their preferences and their specific journey.

Doing so will also help to avoid the five most common service customer defection points along that journey. If you want to explore those defection points further, and get tips on how to overcome them, grab a copy of our free guide: Avoiding Potholes in the Customer Journey.

Whether your customer needs their first tire rotation, or they are looking to trade in their vehicle, when customers feel like an individual (instead of just a number) they respond with ongoing loyalty – and that can pay in dividends. In fact, according to HBR, “loyalty leaders…grow revenues roughly 2.5 times as fast as their industry peers.” 

Putting it into Practice: A Seamless Sales-to-Service Handoff

Every customer journey starts somewhere, and the majority of your customer journeys will start with the sale of a new car. But then what? Creating that seamless sales-to-service handoff is your starting point to ongoing service sales and future business growth – so it’s important you get it right.

What does that look like? Like the rest of their journey, this handoff will be personalized to the individual customer, but it can include setting the first service appointment at the point of sale or offering a tour of your service department. Whatever the means, the goal is to make that new sales customer comfortable with becoming your newest service customer.

The success of your business development strategy depends upon a multitude of factors, but by integrating just a few of these tactics, you’ll be well on your way to achieving your goals and driving new growth. And it all starts with your service department.

Your customer has signed on the dotted line, happily driving off the lot in their brand-new vehicle. It’s easy to think of what comes next as a bit of a honeymoon period. Whether they’re covered by a factory warranty or lucky enough to have factory-paid maintenance, the brand-new vehicle owner is enticed to come directly to your dealership for their maintenance and repairs.

But like most good things, your customer’s warranty must come to an end. 10 years or 100,000 miles later (even sooner if we’re talking factory-paid maintenance) and that loyal, revenue-driving relationship suddenly hits a bit of a roadblock. Why? The vehicle owner’s coverage has expired, and literally overnight every ding to their car is now a ding to their wallet. Hello, sticker shock.

With your customer at a proverbial fork in the road, your dealership faces a critical challenge: incentivize ongoing loyalty or risk losing out to the auto repair chain down the road. The good news: the industry as a whole is seeing an upswing in customer loyalty. But it’s up to you to make that swing a home run.

Driving Customer Retention

So, how do you do it? How do you take advantage of what could be a critical moment to ensure your customers don’t drive off into the sunset with your competition? We’ve put together our top four tips for keeping customers and keeping them happy. 

Before the Expiration Date

Think of these tips as your building blocks, setting the stage for when expiration day hits and your customer has a choice to make between you and someone else. Because in reality, it should never come down to just one interaction. You need to be continuously building out a loyal (and lasting) relationship with every customer that comes to your dealership.

1. Educate Your Audience

Think sticker shock is bad? Imagine the shock a customer faces when they are handed a bill with a hefty price tag AND they have no idea what went into their vehicle maintenance. It’s a recipe for disaster. 

Keeping your customers educated is the easiest (and most cost effective) way to build loyalty and trust. When you can position yourself as both the expert in your field and the expert on your customer’s car, you become the go-to person for all things service and maintenance – from oil changes to tires to whatever check engine challenges your customer might face on their journey.  

Pro Tip: Don’t wait until your customer has an issue with their car or warranty to start educating them. Before they even drive off the lot make sure they have a clear understanding of their car and their warranty – what it covers, what it doesn’t, and how long it lasts.

2. Reputation Matters

Reputation can mean different things to different people, but unless you fancy yourself a Joan Jett impersonator, chances are you don’t want a bad one. And thanks to factory-paid maintenance and/or warranties you have a chance to prove yourself – and build out a sterling reputation – before your customer is faced with deciding between your dealership and another service provider. 

Don’t waste that opportunity. Show off your service skills. Prioritize the customer experience. In short, make it so your customer never even considers another option. Because you are THAT good. 

After the Expiration Date

It’s expiration day and your customer has started shopping around for the best deals. They come to you with one critical question: How you are better than the shop down the road? 

Not sure what to say? We’ve got you covered.

3. Define the Difference

As a dealership you face an unfortunate, but true fact. Many of your customers simply don’t understand how you differ from any other service shop. While you may have been able to make some headway building up your reputation prior to expiration day, if you want to win in the fight for loyalty you’re going to have to highlight how and why you are better than your competition. Whether that’s your customer experience or your service expertise or both.

Luckily for you, you have the chops to back up your claims. Now you just have to communicate it out to your audience. 

Want to widen the gap between yourself and your competition? Partnering with a service offering like DriveSure, that bundles renewable value-added benefits with your customers’ regularly-scheduled maintenance puts a feather in the cap of your already outstanding offerings. 

4. Put the I in Incentive

What’s the best way to keep your customers coming back again and again? Incentivize them. Because who doesn’t love a free extra or a discounted deal?

There are a few different ways to think about incentives when it comes to your customers, but we are going to focus on two of the most common: 

Loyalty/Reward Programs: These types of programs encourage, well, loyalty. It’s a concept we see across industries, but which has a particular strong-hold in the automotive world. Whether it’s a point system that ends in high-ticket rewards or a freebie with purchase, these programs are often used to encourage customer retention. 

Value-Adds: It’s a commonly accepted business principle that customers are willing to pay more for a better experience. And how do you elevate their experience? By bringing in more value. Why go somewhere else for an oil change when going to the dealership means your oil change is complemented with extra perks? Incentive programs like DriveSure help dealerships elevate their value by offering customers a unique suite of renewable benefits including: premium roadside assistance, road hazard tire protection, and emergency alternate transportation. 

The Bottom-Line Impact

Two simple but hard hitting facts:

1.    Close to 50% of dealership profits come from service and maintenance departments.
2.    Dealerships provide less than one third of all service visits.

Just because the factory-paid maintenance or warranty has expired doesn’t mean your customer relationship should too. Understanding how to leverage this moment into ongoing revenue opportunities ensures your bottom-line never hits a roadblock. 

Looking to avoid other common potholes and pitfalls in the customer journey? Download our free dealership customer journey guide to explore the critical moments when customers are most likely to hit the eject button and (more importantly) how to stop them from doing so.

Electric vehicles (EVs) are quickly becoming the new norm, and service departments need to adapt to this reality. In the first quarter of 2021, battery-only EV sales soared 45% year over year, compared with 11% growth in the overall auto market, according to Cox Automotive.

This trend seems destined to accelerate in the near-term. From Ford’s launch of the F-150 Lightning electric truck, to GM committing to offer 30 new electric vehicles globally by 2025 (the same year Jaguar pledges to go all-electric), automakers across the spectrum are turning hard toward EVs.

For service departments, the clock is ticking. Unless dealerships figure out now how they will position their Fixed Ops departments in this new market, they run the risk of getting blind-sided by a significant loss of service demand (and revenue).

Part of adapting means facing the facts. Lifetime EV maintenance and repairs tend to be around half the cost of that for gas-only cars, finds Consumer Reports. But it’s not all doom and gloom. Service departments can make up some of this revenue gap by excelling at EV-specific maintenance and repairs to retain market share and build customer loyalty.

A Range of Services

When it comes to EVs, batteries take center stage. While they may not require as much maintenance as an internal combustion engine, they can still be a source of revenue for service departments.

For one, EV owners tend to care deeply about battery performance. In fact, battery and driving range is the top purchasing decision for EV owners. From there, battery range and accuracy of the displayed range account for around 20% of EV owners’ overall satisfaction, finds a J.D. Power survey.

So, there should be strong demand for maintenance that keeps batteries healthy. Work such as flushing coolants can help keep battery temperatures in check to maintain battery performance. And, making sure brakes are in good working order can also help, as regenerative braking can influence range.

Plus, when batteries do degrade over time or get damaged, they can be costly to repair or replace. While some EV owners may then decide to purchase a new EV that gets better range, service departments may still have a revenue opportunity to fix or replace older batteries.

Everyone Needs Tires

Regardless of what type of vehicle someone drives, everyone still needs quality tires and tire-related services. EV tires eventually wear down and need to be replaced and EV owners will also need services like tire rotation and balancing.

Plus, maintaining optimal tire pressure can help extend driving range. Research from ExxonMobil Chemical, published in SAE International, finds that optimizing tire pressure can improve EV range by 3-7%.

Emphasizing tire-related services can help your dealership win over all types of customers, but it’ll be especially important in getting regular business from EV owners. But dealerships have a lot of ground to make up in this area.

Over two-thirds of all vehicle owners chose a non-dealership location for their last tire replacement, according to DriveSure’s 2020 Dealership Service Retention Report. [1] And 20% of those loyal to dealership service departments are unaware their dealerships sell tires. If dealerships don’t act now to become known for tires and related services, they run the risk of losing out on the most frequently-needed maintenance for EVs.

One way for dealerships to help customers become more aware of tire offerings is through offering tire-related incentives. One of the core benefits of the road-hazard tire protection included in our DriveSure incentives is that whenever a vehicle owner has a flat, their dealership is the first place they think of because they can get the flat fixed for free. And if it turns out that they need the tire replaced, that’s covered too. This helps to associate your dealership with tires in the minds of your customers, rather than the tire shop or big box retailer down the road.

Accidents Happen

No matter the engine style, accidents still happen and require repairs. The question then is whether drivers will go to a third-party shop or a dealership for body work and related services. Given that many EV models are new, third-party body shops might not have much experience fixing certain vehicles, let alone inspecting important components like the battery. This gives dealerships the opportunity to position themselves as the experts to get EVs back to pristine condition.

Relatedly, all types of cars will still face incidents like breakdowns and flat tires. This is another place that incentive programs like DriveSure can help. DriveSure’s dealer-loyal roadside assistance perk ensures that, if a breakdown does happen in the area, the vehicle gets towed back to your dealership for quality repairs.

Market Your Expertise

Dealerships’ service departments can no longer afford to wait and see what happens with EVs. The future is now, and service departments need to find ways to capture revenue from EV owners.

By marketing your dealership as an expert in EV servicing needs, you can win over customers and build loyalty in this young but rapidly growing market. Focusing on EV owners’ top concerns, such as battery range, along with showcasing your dealership as the go-to place for EV tires, body work and other repairs can help your dealership easily navigate this transition.

The service department is a crucial profit center for new-car dealerships. But earning and retaining the customers that make that profit possible isn’t easy. Aftermarket service providers are constantly working to win your customers over, and they’re often pretty good at it.

However, dealerships have several built-in advantages that they can play up to capture and keep more business. And, with a little effort, there’s more they can do to remain the best and most obvious choice for vehicle owners.

Specifically, new-car dealerships can take the following actions to gain an edge over the competition:

1. Compete on Service Quality

Trying to compete only on price and discounts creates a race to the bottom. That’s a game dealerships don’t want to play. Instead, new-car dealerships can compete on service quality.

Our 2020 Dealership Service Retention Report that while customers do value price, they value quality of work even more when deciding where to go for service. By promoting their expertise with servicing specific makes and models, dealerships can remain the most attractive option. Better yet, let your customers help you promote your superior quality with a strategy for earning more positive online reviews.

But quality of maintenance/repair work is only half the battle. Dealerships also need to compete based on the quality of their customer service. The smoother you can make the experience from appointment setting to paying for service, the better. The goal needs to be 100% satisfaction. Just one bad experience can cause even the most loyal customers to consider other service providers.

2. Provide a Personalized Experience

In addition to enhancing customer experience based on providing top-notch maintenance/repair work, dealerships can also create more personalized experiences to keep customers satisfied.

“Think about selling forward: If a retailer retains the data that a buyer tested an SUV before buying a compact sedan, it can offer the SUV as a service loaner,” suggests Deloitte.

Dealerships can also create more personalized, convenient experiences such as through online appointment setting and appointment reminder systems. Ask customers their preferred communication methods, such as text, email, or phone call. Then, instead of calling every customer for service reminders, you can keep in touch through individual customers’ preferred channels to provide a better experience.

3. Be Proactive With Inspections

One of the factors holding back dealerships from gaining more service business is the fact customers often choose different providers for different services. 56% of dealership service customers that participated in our research go elsewhere for some services.

Most go to dealerships for needs like manufacturer-recommended maintenance, electrical issues, and unknown issues or check engine warnings. But for other issues such as with batteries, tires, and body work, consumers are much less likely to return to dealerships.

However, if dealerships can be proactive about identifying issues in these areas when providing other maintenance, that can elevate customer experience and keep them coming back to you for more work. But simply conducting a multi-point inspection isn’t enough. You also need to ensure your team has the people-skills and proper approach to upselling that’ll be effective in getting customers to take proactive action on your recommendations.
 

4. Get Serious About Tires

As mentioned, dealerships tend to lose out when it comes to tire-related business. In fact, 69% of dealership service customers in our study went elsewhere the last time they needed a tire replaced.

But that’s not just because they’re looking for the cheapest option. Almost one-quarter of vehicle owners weren’t aware whether their dealership even sold tires. Even among loyal dealership customers, 20% are unaware.

That means dealerships need to do more to publicize their tire sales and repair offerings. The more customers can associate dealerships with tires, the better.

One way to stand out from the competition is to leverage technology that ties into enhanced inspections. Almost 60% of tire checks are based only on visual inspections, according to UVeye, a vehicle inspection technology provider. Yet nearly half of service personnel think “that automated tire-inspection systems would more accurately pinpoint serious problems and help ensure customer safety,” the company notes.

Another way to ensure customers come back when they need tires is to offer tire repair and replacement for free as an added perk. With DriveSure, dealerships can provide renewable road hazard tire protection with every maintenance service and vehicle purchase. This kind of incentive ensures customers come back to you when they get a flat and gives them another reason to think of your dealership as a tire provider.

Provide Unique Value-Added Incentives

Amenities like vehicle pick-up and delivery, good coffee, and shuttle services are commonly used to keep customers happy. But incentives are where the real magic lies in attracting and retaining customers.

Value-added incentive offerings like the ones DriveSure empowers dealerships to provide to customers provide a competitive advantage that keeps third-party service providers at bay.

We’ve already discussed how DriveSure can help with tires, but DriveSure doesn’t stop there. With every qualifying service visit or vehicle purchase, DriveSure helps your dealership provide dealer-loyal roadside assistance, road hazard tire protection, and ride share transportation in the event their vehicle needs unplanned repairs. These benefits expire at the end of the dealership-recommended maintenance interval and can only be renewed by returning to the dealership for a qualifying maintenance service, such as an oil change.

With DriveSure, customers have extra reason to come back on time for regular maintenance. And, if they face an unplanned breakdown or flat tire, DriveSure makes your dealership the obvious choice to remedy the issue.

Stand Out From the Crowd

Vehicle owners have many options to choose from for servicing, but dealerships can do more to stand out as the go-to choice. Instead of trying to be the lowest-price option, dealerships that can play up their expertise and provide high-quality service can break away from the competition.

And by offering amenities like DriveSure benefits, which are unique to new-car dealerships, you can keep customers coming back for more services, such as tires. Over time, more customers will come to rely on your dealership for all their servicing needs, rather than picking and choosing different maintenance/repair shops based on the service needed.