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.

Service advisors are the bridge between your customers and your service department, bringing in new repair orders and new profits. Which means, if they aren’t measuring up, your service department likely isn’t either. 

Understanding exactly how to measure their success – and what you can do to improve it – will help your entire service department function more smoothly and (hopefully) at a higher profit margin.

In this article, we’ll break down the five key metrics you should be measuring and give you five pieces of advice to improve your service advisors’ performance across the board.

Key Service Advisor Metrics

Setting benchmarks will help you track who’s performing and who isn’t quite up to par. Ready, set, measure.

1.    Number of Repair Orders Per Advisor vs. Quoted Repairs

A simple but effective metric. Tracking how many repair orders your service advisors are writing every day vs. how many quotes they give to customers will tell you a few different things:

• How well your service advisors are able to convert quotes to real sales
• If your sales advisors are writing too many repair orders per day for your service department to keep up
• If your service advisors are writing too few repair orders, leaving profits on the table and your technicians standing around

2.    Hours Sold Per Repair Order

While not an advisor-only metric, this measurement can help identify if advisors are consistently discounting the price given to customers, cherry-picking orders/appointments, or otherwise mis-handling repair orders. While many measure this by simply dividing billed hours by repair orders, a more accurate measurement looks a little something like this:

3.    Point of Sale Add-Ons

Whether it’s a tire rotation or an oil change, your service advisors should be acting as salespeople AND customer advisors, recommending additional services that could benefit your customers. 

4.    Customer Satisfaction

As a customer-facing employee, it’s critical that your service advisors offer a great customer experience for every vehicle owner. If they are being too pushy or plain rude to customers, you face a substantial risk of a negative review about your service department ending up in the social sphere.

Bonus: Working with a renewable benefits provider like DriveSure makes it easy for your service advisors to surprise and delight customers. Suddenly that simple oil change now comes with the peace of mind of 24/7 roadside assistance, road hazard tire protection, and emergency alternate transportation.

5.    Customer Retention

Even if your customers are perfectly happy, they might end up going elsewhere for their vehicle maintenance. Customer retention has proven to have a direct impact on your bottom line, so if your advisors aren’t focused on retaining EVERY customer it could be time to retain new advisors.

Easy ways to measure how effective your advisors are at customer retention:

• Number of customers scheduled for their next visit before they leave the shop
• Number of reminder emails or texts sent to customers who haven’t scheduled an appointment
• (If using DriveSure or another incentive-based retention program) How clearly advisors communicate the renewable benefits that may come with regularly scheduled maintenance and the timeline for when those benefits expire

Improving Service Advisor Effectiveness

Now that you’ve set a baseline for performance, it’s time to see how your service advisors can improve on their metrics and their overall contribution to your service department.

1.    Continuous Training

Don’t let that first week be the last time your service advisors experience any kind of training. Whether it’s to help improve their sales techniques or bring them up to speed on a new service your offering, your service advisors need to be equipped with the training to do their job…and do it right.

2.    Set Target Goals and Metrics

If you haven’t defined clear goals or quotas that your service advisors should be meeting, chances are they probably aren’t meeting them. Set new benchmarks based on past performance and opportunity for improvement.

3.    Create a Clear Pricing Structure and Rule for Discounts

Letting service advisors choose when and where to apply discounts based on their own discretion is a slippery slope to less profitability. Create pricing guidelines that your service advisors can follow as well as clear instructions for when and if a discount should be applied.

Not only will this make your service advisors lives just a little easier when they need to calculate customer cost, but it will ensure maximum profitability for your department.

4.    Define Service Department Capacity and Open Lines of Communication

If your service advisors and technicians are out of whack, it can spell disaster for the effectiveness and profitability of your department. Ensure all service advisors understand the max capacity per day of the department and that they have an open line of communication with the technicians should anything need to be adjusted.

5.    Implement a Customer Feedback Mechanism

Improving customer service skills can be tricky if your service advisors never have any feedback to work off of. A customer service or feedback mechanism can help your service advisors see where they misstepped so they can avoid it in the future. Options include:

• Recorded customer service calls
• Post service customer surveys

More than likely, your service advisors are one of the (if not only) main points of contact for your customers. Measuring and improving their performance means keeping your customers happy and your profits high.

So, ready to start your review?

“Innovation needs to be part of your culture. Customers are transforming faster than we are, and if we don’t catch up, we’re in trouble.” – Ian Schafer

Dealerships are in constant competition. Between other rival dealerships, automotive repair chains, and local shops, customers have many an option to choose from. And they aren’t afraid to shift gears if the customer experience isn’t up to par.

While competing for new customers (and the loyalty of existing customers) isn’t new to dealerships, the “battleground” has transformed. Customer expectations are on the rise – and it doesn’t look like they will be decreasing any time soon.

And with such fierce competition, any opportunity for differentiation is an opportunity you should be taking advantage of. 

The good news? Dealerships have a leg up when it comes to creating that ideal customer experience. The kind that drives loyalty and makes customer want to return again and again.

And it can all be summed up in one word: amenities.

At this point, it’s fairly standard protocol for dealerships to offer things like free shuttle service or loaner cars for those customers whose cars are in the shop for an extended period of time. And while those offerings are by no means irrelevant, if dealerships want to continue to stand apart from the competition, they must elevate their amenity playbook to better fit the transforming needs of the customer.

Rideshare as an Amenity

Possibly one of the best ways to level up your CX score? Rideshare as an amenity.

Think about it. When was the last time you called a taxi? On the other hand, when was the last time you ordered an Uber or a Lyft?

Chances are the latter has occurred much more recently, and most likely, more frequently. The same could probably be said by the majority of your customers.

Transforming an Industry

Rideshare apps have changed the game. What feels like almost overnight, rideshare brands like Uber and Lyft transformed an entire industry simply by understanding the consumer and what they needed from a car service.

In Q4 of 2020 alone, there were 93 million active Uber users.

And this transportation trend isn’t just for individual consumers. As rideshare apps have increased in popularity their capabilities have proven to go beyond simply requesting a ride.

Now serving businesses globally, rideshare apps offer a host of solutions that include client/employee rides, meal delivery, and package transport.  

Transforming Your Dealership

So, what does this have to do with your dealership? A lot.

Innovation doesn’t always mean transforming an entire industry. Sometimes it’s as simple as transforming one customer’s experience.

Although most dealerships currently offer shuttle service or car loans for their customers, rideshare provides an opportunity for differentiation that can be beneficial across the board.

After all, why would a customer want to wait for a shuttle when they could just as easily request a car and be driven comfortably and quickly back to the dealership?

Some of the key benefits include:

For the customer:

1. The Convenience Factor: Chances are high your customers have used this type of service before. Forget trying to figure out a ride, requesting a car is only a few taps away.
2. Timing is Everything: Customers don’t like to wait. And when the options are a rideshare driver only a few minutes down the road or a shuttle 20 minutes away, guess which one they are going to pick?
3. Avoiding the Crowd: Even pre-pandemic, crowds probably didn’t top your customers list of favorite things. They avoid the crowd, and you avoid the complaints. Win, win.

For the dealership:

1. Low Maintenance: Offering rideshare as an amenity means you don’t have to worry about upkeep for your fleet of shuttles. Say goodbye to costly maintenance and repairs.
2. Lower Costs: Speaking of costs, maintenance and repairs aren’t the only thing you’re covering out of pocket for that shuttle service. Between the actual purchase of the shuttles and paying to run them, the dollars are quick to add up. And while an Uber or a Lyft isn’t free, this type of expense is often much less costly. Added bonus? When you work with a provider, like DriveSure, rideshare costs are covered in the event that a customer’s car breaks down and is towed back to your dealership for repairs. Keeping costs low and satisfaction high.
3. Happy Customers are Loyal Customers: It’s simple. When you can provide an easy and convenient service, your customers are more likely to return to your dealership in the future.

More than an App: Driving Loyalty

A single amenity isn’t ever going to win over hordes of new customers. What is going to win them over, however, is continuing to offer new amenities and services that prove you understand them and what they expect from their dealership of choice.

Because when losing a customer is as easy as a single bad experience, you have to make sure you are doing everything you can to drive loyalty. 

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.

From hiring and training department heads to monitoring the daily operating control (DOC) to annual forecasting, resolving elevated customer complaints, and so much more —dealership general managers (GMs) have a bevy of responsibilities.

And while the most successful GMs have a well-rounded and diverse set of skills, many of them share a common element: they’re personable salespeople at heart.

Make no mistake — that experience is invaluable when it comes to motivating the sales team and helping to close deals on the lot and showroom floor. But by leaning too heavily on their sales background, some GMs neglect (or at least overlook) the importance of their dealership service departments, even if unintentionally.

When GMs place too much attention on vehicle sales, it’s inevitable that the parts and service department takes a backseat to dealership operations.

In this article, we’ll tell you why it’s important to strike a balance between sales and service, and share some tips to help you lead a more well-rounded dealership.

Are You Maximizing Your Fixed Ops Profits?

The parts and service departments play a big role in driving the success of dealerships.

According to the National Automotive Dealers Association (NADA), fixed ops accounts for an annual average of 12 percent of a dealership’s revenue, 60 percent of a dealership’s net profits, and approximately half of the gross profits. When you look at how profitable each department is on its own – those numbers make a lot of sense.

Clearly, dealerships' financial success depends on parts and service departments to deliver results.

Service, Parts, Sales: It’s All Connected

Fixed operations can help cover dealership costs, making the process of selling cars easier.

Your service department is important to not only ratcheting up fixed ops profits, but also generating future new car sales. Instead of a singular focus on vehicle sales, give your fixed ops department the attention it needs to be successful — by making sure everyone is on the same page to cross-sell services.

The first major step is making sure your salespeople are doing everything they can to get a buyer to return to the dealership for their first service visit. We dive into the sales-to-service handoff in this article, but key components include training your sales staff and making adjustments to your sales commissions program. Both of these require support and direction from the GM level.

Parts and service departments must also be in constant communication, and GMs can help ensure a successful relationship between the two. Carefully work together to regularly review stocking levels on parts. The longer a customer has to wait for a repair, or if common parts need to be ordered leading to longer resolution times, the more frustrated they become.

According to a recent DriveSure report, tires are another area that represent a substantial growth opportunity for dealerships. Less than a third of survey respondents reported purchasing a set of tires from their dealership. Even among customers who identified as extremely loyal to their servicing dealership, only half of them buy tires there.

This is a clear indicator that many dealerships are leaving money on the table. Not only are they losing tire sales to a competitor, they’re losing an opportunity to upsell or cross-sell and may be missing out on repeat business altogether.

If you’re not keeping a keen eye on how your parts and service departments collaborate — maintaining a well-trained staff and in-demand parts fully stocked — you run the risk of losing a customer’s business for good.

This may sound simple, but these are the things typically overlooked by GMs who aren’t as invested as they should be in the fixed ops side of the business.

Adopt a “Service Sales” Department Mindset

Sometimes it just takes a change in how you view your service department. Far more than just parts and service, consider them your “service sales department.”

Instead of looking at fixed ops as a cost-center where expenses should be cut, treat them like a sales department. In doing so, you’ll be far more likely to use your sales experience to employ the leadership tactics that transform fixed ops into the profit-generating machine it should be.

This can be done with a regular sales meeting with your service advisors and managers to review performance standards, revenue goals, forecasting, and customer retention. 

• Number of customers helped each day
• Number of repair or service orders per day
• Open parts counter tickets and repair orders, especially those older than 30 days
• Average hours per RO
• Average dollars per customer-pay RO
• In-and-out times for quick lube
• Inventory of spare parts and fluids techs are storing at their workstations for side jobs
• Expenses (daily, weekly, monthly)
• Gross revenue (daily, weekly, monthly).

This regular and open communication will show you’re invested in your team and allow you to better lead from a position of knowledge and trust. It also helps you immediately identify opportunities and address issues. And perhaps most importantly, it fosters a sense of camaraderie and empowerment among your fixed ops employees.

The Most Important Fixed Ops Metric

Once you’ve made the intentional decision to focus on fixed ops ­— generating greater collaboration between departments and adopting a service sales mindset ­— you’ll find that there’s one key metric driving profitability across the entire dealership: retention.

Getting vehicle buyers to come back for service means more parts and service revenue. Keeping service customers as their vehicles age results in larger and more frequent repair orders. Consistently delighting service customers gets them to come back to you for their next vehicle purchase. It’s all about retention.

There are many ways to help you retain more customers. Using DriveSure is one method with clear results. By providing customers with a unique set of benefits with every oil change and vehicle sale, DriveSure helps you keep customers coming back for service, tires, and unplanned repairs — all without complicated loyalty programs or profit-cutting discounts.

Abe Lincoln once famously said, “give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first foursharpening the axe.”

The lesson there, of course, is that preparation and remaining ever-sharp is important to success — especially long-term success.

As the captain of the ship overseeing all the departments in the dealership, general managers know that in order to sustain a profitable business, continuous improvement is a must.

From simple things like driving the lot and signing checks to the more mundane tasks such as reviewing receivables, payables, warranty funding, rebates, and manufacturer programs — there are several functions GMs must do weekly, if not daily.

But in order to run a successful and efficient dealership that regularly delights customers and increases market share, GMs must stay ahead of the ever-changing industry trends. Here, we’ll share a few strategic insights GMs can use to improve their skills and drive their business forward.

Listen to Your Customers, Then Exceed Their Expectations

Regularly check your customer reviews on Google, Yelp, Edmunds, and DealerRater. It’s imperative you stay in the know on what they liked about their experience, what they didn’t like, and if they had expectations you couldn’t meet.

Try to acknowledge all reviews and personally respond to the negative ones with an effort to remedy the issue — get on the phone if necessary. Before you reach out, talk to any of your managers or employees who may have been mentioned in the reviews (good or bad) and understand their perspective.

With both the vehicle purchase and service experience, customers are increasingly demanding more convenience that requires innovation. Whether it’s a complete online buying option, outstanding amenities and incentives, more digital interactions, or pickup and delivery, surprising and delighting your customers should always be your top priority.

Hire (and Retain) Quality Employees

You could argue that no business benefits more from having a pleasant and knowledgeable staff than auto dealerships. Customers are making big purchases, and odds are they’re already coming in with some preconceived (often negative) notions.

From lot attendants and clerks to service advisors and salespeople, every person in your dealership is responsible for creating an exceptional customer experience. Make sure you take the time to bring in people who have not only the right skillset and experience — but the right personality and attitude as well.

According to Automotive News, the best ways to attract and keep the right employees at your dealership are to have:

- A strong culture
- An up-to-date job structure
- Effective leadership

Once you’ve assembled your “dream team,” do your best to keep them engaged, inspired, and motivated. Former GM and recognized sales and marketing trainer for auto professionals, Jim Ziegler, recommends regular meetings twice a week or more to rally the troops.

Ziegler recommends a variable meeting with department heads, including new-vehicle and pre-owned sales, fleet sales, F&I director, business development center (BDC) manager, and accounting chief to discuss:

- Inventory aging
- Trade-ins, including recon expense, time in service and wholesale profits and losses
- Who is driving our loaners, and why
- F&I product penetrations, per-copy average, and lease penetration
- Number of customers financed at 72- and 84-month terms
- Contracts in transit, funding delays, and deals delivered but not approved

As well as a fixed ops meeting with the service manager, parts manager, body shop manager, and office manager or controller to discuss:

- Open parts counter tickets and repair orders, especially those older than 30 days
- Average hours per RO
- Average dollars per customer-pay RO
- In-and-out times for quick lube
- Inventory of spare parts and fluids techs are storing at their workstations for side jobs

This regular and open communication will show you’re invested in your team and allow you to better lead from a position of knowledge and trust while fostering a sense of camaraderie and empowerment among your employees.

Regular Networking, Events, and Conferences

Referring back to our opening quote, dealers who fail to develop and grow professionally will have a difficult time staying sharp. Attending at least one annual conference (be it virtual or in-person) is a surefire way to reconnect with your peers, attend interactive workshops, hear from some visionary keynote speakers, obtain professional certification, discover new technologies, get actionable takeaways and best practices to immediately implement at your dealership, and more. Getting out of the office for a few days for an industry event can also be a great way to recharge the batteries.

A few of the top automotive industry conferences that will help you keep your dealership competitive include:

- Driving Sales Executive Summit 
- The National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA) Convention
- The National Independent Automobile Dealers Association (NIAD) Convention
- Digital Dealer

Beyond events like these, many GMs find it beneficial to join membership organizations like NADA 20 Group to “learn from legends” and regularly connect with fellow professionals to benchmark, validate, and improve.

Actively Observe and Implement Industry Trends

Good GMs try to stay active on social media and through all types of online content sources. Follow relevant organizations and thought leaders on Twitter, subscribe to newsletters, Google alerts, and keep your RSS feed filled with industry and marketing news. The more informed you are when it comes to changes and developments in the automotive industry, the more proactive you can be in taking advantage of opportunities and mitigating potential pitfalls.

Speaking of Google, social media, and other online platforms, the onus on GMs to understand effective marketing (especially digital advertising) can make or break their dealership’s success. GMs should meet with marketing and BDC managers on a regular basis so they have total visibility and full understanding of how marketing is performing within various digital channels:

- Ads on social media
- Google AdWords|
- Third-party lead providers

As the digital landscape is always shifting, taking digital marketing courses and earning certifications can greatly increase your ability to understand and work with your marketing staff and manage vendor relationships. 

Remain the Go-To Provider for Maintenance, Tires, and Repairs

If there’s one thing dealership GMs know for sure, it’s just how crucial service department customers are to their bottom-line success. If GMs can regularly get car buyers to come in for their first service and keep coming back until they’re ready for their next vehicle, they are far more likely to continually improve their overall performance.

Programs like DriveSure help GMs ensure vehicle owners come back for service by providing a suite of benefits that renew only when customers return for their scheduled maintenance.

For more tips on sharpening your skills, maximizing profits for your dealership, and becoming the go-to provider for maintenance and repairs, schedule a free consultation with a DriveSure expert today.

Despite dealership service departments’ best efforts to provide a great customer experience, many still find bringing their vehicle in for maintenance and repair to be a bit of a hassle. While we’ve come a long way as an industry — adapting and adjusting our fixed ops for “the new normal” — are we doing enough to make things as convenient as possible for our customers?

Today, as the digital age becomes more pervasive in all aspects of life, it’s imperative that dealer service departments keep up with the evolving trends customers not only prefer, but expect. Technology is certainly one of those customer demands. It’s not only valuable for improving the vehicle shopping process and generating sales, it’s becoming increasingly essential for dealer service departments as well.

So…

How digital is your dealership service department?

We get it. The thought of investing in tech and digital solutions may seem expensive and hard to implement at first, but the long game payoff is well worth it. And you don’t have to go all in from the start, either.

Here are three areas where your service department can make the digital transformation that will have the biggest impact in saving time, streamlining efficiencies, and keeping customers happy.

1. Offer Remote and Contactless Payment Services 

Do you offer your customers the ability to pay their repair order online or via text?

Most of the dealerships we work with tell us they get several calls a day with customers asking if they can pay online.

It’s a customer pain point that has a clear solution — a solution that can save all parties significant amount of time, and vastly improve the customer experience.

From ordering a pizza to taking the dog to the vet to getting your haircut, contactless payment is the norm these days, and dealer service departments should be no exception. In fact, a recent study by Visa revealed that more than two-thirds of consumers would switch to businesses that offer contactless payment.

Paying for repair orders online or through text without having to wait in line or interact with a cashier both increases customer satisfaction (your CSI scores will prove it!) and boosts dealer revenue and profitability.

Bottom line: many fixed ops departments are using integrated payment solutions to drive more revenue and retention — by simply filling a need and providing customers what they want.

2. Automate Your Check-In Process

Some Ford dealerships recently launched a cutting-edge digital kiosk pilot program that aims to expedite the service department check-in process. It’s providing a glimpse of where service departments may be heading in the not-so-distant future.

You may not be to this level of sophistication just yet (or even in the next several years), but other technologies exist for relatively easy and cost-effective digital upgrades to your check-in process.

Simply offering customers the ability for a quick iPad “check-in” when they pull into your bays saves both the techs and the customers an immense amount of time.

3. Get More Digital with Your Marketing and Communications

In our first point we mentioned how often service departments receive calls asking about online payment. You know what customer calls are even more frequent?

“What’s the status of my vehicle?”

“Is my truck done yet?”

”When can I swing by and pick up my car?”

Chances are they don’t like having to make those calls any more than you like answering them.

By going digital with your communication, you can significantly reduce that back and forth.

As customers get used to more digital interaction, it makes it even more important to keep the lines of digital communication open both when they’re onsite and when they leave the dealership. Communicating via the same channels they interact with friends and family adds a more personal touch that has become not only acceptable from your customers, but expected.

The results of DriveSure’s Dealership Retention Report were loud and clear regarding customers’ preferred method of communication, with 32 percent saying they preferred text communications between service visits, and 60 percent wanting text updates during visits.

And with 54 percent of customers indicating that they’re “likely or very likely” to download a mobile app on their phone for service reminders, this is another big opportunity for service departments.

Integrated communication and payment solutions
It’s the types of technologies and conveniences mentioned above that put an emphasis on value, convenience, and trust, meeting a strong demand and delivering an exceptional customer experience. If you’re interested in learning more about a few of the platforms that can help your fixed ops department go digital, here are some options to kickstart your research:

• Xtime

• Text2Drive

• Zipwhip

• Square

Many dealer service department customers come in for the required low-mileage maintenance. They want fast and reliable service. They want to get in and get out. That’s our reality. And in order to enhance that reality for our customers, getting more digital with their touchpoints is essential.

For a deeper dive into the types of amenities and conveniences (digital or otherwise) your service department customers are looking for, download DriveSure’s full Dealership Service Retention Report here.

Do you know what your customers chose as their fourth most preferred amenity in our recent Dealership Service Retention Report?

Vehicle pickup and delivery.

For those under the age of 34, pickup and delivery even cracked the top 3 most desirable service department amenities.

And here’s the thing—we surveyed nearly 2,000 vehicle owners who use the dealership for service before COVID-19 hit.

So as you might imagine, all the recent restrictions and public health concerns only makes pickup and delivery services more valuable for your customers.

If you hadn’t already, chances are you’ve recently begun to dabble in offering a pickup and delivery service for your customers. Here, we’ll share some information to help you get the most out of this important (if not essential) service—keeping your bays full, revenue steady, and customers happy.

Vehicle Pickup and Delivery Is No Longer a Luxury, It’s a Necessity

By now, we know that the pandemic has forced many changes to the way dealer service departments do business, many of which are here to stay. And while you’re doing all you can to ensure the health and wellness of customers, there are many people who remain reluctant to bring their vehicle in for service.

The truth is, a large portion of your customer base would be more comfortable scheduling service if their dealership:

• Offered scheduling service online

• Came to their home to get the vehicle

• Drove it to the dealership to perform service

• Delivered the vehicle back to their home upon completion

• This is the essence of pickup and delivery, and 43% of customers who are currently delaying service would be more likely to schedule an appointment if you offer this safe and convenient service, according to Cox Automotive.

Now that we’ve established its importance, here’s how to properly execute pickup and delivery…

Make sure customers know you offer a valet service. 

If you offer pickup and delivery, wear it like a badge of honor. It might be the first thing customers look for when deciding whether or not to have their vehicle serviced at your dealership.

• • Include bold callouts on your website home and parts & services pages that you provide pickup and delivery service and repair.
   
• • Create a dedicated, SEO-rich landing page on your website that details the specifics of your pickup and delivery process. Tell them why you’re doing it, all the value and benefits they’ll gain, and exactly what they can expect when enlisting your services.
   
• • Send your email list of current and potential customers a message touting your safe and convenient pickup and delivery services with a call-to-action to learn more/make an appointment on your landing page.
   
• • Spread the word on social media with regular posts about your pickup and delivery service. You might even consider making some quick videos to post with your technicians and/or service director explaining the process and why you’re doing it. Better yet, get a couple testimonials from happy pickup and delivery service customers to feature and share.

Continue to stress health and safety.

Pickup and delivery may be the ultimate in customer convenience, but it’s also a much safer option these days. That said, there might still be some concern surrounding the “unknown” factor of having someone else in their vehicle for any extended period of time.

They need to know their vehicle will be properly sanitized and disinfected after the service is complete and before the return drop-off. Be sure to provide this peace of mind in all the communication points we listed above.

More and more facilities are opting to become certified PrecisionCare retailers, providing extra-safe conditions to customers with disinfectants EPA-approved and registered for use against COVID-19.

Check out Kelley Blue Book for more sanitation tips and best practices.

Provide clear and easy scheduling for pickup and delivery.

In DriveSure’s survey and subsequent report, we found that the service department amenity customers value most was online appointment booking.

The ultimate two-birds-one-stone is to not only offer pickup and delivery, but make sure customers can seamlessly make their appointment online.

Tools like Xtime provide a customer-friendly technology platform that many dealerships use to handle everything from scheduling to communication to payment.

Go contactless when picking up and dropping off.

Be sure to gather special instructions and customer preferences during the scheduling process as it pertains to the vehicle hand off.

Some may be more sensitive to this part than others, so it’s important you provide your protocols and let the customer dictate safe and secure handling of keys, online payment, emailing invoices, and anything that reduces or eliminates face-to-face interaction.

Communicate often.

Ever order a pizza online then meticulously track the entire process? They’re preparing it…now they’re sliding it into the oven. It’s done and in Steve’s car for delivery. He’s just a few blocks away and will be there in less than 2 minutes.

It’s kind of cool, and provides for a great customer experience. You may not be set up with the same tracking software for your dealership pickup and delivery service, but there’s nothing that says you can’t regularly communicate with your customers on the status of their vehicle maintenance/repair.

Use text messaging to let them know a service technician is on the way, and include the tech’s name, phone number, and photo.

Keep them in the loop with texts as you work through service and repairs, sending them photos and videos to discuss the diagnosis, what’s needed, etc.

And when service is complete, use their preferred method of communication to coordinate the best delivery time.

Pickup and Delivery is Truly a Win-Win

A win-win in every sense, pickup and delivery has allowed fixed ops and service directors to keep their bays busy while mitigating potential health risks to their employees and customers.

Now that you know how to properly execute pickup and delivery, you’re positioned to delight your customers with next-level service and convenience that’s sure to keep your service bays full and your dealership profitable.

2020 has been the year of adapting and adjusting. Every business has been affected by COVID-19 in one way or another, and while dealership service departments are basically back to pre-pandemic levels of volume and revenue, it’s hardly business as usual.

Adjustments to the way we approach service have expedited the popularity of pickup and delivery initiatives, enhanced flexibility, and put a focus on used car service retention. Not surprisingly, it’s all anchored by augmented safety procedures.

All signs point to these changing service department value props and strategies being more than just temporary. They will certainly be a big part of service department success for the remainder of 2020, and likely stick around for years to come….

Pickup and Delivery Provides Unmatched Convenience

“Curbside” service is in vogue these days, and dealership service departments have jumped on board in a big way.

Vehicle pickup and delivery is perhaps the most notable and significant shift in the way service departments are doing business during the pandemic. And while it’s not a new concept, COVID-19 has certainly accelerated its adoption at dealerships across the country.

Pickup and delivery is essentially just as it sounds. Instead of customers bringing their vehicle to the service department, the service department comes to the customers. Appointment-based over the phone or through an app at most dealerships, customers simply schedule a day and time, and the dealership valet program does the rest.

Coming to the customer’s home or workplace to get the vehicle, taking it in for service, and returning when finished—these types of programs are now extremely popular.

A win-win in every sense, pickup and delivery has allowed fixed ops directors to keep their bays busy while mitigating potential health risks to their employees. From the customer perspective, they’re avoiding the risk altogether by sitting in their home or office instead of a crowded waiting room (dealership service departments have very strict sanitation policies for pickup and delivery vehicles).

Dealer valet service was already a valued customer amenity.

Pandemic or not, pickup and delivery is likely here to stay. In DriveSure’s Dealership Service and Retention Report released earlier this year, “vehicle pickup/delivery” was already ranked the fourth most valuable dealership service department amenity by customers.

The survey was conducted just prior to the COVID-19 outbreak in the U.S. and even then nearly 40% of respondents found value in pickup and delivery. Today, it’s likely to be an amenity front runner for the vast majority of dealership service department customers.

Increased Attention and Flexibility

It’s not just the streamlined curbside valet that’s keeping rush hour log jams out of dealer service departments these days.

Many locations are seeing more business—but at a much more manageable volume. With a large portion of the population working from home, the added work-life balance has allowed for more flexibility as it relates to customers bringing their vehicles in for service.  

It’s not all early morning drop-offs and late day pick-ups anymore. And with the traditional “rushes” no longer as pronounced, everyone from department managers to service advisors to techs and cashiers now have less stress and more time.

Quality of work and customer service are more important than ever.

Things becoming more fluid and flexible could be great news for those needing to implement a more intentional approach to providing an exceptional customer experience. And there will never be a better and more important time to focus on customer initiatives.

Why?

Because when dealership service customers were surveyed by DriveSure earlier this year, they cited “quality of work” and “quality of customer service” as two of the top factors driving them to and away from dealers for service.

This will only become more crucial for service departments as value propositions continue to evolve and customer peace of mind becomes the biggest commodity of all.

Customer Safety, Comfort, and Peace of Mind

Speaking of peace of mind, you’d be hard pressed to find a dealer service department that hasn’t put a spotlight on health and cleanliness.

While effective sanitization procedures should be nothing new for dealership service departments, increasing those efforts has now become a differentiator and a value add. More and more facilities are opting to become certified PrecisionCare retailers, providing extra-safe on-site conditions to customers with disinfectants EPA-approved and registered for use against COVID-19.

Taking every precaution outlined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) with dealership facilities, vehicles, and employees, cleaning crews have increased protocols to align with all EPA recommendations. Vehicles are completely sanitized after any human contact, and of course social distancing between guests and team members is enforced. 

In essence, similar to most other businesses, value propositions have inevitably shifted to promote the safety and well-being of every customer and employee.

Used Car Service Retention

The pandemic shut down factories for many months which resulted in fewer new vehicles on lots. Production still hasn’t caught up to fully replenish the supply, and as a result, many dealerships today are selling more used cars than new.

This is especially important for dealership service departments who have historically had a difficult time getting used car buyers to return for their first appointment. With the increase in used car sales—and because used cars typically mean more immediate parts and service revenue—the sales to service handoff for used car customers is now critical in retaining and building a long-term customer relationship.

Above and Beyond Dealerships Have a Clear Advantage

If there’s one takeaway, it’s this: service departments who are already positioned as “experts” will continue to have a competitive advantage, even as their value props change amidst COVID.

Those who offer additional programs that ensure high-quality service and extraordinary customer care will continue to be seen as the gold standard. In fact, dealerships who are going above and beyond, particularly with their pickup and delivery options are already seeing smoother workflows as well as increased:

      • Customer satisfaction

      • Retention rates

      • Profits from higher-dollar repair orders

      • Technician labor hours sold

To learn more about the things you can do to ensure you’re providing value to your customers, get your full copy of the 2020 Dealership Service Retention Report here.

Back in April, which seems like a lifetime ago in 2020 time, new car dealerships faced great uncertainty as COVID-19 tightened its grip and spread across the country.

In an effort to give dealership general managers and service directors an opportunity to stay informed about changes in demand for service departments, DriveSure has shared regular updates on closed repair order volume for dealership service departments throughout the United States.

As you might imagine, rapid changes in the market this past spring resulted in steep declines in closed repair orders. From late February through April, there was a staggering 40% drop. Reaching its low point in early April—with a 7 day moving average of just 132 weekly closed repair orders per dealership—the outlook was uncertain at best.

Then things began to turn around…

Repair Order Volume Begins to Rebound

In general, repair order volume is now back to where it was pre-pandemic. In fact, by the beginning of July 2020, though COVID was still impacting much of the country, daily repair orders were beginning to rise swiftly and significantly. Since then, and now through early fall 2020, orders per dealer have remained steady and stable.

Note that because this is a trailing 7 day metric, it can show significant volatility due to holidays, such as the dip seen on September 7 due to the Labor Day holiday.

Dealership Repair Orders in “The New Normal”

The easing of restrictions and lockdowns on local, state, and national levels is clearly the main impetus for dealership services increasing and normalizing over the past several months. Beyond the obvious, though, daily routines in what’s now the “new normal” are also a factor.

Some dealerships are seeing increases in service business due to certain customer segments that are working from home and have more flexibility to bring their vehicles in for service. The data also shows significant regional variations in repair order volume based upon local and state mandates responding to the severity of COVID in their areas.

Other Factors Impacting the Numbers

In certain regions, acts of nature have also taken a toll on repair orders. So while the overall trends are promising, and by and large back to pre-pandemic levels, some areas are still struggling in what’s been an incredibly turbulent year.

The local impacts on repair order volume from wildfires in the western U.S. and some disruption along the Gulf Coast from the recent hurricane that struck there have certainly been noticeable.

Increased Reliance on Service Revenue

According to recent reports from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), we can expect the economic effects of the pandemic to continue for the next three years, with wholesale vehicle values not returning to at least the pre-COVID-19 baseline until 2023.

With people driving less due to remote work, high unemployment, and overall economic uncertainty, there will be a significant reduction in U.S. new vehicle sales for 2020.

With vehicle sales still down compared to 2019 year-to-date results, the importance of dealership service revenue has never been greater.

The bottom line is this: dealerships will be relying heavily on service revenue as vehicle sales sharply decline, and the continued reporting on dealer repair order volumes will give decision makers an opportunity to stay ahead of changes to service demand as much as they can and come out strong on the other side.

Dealership Service Retention is More Important Than Ever

“More than ever,” or “more important than ever.” We’ve heard those phrases a lot these past few months, and here in the case of dealership service retention, it really is true. As we just pointed out, new vehicle sales are in a major slump, and it may take some time for things to bounce back. Getting customers to return to dealerships for service is critical to success—both for maximizing fixed ops profits, and for generating new car sales.

Ensuring your customers remain loyal and return to you time and again for service has always been the best way to grow your dealership’s profits. Today, and for the foreseeable future, retaining service department customers will be vital in making up for lost revenue.

The good news, as you’ve read here, is that dealership repair order volume numbers have bounced back after a rough few months. Now it’s time to keep your momentum going and focus on delighting and retaining your customers through the last part of 2020 and beyond.

To find out what keeps your customers returning to your service center, as well as what might drive them elsewhere for service, check out the 2020 Dealership Retention Service Retention Report.

About the Data

The dealer repair order volume graphs in this article show the aggregated 7-day moving average of the weekly average number of closed repair orders per dealership for nearly 100 of our new-car dealership customers across the country, as reported through their Dealer Management System. Displaying a 7-day moving average removes effects caused by different days of the week (for example, Sundays generally have much lower volume). Data was updated daily through September, 2020, and is delayed by one week to ensure accurate reporting.