In this quick vlog, ELEAD1ONE partner shares the key characteristics to look for when hiring successful service advisors. Hint – the answer is probably not what you think. 

Who is the most important person in your dealership? Every time I ask this question I get different answers ranging from the dealer, to various members of management, or even that top salesperson tearing up the sales board, but very rarely – if ever – do I get the right answer.

Why? Because most don’t even think about this employee who is typically the lowest paid, perhaps youngest, and, to top it off, is quite often a part-time employee.

So, who is it? It’s your receptionist! Wait – what?? Why am I telling you that your receptionist is the most important person in your dealership?

Your receptionist is the first point of contact for many of your customers. In fact, your receptionist touches more customers than your entire dealership staff COMBINED on a day-to-day basis. Their attitude and how they handle those customers can easily influence whether customers choose your dealership to buy their vehicle, or your competition.

The receptionist can be welcoming or can irritate people and cause them to go elsewhere. Far too often their duties are carried out in a mechanical manner no different from a switchboard operator – “How may I direct your call?” -- transfer and on to the next call. Sadly, what happens with the customer after they first pick up the call matters little to many receptionists-- for the simple reason that they have already moved on to the next caller. They are just not INVESTED IN THE OUTCOME OF THE CALL!

Think about it. Have you ever called a dealership trying to reach someone only to have the receptionist transfer the call, have no one pick up, and the phone keeps ringing back to the receptionist, who just keeps transferring it back to the line that keeps ringing – never to be answered? The customer gets lost in the abyss of phone transfer hell.

The dealership most likely ends up with an irritated (and perhaps ex) customer -- or loses a sale. All because the receptionist does not make a real effort to get someone to assist the customer. All that money your dealership spent to get that customer to call in the first place, or to get their service business. You might as well have just burned it.

Here’s a freebie: Consider adding bonuses to the receptionist’s sales plan based on unit and repair order volume. All of a sudden, the receptionist is invested in the outcome of the call because any failure to ensure that customer is helped hurts his or her personal paycheck. Per NADA, dealers spend upwards of $640 to acquire a new customer… Is a $5 spiff per unit sold or completed RO really going to affect that? No! In fact, that $5 may actually save you a sale or service RO.

Take care of your receptionist and ensure that they understand the importance of taking control of every call and that every customer receives assistance. If that means the receptionist needs to page people, call their cell phones or hit a darn gong to get someone, so be it. In the end, you’ll know that your customers are being taken care of and that you’re not losing business – sales or service – simply because the customer could not get through to someone on the phone.

In this quick reality check, Bill Wittenmyer shares the importance of testing (and retesting) customer experiences to ensure that they’re solid. You’ll take away tips for inspecting experiences to align them with your marketing message and retain customers.

ELEAD1ONE partner discusses why dealers might be missing the boat when it comes to Fixed Ops customer service by tasking service advisors with the wrong responsibilities. Learn how to free up selling time for service advisors and boost appointment rates in this quick video blog.

ELEAD1ONE’s Bill Wittenmyer shares insight on how to take your service sales to the next level by using video to connect with customers, build trust and sell more repair recommendations.

The automotive industry is extremely competitive – not just locally, but also at the manufacturer level. Manufacturers spend truckloads of money on conquest marketing and brand loyalty – which you would think should be great for dealers – and, to some degree, it is.

But think for a just a second here, does your OEM really care whether your customer stays loyal to your dealership? If you answered “No,” you are 100% correct. While manufacturers like dealers to treat their customers well, and build a loyal base, it really doesn’t matter to them whether your customers buy and service their vehicles with you, or any other franchise store, as long as that customer stays loyal to the brand.

That’s reality, folks. Those CSI surveys are only important to the manufacturer because they want to ensure customer stays loyal to THEIR brand, not yours. And there’s a critical difference between the two.

Think about all the initiatives manufacturers have implemented to make every dealership look and feel the same to every customer. Why would that be important to them? Imagine if every McDonalds restaurant looked different. You might not realize it was a McDonalds.

So, if every dealership is destined to look exactly alike, what will compel a customer to come to YOUR dealership over the one that looks exactly the same as yours just 5 miles away?

Step up efforts to differentiate your dealership from any competitors. The problem is that many attempts at unique value propositions are, sadly, exactly the same as the competition. So most dealerships end up not only looking the same, but also broadcast exactly the same messages. It’s time to stop marketing messages that state such things as, “family-owned, “low prices,” “large inventory” and “fast service.” These should no longer be part of your dealership’s marketing vocabulary! They are meaningless to a customer and, for that exact reason, don’t have any impact on achieving your marketing goal, which is to differentiate your dealership from its competition.

Take a minute to truly analyze your operations and pinpoint things your store is really good at. Then use those as your unique selling propositions. Maybe you have an efficient quick lube service set up and can get someone in and out in 30-minutes. That would be something a time-pressed consumer would care about. Perhaps you have loaner cars for service, or a pick-up and delivery service. Those are also very attractive to most customers. BUT, before you run out and start broadcasting your newly found selling propositions, there is one thing that MUST be present in order for your marketing messages to succeed:

Consistency.

Customer experience is all a matter of perception. For example, let’s say you advertise a 30-minute oil change. Customer ‘A’ comes in and it takes you 45 minutes to complete the work. Customer ‘A’ leaves disappointed as it took longer than you advertised and they expected a 30-minute turn around. However, what if your message advertised a 1-hour oil change. Customer ‘B’ comes in and you complete the work in 45 minutes. In this case the customer is very happy as their vehicle was serviced faster than they expected. The exact same work was done in the exact same amount of time. But, because the promise you made through marketing was different, one felt the experience was mediocre, and the other felt happy.

Consistency is king. If you are advertising something that differentiates your dealership, be sure you live up to your promise and frequently review processes to ensure that every customer finds that to be true every time they visit.

Differentiating your dealership should be a priority in your marketing. Without offering a unique experience, customers won’t care whether they visit your dealership, or the one 5 miles away.

If you don’t differentiate yourself, you could quickly find consumers deciding which dealership to go to in the same manner they decide which Wal-Mart to shop at that day… and that would not end well for your dealership.

ELEAD1ONE partner Bill Wittenmyer shares insight into how to set service advisors up for success with a few small terminology changes.

A short vlog from ELEAD1ONE's own Bill Wittenmyer on the importance of time.