With the cost of marketing in sales rising in turn offering dealer’s thinner profit margins – is service the way to capture new business by spending money on fixed-op's advertisements?  

When is the last time you Googled your dealership by typing “oil change in (enter your city)” looking to see if your dealership even pops up? 

Chances are your dealership did not populate in the Google search. Instead, major service centers like Pep Boys, Midas, & Jiffy Lube to name a few were the center of attention. 

I can already hear the argument:

“these are not all OEM customers searching for servicing their vehicle. So why would I spend to market to them.” 

The customer might not have bought from your OEM, but if they see that you are offering a competitively priced oil change that is cheaper than the big guy then it gives your store a shot. A shot to not only service their vehicle but to gain a potential new sale. As s/he might not have considered the possibility of getting into a new, safer, car. 

A customer searching to service their vehicle is looking at prices, reviews, and convenience. So, If your store offers all the above then why not use it to your advantage?

The best way to ease into the campaign concept is to provide a “package” of sorts such as the “winter package,” which allows the dealer to offer a low-cost package with a high markup. Or for those dealers that are a bit more daring and aggressive - provide an oil change offer that is competitive with the local shops in town. 

This new perspective on marketing offers a new means of increasing revenue in an already profitable department. In addition to the opportunity to sell the customer a newer vehicle. 

Does your store pay for fixed-ops marketing? Have you had success with paid service conquest marketing?

Fixed-Op’s arguably is the one department that keeps the dealer afloat absorbing the costs to run a dealership. It is also the one department that seems to be ignored when it comes to assistance and training.

Should the service advisors be answering inbound phone calls possibly ignoring the customer in front of them?

A customer waiting for an advisor to put down the phone is much like checking into a hotel – with heavy bags in arm – where the front desk attendant is on the phone. Taking what seems to be an eternity, and here you are standing there aimlessly waiting to be noticed.

Both customers are just as important, no? So, how do we ensure that both customers are attended too?

Is the answer to set up a call center that assists the customers? Understanding that while the BDC might not be able to give a diagnosis over the phone (not that an advisor can either most times), but what they could set up an appointment for the customer.

Taking the phones out of the service allows the advisors to concentrate on offering excellent customer service to the customers in the lane. Allowing the advisors the opportunity to upsell services to the customer. 

There are also other benefits of having the phones out of the service lanes. One of the biggest benefits is the ability for the call center to connect sales to service. Where the BDC can quickly pull up the customer's last visit thanking the customer for their loyalty. Even better, the customers who had not serviced with your dealership before able to have a loyalty account set up for them over the phone. 

Earning them rewards dollars before they even come in! Engaging with the customer with consistency makes it that much easier to maintain relationships with loyal customers. As the BDC understands the total value of that client's account. Versus the service department (just like in sales) look at the customer as a service customer - not a dealer customer.  

How does your store handle fixed op's overflow? Has your store had success without BDC assisting the service lane? What are your best practices? 

Waiting in line is fun said no one ever. So if we do not like waiting in line ourselves then what makes us think that our service customers like it? Especially if their oil change ended up not being “express,” or under 45 minutes.

In the past year, our customers voiced their dissatisfaction on the overall wait time. Having worked in the cashier's office (and managing it) I vividly recall how busy Saturday’s can be. The line being 4 customers deep, phone ringing, and waiting on the customer whose service advisor forget to take the discount off of their repair order. Taking the heat from the dissatisfied customer.

The customer voiced their concerns, which reflected in our CSI score. The advisors often, too, did not realize the consequences of just leaving their customers standing at the window in line. Now you can imagine why the customer was so upset. They just waited ten minutes in line, and as soon as they get to the window, their repair order is wrong. Guess what? The advisor is already onto the next customer making the upset customer wait even longer.

The concerns and frustrations soon took a voice on social media. A dealer’s worst nightmare. One wait time even caused a Twitter war! Where the customer went back and forth with other twitter uses. Creating another dimension of a “bad” image for our service department.

Customers expect consistency, efficiency, and most importantly they expect their experience to be as quick as possible.

To offer a consistently efficient, and fast experience, it was thought that we would have just hire extra staff. Making sure that the customers were not having to wait too long.

That still, however, did not address the overall satisfaction of the customer. We did not want another Twitter battle! There just had to be a means of offering a more efficient experience!

The solution was to have the customer close their repair order in the service lane with their advisor. This might sound complicated, but in all actuality it resolved several issues.

The biggest improvement was that the customer remained with one person throughout their entire transaction. The advisor is then able to continue building the rapport with their customer. Being the last person to communicate with the customer before their departure. Whereas, the service advisor may have offered an incredible experience. But if the cashier is having a bad morning or the wait time to checkout is too long, the customer leaves on a bad note.

Closing the repair order in the service lane also allows the customer to ask their advisor any questions directly - ensuring that all questions and concerns have been addressed.

Lastly, the advisor will make sure that they have their most current and up to date information in the system, which allows the dealer to continue to market to the customer.

Changing the way we approached the dreaded line changed the way our customers viewed us. In turn, our overall customer satisfaction increased. Surpassing the standards, and most importantly we are bringing in more revenue!

How long is your line? Are you suffering from upset customers?

Are mailers just as good or better than digital advertising? That was a question up for discussion recently. The notion that our customers become desensitized to the numerous emails from the OEM, Dealer, and third party companies. Each and every month your customer does not visit the store it becomes that much harder to retain them. Costing the dealer 7x more money to acquire new business. That said, it was a discussion that led to revamping the way we market with to our customers.

The first thing that comes to mind with mailers (from the dealer level) is the argument of  “how do I calculate my ROI, click rate, engagement rate?” whereas, with email campaigns our vendors can provide a book on just how good their campaigns were! Touting that their email campaign scheduled 50+ service appointments! Average RO of $100+ (this is an example).

That surely sounds great, no? The problem is that many, if not all of our vendors say that s/he booked 100+ service appointments. If that were the case, heck, we would have tripled the appointments month over month. Crushing the forecasts. Leading the board within our fixed op's revenue!

Instead of getting lost in the vendor's numerous reports,  (all of which have different means of how they aggregate the data) we concentrated on the total amount of service appointments for the month. Looking at how many mailers crossed the service lane, and how many appointments were booked online. Using analytics to break down the original source that referred the customer to the site.

In reviewing the analytics, we found that there are better ways of sending emails by “direct marketing” versus just sending a service driver to the entire database. Using a combination both traditional and digital marketing. Personalizing the offers for the customer.

As a result, we have found it be more effective to market in smaller core groups of customers. Sending mailers and emails in cycles that reflect the OEM’s retention guidelines. By sending direct mailers and emails monthly in small groups with a direct message it allows you to send an offer that makes sense to the customer. Whereas, if you send a mailer or email to your entire service/sales database you miss out on a few things that can actually damage your database:

• Sending a coupon that offers a higher dollar amount off of their R/O the day after s/he services their vehicle

• Sending an offer to the customer who already has an appointment for service vs. using it as an upsell for more services at the time of the appointment. Having to redeem a coupon off a small markup service.

• Sending 4-6 emails per month of which are irrelevant to the customer yielding a high amount of unsubscribers. Giving less and less customers to market to per month.

• Getting blacklisted for “spamming” customers by not scrubbing your database sending to “opted” out customers

Instead of increasing the unsubscribe rate - start planning your fixed-ops marketing with using a mixture of both digital and traditional marketing. Plan a monthly calendar in alignment with your OEM, cross-check and scrub your DMS & CRM (as the CRM houses unsold/unserviced customers), and make sure OEM & third party emails do not overlap with your efforts. Sending stronger offers to your DMS customers who are loyal, which will help you maximize your OEM’s retention policy.

How is your dealer maximizing efforts with direct mail & email?

It is safe to say that servicing their new vehicle is not on the top of consumers’ minds during the buying process. That is not to say that s/he does not think about the general cost of service. In so far as understanding certain makes and models are more prone to service higher maintenance costs.

In the digital age of buying it’s reported that consumers now shop on 24-28 mobile sites before making the decision to visit a dealership. Only visiting 1.3 dealers. Given that price is the focus – urging someone to drive 2-3 hours to make the purchase – it posed the question of - has the consumer forgotten about the service benefits their hometown OEM brand offers? Are dealers still failing at building value in their brand and the care of their vehicles? 

Just this past week, we received a few phone calls where customers (who live in our PMA) asked if they can transfer their service benefits from another OEM store to ours. To which we said, “While I cannot transfer their benefits. I can offer you a free oil change and a complimentary rewards account.”

Knowing that our OEM requires us to service the customers in our assigned customer base two times in 12 months. This is not as easy as one would think – (mention defectors such as Midas, PepBoys, etc)

Had we offered and incentivized the VIP program to the customer 3-4 months ago when they purchased they would have received complimentary oil changes. Already being one of our VIP customers.

It poses the notion that the customer – who opened up – said they saved $1000 driving 3hrs, but now they have lost out on all the service benefits. As they stated they were not going to be driving 3 hours for an oil change. In turn, driving 3 hours (6hrs total) to save $1000k cost them over $1000k in service benefits with their hometown OEM.

How many customers do you lose in your PMA to the same OEM? If so, what are tactics besides bottoming out on price are you and your dealer doing?

This is not to say that this will not continue to happen. What is does suggest, though, is that there are a few things to keep in mind:

• In PMA dealer OEM customers are 7 x less expensive to sell a vehicle too than a conquest customer (NADA)
• Losing a $750-1250 in PMA is worth the cause when you can retain the IN PMA customer in service. Per NADA Fixed Ops nets 73 of every 100. Where sales nets just 12.
• Beyond price – does your dealer offer a VIP Program? If so, how many consultants or even managers know the plan?
• Is your VIP Plan in your showroom, emails, or scripts?