When you think about “why” customers choose a dealership and what you can do about it, the one thing to focus on is going to be providing outstanding customer service.

Customers choose a dealership based on one or more of these attributes: Price, Experience, Reputation, Location and Availability. Even Loyalty doesn’t make this list because they chose you to begin with, based on one of these attributes, and loyalty is just the benefit of your continuing to meet or exceed their expectations.

Exceptional service is the only thing your employees should be focused on, because they can’t control anything else.

One - Your employees don’t control price. The market controls price. Sure you can create a perception that you’re cheaper than your competitor, and that’s good. It creates an opportunity for your employees to provide great customer service. They don’t set the prices though; the willing customer has the final say on price.

Two - It’s not your location that matters; it’s the customer’s location. (Think about it.) Your employees have no control over either.

Three - Your employees don’t control the availability of products or services. Again, the market controls availability through demand, which motivates the manufacturer to create the supply or you to invest in the service through buying equipment and hiring and training employees. Your employees don’t decide what to put in to inventory or the menu of services you provide.

Four - Your reputation precedes you. Your employees certainly influence the future of your reputation but whatever’s out there at the time a customer makes a decision is out there. You can’t change that and neither can your employees.

Five - So it brings us down to the one remaining attribute of dealership selection – the experience. However, the term experience is too broad. We need to narrow it down to what it really is, the quality of interaction with the customer. Maybe it’s in the showroom or service lane, or maybe not. More interaction with customers happens on the phone than any other method. (Check it out. Add up all your service ROs, your showroom ups and your website visitors for a month; then compare that to the number of times your phone rings and all the outbound calls coming from your dealership. See what I mean?)

Customer service is the only constant too. Prices and availability fluctuate. Your reputation has ebb and flow and customers move around both in where they live but also where they work. The quality of interaction is a real time continuous indicator of how you’re doing.

We pretty much think the car business is about selling and servicing cars. Like any business, the car business, is about customer service.