Reconditioning workflow evangelists such as Dennis McGinn, founder, and CEO of Rapid Recon, says GMs who create a Time-to-Market workflow culture among recon, service and used cars can help dealers: 

• Drive down recon costs – up to a quarter-million-dollars or more a year
• Get vehicles frontline ready in four to five days – not 10 to 12!
• Increase inventory turns 2.5 times for every five days shaved in recon 

“The message from this year’s NADA was ‘be prepared.’ Dealers recognize that leaner times ahead will require other parts of their business to pick up any slack. Recon is an ideal hidden treasury,” McGinn said. “Getting a dealership to this level of recon efficiency and profitability is a GM-level responsibility.” 

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“If the general manager isn’t involved in one of the highest profiting departments in the store, you might have the wrong GM,” Tom Dunn, General Manager for the Fred Martin Superstore, Barberton, Ohio, told me. 

“If you don’t care about improving reconditioning, why should your staff?” says Edward Hyde, dealer principal of the Legacy Auto Network, London, Kentucky. 

Dealers who successfully establish this culture start by replacing outdated and largely ineffective reconditioning tracking methods such as whiteboards, spreadsheets and sticky notes with automation. They assign a management-level champion to manage its daily oversight, and they use their reconditioning software to structure work and then monitor and control its outcome to specific time deadlines.