"If it were possible and practical, most people would never set foot in a car dealership when purchasing a vehicle."

The title of this post, along with the introduction were quotes from a recent article that appeared in Money. The survey and results were conducted by Accenture. http://time.com/money/3826562/buying-cars-online-hate-car-dealerships/

It's no surprise that consumers aren't excited about visiting dealerships for sales and service. Why not listen to what consumers are telling the industry, and provide consumers with what they want? 

It seems the entire industry is racing towards "online sales", and or the ability to transact some or all aspects of a car purchase online. Unfortunately, that's going to have minimal impact upon service. It doesn't matter if we're speaking to customer pay, warranty or recalls, online fulfillment will have little to no impact upon fixed operations.

The solution is very simple; Concierge Service. Technology exist today that enables dealers to provide their customers with an Uber like experience; providing consumers the ability to transact business with the dealer without having to leave their home or office. The technology schedules, dispatches, tracks, monitors and provides analytics throughout the process.

Imagine your product specialist conducting a test drive at the consumer's home, or your customer's vehicle being picked up and delivered to the dealership for service, warranty and or recall, all while the customer is provided a loaner. That's powerful!

Customer retention and service retention will become an eyesore of the past through convenience driven models. Even with online fulfillment coming soon to our industry, consumers will still want to test drive the vehicle and service their vehicle without being inconvenienced by going to the dealership. The industry is too focused upon an hour transaction at the dealership, versus making the sales and service process as customer convenient as possible. Speed of transaction doesn't necessarily translate into convenience.

Your customers are very busy, traditionally both spouses are working, shuttling kids to school and sports, and living life...no wonder they don't have time to visit your dealership. 

Ken Hite is Senior Vice President at RedCap. Ken has 25 years experience within the automotive industry, inclusive of retail, OEM, after-market and start-ups. The auto industry must learn to exceed customer expectations and implement business processes based upon customer convenience.

It's easy to make a case for "no." Consumers connotate "express service" with an hour or less. Unfortunately, too many consumers experience a 2-3 hour express service, and the end result is customer defection. 

There are dealers that are very efficient, and provide consumers with a true express service experience. Unfortunately, those dealers are the exception. Express service is essentially going the way of "complimentary car washes"; soon to be obsolete.

I believe that "Express Service" needs to be replaced with "Convenience Service." What's convenience service? Dealership provides pick-up and delivery of customer's vehicle to the dealership, and simultaneously provides the consumer with a loaner. "RedCap Convenience" in action; http://owner.lincoln.com/how-tos/vehicle-care/pickup-delivery.html?hptid=pro-2477a-pdl

There are a number of reasons why consumers defect franchise auto dealers, however, the primary reason why consumers choose an independent repair shop is due to convenience. It's simply much quicker to drive 10 minutes to the independent repair shop, versus 20-30 minutes to the dealer, proceed with write-up, arrange loaner and drive home. Best case scenario, the consumer has spent an hour taking their vehicle into the dealership, not to mention another hour to retrieve their vehicle. Dealers have become very price competitive, provide transparency to consumers, and have improved upon "trust" concerns. What's left? Convenience. How many independent repair centers does your customer drive past to visit your dealership? Too many!

We're all familiar with "Build it and they will come", however, the real narrative should be "Make it convenient and they will come."

Did you know 90% of your customers want to experience sales and service without coming to your store? Customers value their vehicles and their time. They want to buy and service from you, but choose dealers offering the most convenience. Within a few short years, out of store experiences for automotive customers will be the norm...and we are already seeing positive trends in dealerships who have formalized pick up and delivery: 75% take rate, up to 38% service revenue lift, 40 point CSI lift, and 1.2 day loaner cycle time reduction.

I welcome your input on implementing a turn-key convenience model at your dealership.