For auto dealers, the pandemic hasn’t changed much in terms of staffing issues. According to the NADA 2021 Dealership Workforce Study, the average turnover rate for all employees is 46 percent, and the average turnover rate for salespeople sits around 67 percent.

As inventory levels are slowly replenished and auto dealers plan to grow headcount, attracting and retaining workers may be even more challenging than in the past. In the last few years, there has been a massive shift in how employees view their work and the value it brings to their lives.

In a movement dubbed The Great Resignation, more than 38 million employees quit their jobs in 2021, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. This movement has created a labor shortage that gives workers more leverage than ever.

Not only are they quitting, but disaffected employees and the unemployed are banding together on social media and online forums to rant about poor treatment at work, share expectations of what constitutes an acceptable working environment, and to promote unionization. One subreddit forum dubbed “Antiwork” has more than 2 million members. And companies are paying attention. Senior management at several corporations have “listened in” on these forums, and made significant changes to their culture which subsequently improved employee retention.

So, what do workers really want? According to the Pew Research Center, employees cited low pay (63%), no opportunities for advancement (63%) and feeling disrespected at work (57%) as the top three reasons for leaving their jobs. Another study by Flexjobs cited a toxic workplace culture (62%), low salary (59%), poor management (56%), lack of work-life boundaries (49%) and no remote work (43%) as reasons for leaving.

In an industry where people are our greatest asset, it has never been more important to redefine your company culture to meet job seekers’ expectations. Auto dealers looking to expand might want to rethink their culture and focus on employee happiness. Here are a few areas to address.

Build a team. People want to be part of something meaningful and larger than themselves. Start by building a culture that makes people feel like their work is appreciated. Clarity in roles and expectations, and even difficult conversations when expectations aren’t met provide such purpose, provided they intent to grow rather than diminish. Don’t make up core values; the disconnect will only lead to more dissatisfaction and turnover.

Be flexible. Staff to your needs, not just to fill desks. If an ideal candidate wants to work part-time or work some of their hours remotely, try to accommodate them. Wouldn’t you rather have a great employee for 30 hours a week than a mediocre one for 50 hours?  No one is served by idle staff hanging around an empty showroom. With car shoppers doing more of their purchasing steps online, there is no reason why you can’t have sales and F&I staff work remotely at least some of the time.

Change your assumptions. Don't look for the same people you've always hired in the past. Hiring the same profile and expecting different results IS the definition of insanity. High-pressure sales skills are more harmful than helpful.  Instead, hire people who are process and detail-oriented, with good communication and people skills. They are more likely to provide the experience that today’s consumers expect. 

Focus on output, not input. Design reporting and pay plans that emphasize results over activities. Having salespeople make hundreds of phone calls and send hundreds of emails every week to get a few leads is outdated. If a salesperson is proficient at using social media to generate leads, that is where their time and effort should be focused.

Develop. If you want your employees to invest in your company, invest in them. Employees reach peak productivity after three years, so give them a reason to stay. Develop onboarding and continuous career development programs, and provide employees with incentives to complete each program.

We are living in a culture where many people would rather not work, or work odd jobs, than work at a full-time job they don’t like. It is incumbent upon auto dealers to make their workplace environments attractive enough to turn the underemployed into productive, happy employees.

NORCROSS, GA. March 22, 2021 – APCO Holdings, LLC, a leading provider and administrator of automotive F&I products and home to the EasyCare, GWC Warranty and MemberCare brands, announced today that Scot Eisenfelder has been named CEO, effective May 1st, 2021. Eisenfelder joined APCO as Senior Vice President, Strategy and Planning in August 2020.

APCO Holdings’ current Chairman and CEO, Finbarr O’Neill, will assume the position of Executive Chairman.

“I look forward to continuing the strategic direction that Fin has set here in the last two years,” said Eisenfelder. “We have several exciting new initiatives planned, including the expansion of core offerings that will help our customers thrive in a digital retail world. We will also continue to expand our offerings in the credit union, recreational vehicle and direct to consumer channels.”

O’Neill, 69, will relinquish his role as CEO upon completion of a two-year commitment. As Executive Chairman, O’Neill will oversee strategic direction and senior management development.

“When we recruited Scot to join the board in 2019, we knew he would be an excellent fit at APCO, due to his deep automotive industry experience and keen understanding of the critical role of automotive dealers in the industry. Over the last year he has taken on increasing levels of responsibility, demonstrating at each step he is more than capable of leading APCO to new levels of growth,” said O’Neill.

In his two years as Chairman and CEO of APCO Holdings, O’Neill has helped drive a number of changes including bringing more focus on the core business, shedding extraneous initiatives, upgrading systems, improving processes and preparing for the impact of digital retail on the automotive industry.

Prior to joining APCO Holdings, Eisenfelder was Executive Chairman and CEO of Affinitiv, Inc., a leading provider of data-driven marketing and retention solutions. As Senior Vice President, Strategy at AutoNation, Eisenfelder led significant initiatives to drive retail innovation. He also led JM Family’s dealer software business and was Senior Vice President of Product Management, Strategy and Marketing at Reynolds and Reynolds, delivering profitable growth for both companies. Eisenfelder holds an MBA from the Wharton Business School, graduating with distinction as a Palmer Scholar. He attended Mannheim University in Germany as a Fulbright Scholar and graduated summa cum laude in Economics from Princeton.

About APCO Holdings

Since 1984, APCO has grown to become a leading provider and administrator of F&I products for the auto industry. Built on a foundation of financial security and a commitment to understanding our customers’ needs, APCO is a trusted partner to some of the most well-respected insurers, highly successful dealerships, and leading auto industry players in the country. The company markets its products using the EasyCare, GWC Warranty, and MemberCare brands, as well as other private label products, through a network of independent agents and an internal salesforce that specialize in consulting with and servicing the automotive dealership markets. EasyCare, GWC Warranty, and MemberCare F&I products are the only “MotorTrend Recommended Best Buy” in the industry. They also carry top ratings from the Better Business Bureau, have protected over 11 million customers and paid over $3.5 billion in claims. For more information about the APCO Holdings family of brands, please visit apcoholdings.com.

Affinitiv Board Member, Scot Eisenfelder, shares why it is no longer in the best interest of a dealer to hold inventory as it was in the past.

New vehicle sales are slowing and increased pricing transparency is eroding front-end sales margins. I predict that increased F&I pricing transparency due to online retailing solutions will soon put the same downward pressure on F&I margins. 

To stay profitable in this environment, dealers must transition to a razor and razor blade business model, where almost no profit is made on the front end and all the profit is made on the back end. With this business model, profits are made by creating an enduring relationship with customers over the lifetime of vehicle ownership.

How will this affect dealership pay plans?

The traditional dealership business model was designed to optimize profits from every transaction: the sale, F&I, service. We’re one of the few industries left that have 100% variable pay plans, and most dealers still pay salespeople and service advisors based on transactions, instead of on relationships.

The problem with variable pay plans is that they’re out of alignment with the experience that you want to provide customers. Think about it: If I make a killing off you on the first sale, how can I move forward to create a relationship with you that’s built on trust?

Variable pay plans are not good for the consumer, nor are they good for the long-term profitability of a dealership. Besides, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to find young people who are willing to work for this type of compensation.

Changing Pay Plans in Sales

In the old days, the view was that gross margin on a vehicle was determined by the ability of the salesperson and sales manager to negotiate. If you think about the number of deals that are now coming through TrueCar, Costco or credit unions, your salespeople don’t have much opportunity to influence gross margins. Why pay them on that basis?

With traditional pay plans, even the sale of the vehicle is split up into two different transactions, with compensation structures pitting sales against F&I.  But the customer has only one bucket of money, not two buckets of money. Is it any wonder that forcing a customer to sit through two separate sales processes leaves a bad taste in their mouth?

If the future of dealership profitability relies on nurturing customer relationships, the compensation structure should reward salespeople for efforts that promote relationship-building. There are plenty of things you can bonus on that aren’t related to number of units sold or gross generated.

My brother-in-law who has a dealership now bonuses on positive reviews. You could bonus on CRM KPIs, such as number of conversations. Definitely bonus on service introductions, as well as when customers bring their vehicle in for service the first time. This would encourage salespeople to follow up with customers after the sale, which rarely happens now.

Changing Pay Plans in Service

The same transactional mindset exists in service. When a service advisor presents a list of $1,000 in recommended repairs, the customer’s initial reaction is one of resistance.

However, if the service advisor breaks down recommended repairs into urgent items, safety items and nice-to-haves, then the customer is better prepared to address the items over time.

With traditional pay plans, service advisors fear that the customer either won’t get the service done, or they’ll go somewhere else, or even if they do come back in they’ll go to a different service advisor, who would then make the bonus on the sale. This mindset encourages an all or nothing attitude.

What if, instead of transactions or longevity bonuses, you paid service advisors on how many of their customers return for service? It doesn’t matter which service advisor the customer comes back to. The primary relationship the customer should have is with your brand and store. The relationship they have with their service advisor should be secondary to that.

Making the Transition

Variable pay plans aren’t good for the customer or for the long-term profitability of dealerships. Changing pay plans doesn’t have to be a huge, sudden transformation. Start by tweaking bonuses and incentives. Think about how to create a less mercenary pay plan that allows someone to put food on the table without having to gouge customers every chance they get.

Eventually, your compensation plans should have a higher base pay and award bonuses based on metrics that reward relationships, rather than transactions.

Study reveals that auto groups could significantly increase customer pay revenue by marketing to used off make buyers who purchase from sister stores

Chicago, IL—December 3, 2019— As auto groups continue to ramp up used-car sales in response to consumer demand and shrinking new vehicle margins, they are overlooking opportunities to service a significant percentage of their used car buyers, according to Affinitiv’s Automotive Customer Loyalty study. Specifically, when dealers fail to refer used off make buyers to sister stores within their auto group for service, the group loses up to $230,000 annually in potential customer pay revenue (CP$) per store.

“If I buy a used Honda at a Toyota dealership, I might take it back to that dealership for an oil change but it’s unlikely I’ll take it back for a brake job or transmission service,” said Scot Eisenfelder, CEO of Affinitiv. “Lost opportunities occur when the Toyota salesperson fails to transfer that customer’s information over to the Honda store within their group, so the Honda store can market to and win that buyer’s service business.”

“In auto groups there needs to be a paradigm shift from individual stores holding onto a perception that they own all the customers in their database, to treating the group’s entire customer database as an asset that can be shared among all dealers,” said Doug Van Sach, Affinitiv’s Vice President, Strategy & Analytics. “I realize on the new car side this is a bit tricky, but on the used car side everyone’s a winner. A store may give away some used off make customers but in return they will gain used same make customers, which are worth significantly more.”

In fact, Affinitiv’s data analysis revealed that in every dealership regardless of brand, the average RO amount is 68% higher for a used same make vehicle than the average RO amount for a used off make vehicle.

Affinitiv’s Automotive Customer Loyalty study analyzed data from deals at more than 1,000 auto dealerships. The analysis revealed that among all dealerships, from the first six months of 2017 to the first six months of 2018, used vehicle sales are growing at a faster rate than new vehicle sales resulting in a greater mix of used customers in a dealer’s database.

Domestic: Used vehicles as a % of total sales increased YOY from 43.6% to 44.4%

Import: Used vehicles as a % of total sales increased YOY from 42.5% to 44%

Luxury: Used vehicles as a % of total sales increased YOY from 38.9% to 42.3%

“This trend represents a threat to dealers’ current service business, as the number of warranty customers decreases,” said Eisenfelder. “To attract more used customers and achieve greater service potential, auto groups would do well to organize themselves around their customers, instead of organizing around the individual stores.”

In dealerships, the purchase to service (P2S) rate represents the percentage of car buyers that return to the dealership of purchase for service. In Affinitiv’s Automotive Customer Loyalty study, P2S rates were calculated taking all vehicle sales in the first six months of 2018, then looking out 12 months from the deal date to see if those VINs had an RO. Average P2S rates are as follows:

Domestic dealership P2S rate:

Used same make: 48.4%

Used off make: 26.1%

Opportunity gap for auto groups: 22.3%

Import dealership P2S rate:

Used same make: 54.6%

Used off make: 28.5%

Opportunity gap for auto groups: 26.1%

Luxury dealership P2S rate:

Used same make: 51.5%

Used off make: 19.8%

Opportunity gap for auto groups: 31.7%

Affinitiv calculated the potential increase in customer pay revenue (CP$) an auto group could make per store if it closed the opportunity gaps between used same make and used off make customers.

The potential revenue increase was calculated by comparing the 5-year lifetime value (LTV) of used off make vs. used same make customers. LTV calculations factored in the average CP$ per RO, purchase to service rates, service retention rates and the average number of ROs per year, per VIN over a 5-year period.

Calculations revealed that auto groups could increase their annual CP$ by $230,000 per store, simply by closing the service opportunity gap between used off make and used same make buyers.

“This figure doesn’t take into account that if you convert a used off make buyer into a loyal service customer at another store, that customer is more likely to remain loyal to your auto group brand on the next purchase,” said Van Sach.

To retain used off make customers within an auto group, recommended best practices include:

--When a salesperson sells a used off make vehicle to a customer, make the customer aware of the appropriate brand store within the same group. Offer an incentive for a first visit, such as a complimentary new owner orientation session or a service coupon.

• --Ensure that used off make buyers’ customer data is transferred to the appropriate store’s marketing database. Send out a “Welcome to our family” message with clear reasons to choose the dealer for service.

--Mine current databases for used off make vehicle buyers in the last two years, and implement a targeted marketing strategy to recover lost revenue.

• --Foster loyalty to the dealer group brand by recognizing and rewarding customers for their cumulative purchase and service activity across the dealer group.

For more information about Affinitiv, visit www.affinitiv.com or call 847-955-9740.

About Affinitiv

Affinitiv is a leading marketing technology company serving automotive manufacturers (OEMs), dealership groups, and individual dealerships. Through a technology-driven and consultative approach, Affinitiv enables dealerships to produce, manage, measure and optimize omni-channel communications to drive brand loyalty and increase revenue.

Affinitiv’s marketing automation and technology platform is designed to provide a 360° view of customer, vehicle, dealership and marketing campaign effectiveness all in one place. Affinitiv’s digital and analytics capabilities support a consistent customer experience through the entire ownership lifecycle. Affinitiv was formed in 2016 and is headquartered in Chicago, IL.

Predictive personalization key to matching precedent set by non-auto retailers

Chicago, IL—November 11, 2019— The online shopping experience offered by the majority of dealerships fails to meet customer expectations, according to a new Affinitiv survey of 1,000 automotive consumers. While 76% of recent car buyers said it was important for the dealer website to be personalized, only 26% of respondents agreed that dealers provide a highly personalized experience on their website. The data is highlighted in the Affinitiv whitepaper Predictive Personalization: The Evolution of the Customer Experience.

“The website is often the first point of contact with a dealership, but most dealer websites were built using unsophisticated technologies that reflect an antiquated notion of how consumers buy cars,” said Doug Van Sach, Affinitiv’s Vice President, Strategy & Analytics. “To meet customer expectations, auto retailers must evolve their shopping experience to match the precedent set by retailers in other industries.”

Predictive personalization is the key to making this happen, according to the survey. Every day, consumers interact with non-auto retailers who provide a highly personalized online shopping experience. Amazon, Nordstrom and Apple are role models that consumers expect dealers to follow.

Affinitiv’s survey found that the online shopping experience offered by dealers falls short in three key areas. When customers were asked what part of the website experience they wanted dealers to personalize, the top items were vehicles of interest, vehicle features and vehicles within my budget.

While 65% of consumers want websites to personalize vehicles of interest, only 47% of dealer websites proactively recommend vehicles of interest based on the customer’s browsing behavior.

Fifty-eight percent of consumers want vehicle recommendations based on specific features of interest, but in the study sample of websites, not a single dealer website recommended vehicles based on features of interest.

“Considering its high importance, recommending vehicles with relevant features is one of the single greatest opportunities for dealer websites to increase conversion rates and better meet the expectations of online shoppers,” said Van Sach.

Additionally, 52% of consumers expect a dealer’s website to help them find affordable vehicles and 62% said that finding a vehicle with a specific monthly payment was as important, or even more important than finding a vehicle within a specific price range. However, only 9% of dealer websites allow customers to search by payment range and 11% of websites incorporated the customer’s credit score into the payment estimate.

“If websites aren’t dramatically improved to elevate the shopping experience and make personalized recommendations based on browsing behavior, dealers risk alienating potential buyers before they ever visit a showroom,” said Van Sach. “It’s up to dealers to challenge their vendors to demonstrate how their websites react to browsing behavior and deliver relevant vehicles with the right mix of features within a customer’s budget.”

Affinitiv’s Predictive Personalization study surveyed 1,000 auto consumers and analyzed a sample of 100 dealership websites to better understand the level of personalization that dealers are offering.

For more information about Affinitiv, visit www.affinitiv.com or call 847-955-9740.

About Affinitiv

Affinitiv is a leading marketing technology company serving automotive manufacturers (OEMs), dealership groups, and individual dealerships. Through a technology-driven and consultative approach, Affinitiv enables dealerships to produce, manage, measure and optimize omni-channel communications to drive brand loyalty and increase revenue.

Affinitiv’s marketing automation and technology platform is designed to provide a 360° view of customer, vehicle, dealership and marketing campaign effectiveness all in one place. Affinitiv’s digital and analytics capabilities support a consistent customer experience through the entire ownership lifecycle. Affinitiv was formed in 2016 and is headquartered in Chicago, IL.

An auto dealer’s guide to long-term profitability in a world of declining front-end margins

Chicago, IL—August 5, 2019— Affinitiv, the retail auto industry's leading marketing technology provider, has released a free eBook for auto dealers. Industry Disruptors: The Razor and Razor Blade Model provides guidance for sustaining long-term profitability in an era when new vehicle profit margins have shrunk to 2.5% and revenue growth is threatened by increasing price transparency and a flattening Seasonally Adjusted Annual Rate (SAAR).

“The news is full of stories about industry disruptors such as ride sharing, electric vehicles and autonomous vehicles, but the reality is these disruptors are several years away from impacting auto dealer operations,” said Scot Eisenfelder, CEO of Affinitiv. "This eBook addresses the more immediate impact of a trend that’s affecting auto dealers today.”

The Razor and Razor Blade business model utilizes a strategy where a product is sold on the front end with little to no profit margin, and all the profit is made on the back end. To survive in coming years, auto dealers must maximize service retention.

Growing service revenue in a razor blade environment requires three strategies:

• 1) Maximize value from vehicles sold

• 2) Target vehicle owners based on sales and fleet data

• 3) Shift from sales conquest to service conquest

“Most dealers rely on OEM base owner retention programs (ORPs) to cover all their service marketing needs, but this level of marketing is table stakes,” said Eisenfelder. “Thriving in challenging times requires a broader reach in terms of customers, channels and services offered.”

The eBook offers recommendations on how to target and retain current and new customers, particularly second owners in the lucrative and growing 4- to 6- year old vehicle market. Dealers will also learn the value of omnichannel marketing and how the latest technology can help provide more complete vehicle care to their customers.

To download, click on this link: Industry Disruptors: The Razor and Razor Blade Model. For more information, visit www.affinitiv.com

About Affinitiv:

Affinitiv is a leading marketing technology company serving a dozen automotive manufacturers (OEMs) and more than 5,500 franchise dealerships. Affinitiv’s Connectiv1 Platform is designed to provide a 360° view of customer, vehicle, dealership and marketing campaign effectiveness all in one place. Affinitiv makes it easy for auto dealerships to leverage data and target customers with the right message at the right time on the right communication channel.

Affinitiv enables dealerships to produce, manage, measure and optimize omni-channel communications to drive brand loyalty and increase revenue. Affinitiv’s digital and analytic capabilities support a consistent customer experience through the entire ownership lifecycle. Affinitiv was formed in 2016 and is headquartered in Chicago, IL.

CEO & Executive Chairman of Affinitiv, Scot Eisenfelder, shares why dealerships should ignore the grinders and focus on their most valuable customers.

In the last seven years, new vehicle gross margins have declined from four percent to two percent. If that pace continues, profit margins will be wiped out by 2025. It appears that the front-end grosses dealers enjoyed 10 or 15 years ago are never coming back.

F&I profits have made up for some of these lost profits, but this trend is not sustainable for the long-term for three reasons:

1) Dealers have pretty much maxed out what they can reasonably charge customers for F&I packages

2) The same transparency that drove down new-vehicle per vehicle retail (PVR) is likely to drive down F&I PVR

3) F&I gross margins are vulnerable to rising interest rates and increased regulation

Remaining profitable in the future requires learning how to operate a razor and razor-blade business model. With this business model, the manufacturers' strategy is to sell their products (e.g. razors and printers) at zero profit and make all the money on the back end, selling razor blades and ink cartridges.

When applied to dealerships, this strategy necessitates full transparency on the price of the vehicle, with the acceptance that there will be little to no profit. Then, focus all money-making efforts on the back end, in the maintenance and servicing of that vehicle.

For dealers, this business model forces a fundamental shift in mindset and operations. Here are a few recommendations on how to make it work.

View the customer differently
Instead of viewing how much profit you make from each sale, you have to look at what the lifetime value of that customer is. Instead of asking, "How many cars can we sell this month?" you have to ask "How many new customers can I acquire this month, and how can we convince those customers to continue servicing with us?"

In a razor and razor blade model, your goal is to keep every customer through the entire ownership lifecycle.

Move from transaction-based mindset to a relationship-based mindset
Dealerships were set up to optimize individual transactions instead of relationships. This has to change. Even the sale of the vehicle is split into two different transactions: the sale and F&I. Going forward, merge the sales and F&I functions. Have a product presenter and a deal manager.

In service, develop a pre- to post-warranty customer retention strategy. Dealers give up too easily as a car moves out of warranty, ceding valuable business to independent facilities.

As customers move from pre-warranty to post-warranty, buyer values start to shift. Issues of price and value matter more as they pick up more of the bill. This requires a change in the way you market to and communicate with that customer.

Change Pay Plans
The original concept of sales commissions was based on the idea that gross margin was determined by the strength of the salespersons' ability to negotiate. Today salespeople don't have the opportunity to influence gross margins, so why pay them on that basis?

We have to reconsider the traditional approach to 100% variable compensation and move towards a model where we're incenting employees to bring customers back into the dealership. Variable pay plans in both sales and service encourage the wrong behavior and are thus out of alignment with an optimal customer experience.

Develop a less mercenary pay plan. Pay someone a minimal salary so they're not dependent on individual transactions to put food on the table. Bonus your employees on metrics other than gross sales, such as repeat business and positive reviews.

In the next few years, learning how to operate a razor and razor-blade business model will allow dealers to continue growing profits, even as front-end profit margins go the way of the dodo bird.

As the old adage goes, no one plans to fail, they just fail to plan. This could not be more true when it comes to service marketing budgets in dealerships.

As new vehicle sales and gross margins decline, it's natural to look for ways to cut expenses. But I've never understood the logic behind cutting service marketing budgets.

If service marketing is not working, by all means, change it—but if it does work, shouldn’t you increase service marketing when sales are slow? How else do you expect to maintain profits during challenging times?

According to NADA, fixed ops is responsible for 48% percent of dealership gross profits, yet most dealers don't have an annual service marketing plan, and their service marketing budgets are 10% or less of the overall marketing budget.

The logic behind this allocation is that new vehicles sales feed service. That may have been true 40 years ago, when you were guaranteed a substantial amount of warranty work and in-warranty customer pay business just from your new vehicle sales.

However, today’s franchise dealers only capture 20-25% of revenue potential from their Units in Operations (UIO). That means dealers are leaking 75-80% of service work from the cars they have sold to their competition! For many years now, independent aftermarket chains have slowly but steadily been increasing market share.

Additionally, today’s vehicles are higher quality and require less maintenance. For dealers, this means less warranty work, less standard maintenance work and more replace-than-repair work. So, as new vehicle sales decline, your service work is bound to decline at an even more rapid rate, unless you become more aggressive with service marketing.

For the dealer principals reading this, do you know why your GMs yank the service marketing budgets when sales slow? Because their pay plan incents them to increase this month’s profit at the expense of long-term growth. But that's a topic for another day.

It's funny how on the sales side, principals and GMs alike are loathe to cut the marketing budget, believing they need to stay competitive. What they don't realize is that sales marketing in a contracting market is a zero-sum game.

As more dollars chase fewer sales, conquest efforts become more expensive and less effective. It’s not unusual to see incremental marketing costs exceed gross margin net of commissions for conquest sales, with dealers hoping that service and repeat purchases will justify their initial acquisition costs.

The bottom line is this. As long as new vehicle sales and gross margins continue to decline, your best bet for revenue growth potential is in fixed ops. If new vehicles sales don't feed service, then where is that service revenue going to come from?

New service business comes from service marketing. Recommendations include:

Set a budget similar to sales. Most of you can name your market PVR target in your sleep, but do you have a service marketing PRO? The disproportionate spending on sales marketing vs. service marketing makes no sense. The old argument that sales feeds service does not hold water in today's market. Today it's equally, if not more true, that service feeds sales.

Prioritize spending. Engage all active service customers regularly across multiple channels; especially digital channels as that's where your customers' attention is. Keep brand awareness high and send highly targeted, relevant offers.

Conquest. Inevitably some of your service customers drop off every month. While some of these can be replenished through new vehicle sales, most of them have to be replenished through conquest campaigns. Establish an aggressive, multi-channel service conquest strategy to find and bring in new customers on a regular basis.

Allocate budgets in advance. Seasonal service campaigns are highly effective and proven to deliver high ROI, so plan ahead to make the most out of campaigns such as spring tire, fall tire, summer road trips and winterizing vehicles.

Market all service profit centers. Don't get stuck marketing basic maintenance and repair work. Do your customers know that you have a collision center? Do they know about your tire program, or about your aftermarket accessories? Dealers are notoriously bad at educating service customers about all available options.

Historically dealership service marketing budgets have been an afterthought, with no rhyme or reason given to how budgets are allocated or spent. For proactive dealers willing to think outside the box, this presents a huge opportunity to steal service work from your competition who remain stuck in their service marketing ruts.