The number one area that your Customers would like you to improve in is… Communicating with your Customers.
Most of you reading this would say “We do communicate with our Customers all the time! We call them; we send them emails…why we even have a monthly newsletter that we send out. What more could they possibly want?”
Maybe…just maybe…they might want you to communicate with them the way they like to be communicated with…whaddya think?
Have you asked your Customers this question…”Mr./Ms. Customer, which way would you like me to communicate with you? Do you we contact you by cell phone? Do you prefer we text you? Would you prefer we send you an email? Or is there another form of communication that you would like for us to use?”
Once you have the answer to that question, you need to have people who are Trained to Communicate! And by training your personnel to Communicate they will become better at the one thing that they must be the BEST at in a Dealership…SALES!
“If you are willing to commit to training your entire Fixed Operations team how to effectively communicate with every customer on every phone call and at every visit you are well on your way toward creating a culture of salesmanship within your entire organization.” says Don Reed, CEO of DealerPro Training Solutions.
And that Culture is what is required to be successful and competitive in today’s Dealership.
You must have people who can effectively Communicate and that means you need to do 3 things.
1.Train everyone in Sales, Service and Parts how to answer the phone. It is a skill set like any other. There is a script or word track for just about every conceivable situation. Once they learn the script and begin to use it, it begins to sound natural and they gain confidence. There is nothing worse for a Customer and a Dealership than to have your Customer phone in and get someone who has absolutely no idea how to answer the phone or what to do. It sets the wrong tone and establishes the idea in the Customers mind that they may have made a mistake in choosing you to do business with. And that Customer will remember that experience for a long time. Think they don’t? Have you ever had a Customer start off a conversation with “One time I called here and _______ happened.”?
2.Train your Service Advisors to ask every Service Customer the following. “Mr. /Ms. Customer, what is the best way for us to contact you today?” when they drop it off for Service. The follow up question is “In case I’m having some difficulty getting in contact with you, is there another way or another person I can get in touch with?” These two questions will boost Sales in Service. Why? How many times have your Service Advisors set an RO aside for hours at a time because they could not reach the Customer? And when they finally did get them, it was too late in the day, there were other issues, the Technician was busy doing other work…blah, blah, blah. That leads to a Lost Sale and that leads to Lost Gross.
3.Train your Service Advisors to be investigatory. Investigatory means simply being inquisitive and asking questions. What kind of questions do you ask? Anything that leads to the discovery of more information. Questions in the service drive sound like “Have you had your tires rotated?”…”When was the last time you had ________?”…”Have you noticed any leaks? What color was the fluid?” These questions and others like them, will get you more action items on your Repair Order. At the writeup area you can ask other questions like “I noticed that the last time in we recommended ______ and I don’t see where we have taken care of that yet…is that right?”…These examples of investigatory questions help the Customer get the Best Service Experience and make the Service Advisor more proactive which leads to more Sales. This is the beginning of developing a culture of Salesmanship.
And that leads to a culture of Success.
Communication with the Customer is the key to Service Department Profitability. Training every Service Advisor in phone skills, how to contact the Customer and becoming an Investigator will pave the way on the Road to Success.
Send an email to rheywood@dealerprotraining.com or call 888-553-0100 and find out what your Dealership is capable of with a Profit Potential Analysis. You don’t know until you look.
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