Automotive Services Consults Assists Your Dealership Keep Customers

By Johnny Simmona

Economists say it will be well into 2010 before the automotive industry turns around. While this is tough for auto dealers' profits, automotive consulting services groups say that the current economic downturn is a good time for dealerships to retool their service departments by looking at three processes: convenience, customer service and follow-up.

The goal of a good dealer service department should be to make it as easy as possible for a car owner to use it for regular maintenance as well as vehicle malfunctions, saying automotive service consulting firms. Convenience gives regular customers a strong reason to stay with the dealership instead of moving on to a less expensive, but more attentive, auto service vendor. Consultants point out that one way to ensure steady revenue, even in down times like these, is to retain existing customers, rather than have to spend more marketing dollars to bring new customers in the door.

A process is made up of a series of actions, done in a specific order that will create consistent results when followed. Processes define what different parts of the organization do. Good processes clearly tell an employee how to go about his or her job and how each worker contributes to create a consistent result. Good processes shouldn't restrain employees; they should be seen as "best practices" to follow for achieving the desired end result. Thus it pays dealers to take a look periodically not only at the bottom-line revenue from their service and parts departments, but the ways in which those departments go about their tasks. Automotive service consulting firms estimate that dealers can increase their profits without having to increase their volume if they'll inspect their processes for actions that waste time and money.

In addition to convenience, the way a service department operates often means the difference in good business and bad. Ensuring quality customer service means taking a good look at the service department's processes, say automotive service consults firms.

Follow-up forms the last of this trio of tools for surviving tough times. Automotive service consulting firms stress that it's the service department that's responsible for keeping customers for the dealership. Customers see the automaker and the service department as one entity. In their minds, the service department has the duty to keep their make and model of vehicle on the road.

The last tool in this tough-times survival kit is follow-up. Ideally, follow-up calls should be made to service customers within a day - two at the most. Service departments that don't treat their customers with this kind of courtesy and respect are practically sending them down to the street to the first automotive service or quick-lube outlet they can find, say automotive service consulting firms. That's because in the customers' minds, the service department equals the automaker.

Customers who don't feel that their business is truly valued by a dealership's service department are much more likely to choose another automaker when it comes time for their next car or truck. Studies have found this to be true no matter how many innovative features the automaker's next models may carry. - 21396

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The auto industry bounces back with the service consultant. The automotive consulting services have the best information that you can use in this state of the economy.