Working retail in the auto industry can certainly be taxing. Salespeople work 60-70 hour weeks to make a paycheck. Sales managers do so while also having to manage the sales team, create multiple reports and handle a multitude of tasks — and the service department is just as overloaded. Not surprisingly, frequently the excuse, “there’s[…]
A recent article in Automotive News reports that the three-year employee retention rate at dealerships reached a new low, dropping by 2%. In fact, the study showed that only 1/3 of sales consultants stay at a dealership for 3 years or longer. The article went on to share that the average tenure for sales consultants has steadily[…]
Have you ever tried to call a dealership – whether it’s to inquire about a vehicle or schedule a service appointment – just to get placed on eternal hold or thrown into someone’s voicemail? Many consumers have and, just like you, they don’t like it. People are busy. When they pick up the phone to[…]
With the major shift into leasing certified pre-owned vehicles by several OEMs and major financial institutions, many dealers have predicted a decline in service contract sales. However, according to an article in Automotive News, they would be wrong to do so. Due to an influx of low-mileage pre-owned vehicles, captive finance companies and others have started to[…]
Tom Hawkins, Dealer Principal of Hawkins Chevrolet in Fairmont, MN, a cornerstone of his local community, was searching for a way to provide even more support to his local area. He reached out and identified an area that had both a need and a raving group of supporters — animal lovers. Being a big animal lover himself,[…]
Many businesses, including the automotive industry, have a strong focus on creating a better customer experience through technology. In fact, technology has transformed the customer experience across all industries. Consumers can buy a multitude of products online and have them delivered, in some cases, in an hour. Technology has even advanced to the point that[…]
Loyalty programs are nothing new to retail. In the beginning, most consisted of simple punch cards or other basic means of tracking customer transactions. As technology improved, many programs became digitized with key tags, cards and other ways for retailers to keep track of these transactions, aside from purely manual means. Then came big data,[…]
You may think that simply because you offer an excellent customer experience, your customers will be loyal… but what is really happening? Is it possible that YOUR definition of a great customer experience differs from your customers? A recent article on Business2Community covered how a study by American Express of 11,000 people across the globe, found that[…]
If you’ve ever worked in automotive retail, you know that there are constant internal struggles going on between employees and their departments. The structure of most dealerships actually encourage this – similar to how a salesperson’s pay plan incents them to sell cars. The most obvious friction oftentimes occurs between sales and service. While in[…]
Many dealerships price prepaid maintenance programs (PMPs) high enough to shatter success from the start. Thinking that the real benefit comes from profit built into the plan along with forfeiture, they create a price point that’s prohibitive. While some new buyers will take the bait, the typical consumer, when asked to pay $895 for three years of[…]