It’s no surprise that Disney has created one of the largest groups of loyal customers in the world. Of course, this isn’t by accident. Everything Disney does is by design. According to an article in Automotive News, Porsche wants to do a similar thing and create its own brand loyalists by bringing a little Disney magic to its dealerships.
Porsche has enlisted the Disney Institute to help train all of its customer-facing dealership personnel. It has also asked dealers to create a new position in their stores, Customer Experience Manager, responsible for ensuring staff embrace customer experience. The Customer Experience Manager will also watch and analyze customer satisfaction in their stores at each point of contact.
Customer loyalty begins at the first point of contact a customer has with a dealership. Regardless of if the first experience is in service, via the Internet, by phone, or in person, if this first experience is poor, it’s much harder to win over their loyalty. Through creating a company culture that focuses on the customer experience, similar to Disney, Porsche is on the right track to increase their Customer Satisfaction scores, along with dealership and brand loyalty.
The Disney Institute is a world-renowned training group that has ongoing relationships with other manufacturers, including GM. It has trained dealers in several areas, including leadership and management skills, and attendees largely have very positive things to say about the training.
Low CSI scores can cost your dealership thousands of dollars in lost OEM incentives, to say nothing of the loss of sales and service revenue and the scramble to replace those customers, along with high acquisition costs.
Take a look at what Porsche is doing and consider analyzing your customer experience at every touchpoint. Strive to improve areas that are lacking and reward any staff that perform well. Whether you choose to send your staff to the Disney Institute or not, an internal program designed to improve the customer experience at your dealership can certainly mean future business and revenue growth.
It’s great to see a manufacturer take this move to improve the customer experience and thereby loyalty. Hopefully, other manufacturers and dealerships will follow their lead. It can only mean an improved perception of dealerships by consumers. And that will lead to more business for everyone.