Performance Loyalty Group is privileged to have been included in not one, but two recent Automotive News articles outlining the success our auto dealer clients experienced using our products to gain and retain customers, build stronger relationships and drive more revenue.
The first was in May 2016, and highlights the spectacular results H&H Chevrolet experienced with our UltraCare Prepaid Maintenance Program.
The second was in July 2016, and illustrates the innovative way Howdy Honda leveraged our LoyaltyTrac loyalty and retention platform – along with some great creativity – to engage with their customers on social media.
Thanks to Automotive News, Hannah Lutz, Alex Kwanten, as well as H&H Chevrolet and Howdy Honda, for all of your efforts.
Read the following articles to find out what makes our tools so powerful that TWO or our auto dealer clients were recently featured in Automotive News due to their outstanding success:
- May 16, 2016 – “Charging for Prepaid Maintenance Trumps Giving it Away”
“Some dealers think freebies such as complimentary maintenance plans are good ways to boost customer retention. But the efforts are wasted if the free services go unused.
One Nebraska dealership has found success by charging for what it had been giving away. The idea: Make sure customers have “some skin in the game” when it comes to maintaining their vehicles.
H&H Chevrolet in Omaha began experimenting with complimentary maintenance in 2010, but committed to it seriously in 2013 by offering complimentary UltraCare prepaid maintenance plans from third-party provider Performance Loyalty Group.
“We saw our retention go way up” with the free plans, CEO Steve Hinchcliff says. Indeed, 88 percent of customers returned for service at some point. But, he says, “a large number of people weren’t actively using the plans, or forgot about them after the first visit.”
Customers who visited regularly often spent little. “Some customers would only want the free items,” Hinchcliff says, even if more work was needed. “That was discouraging,” he says. The average service upsell was little more than $65.
GM began offering a complimentary maintenance plan in 2013 to owners of most new 2014 Chevrolet, GMC and Buick vehicles. But in early 2015, after finding that customers didn’t use the program as often as expected, GM cut the number of free annual service visits in half to just two in 24 months.
The dealership’s experience parallels that of General Motors.
With that in mind, and after surveying its customers, H&H in August 2015 began selling the UltraCare plans. H&H charges an average of $255 per plan.
“We thought that it might make a difference if the customer had some skin in the game,” says Hinchcliff.
It did.”
[Read the full article here]
- July 4, 2016 – “Honda Store Finds Recipe for Success: Cookbooks Help Stir up Service Traffic”
“For Howdy Honda’s customers, creativity in the kitchen can lead to discounts in the service drive.
Five years ago, the Austin, Texas, dealership began using social media to gather customers’ favorite holiday recipes while boosting service traffic.
Howdy Honda uses a tool through Performance Loyalty Group’s LoyaltyTrac program to engage customers on social media. The dealership has 63,251 LoyaltyTrac club members and adds 400 to 450 members each month. The dealership retailed 4,470 new and used vehicles in 2015.
LoyaltyTrac integrates into the store’s dealership management system to increase customer retention by giving customers loyalty rewards based on their engagement and awarding them with discounts or coupons as they build up points for having their vehicles serviced at the dealership.
Howdy Honda offered 10,000 bonus service rewards points to customers who posted holiday cookie recipes on its Facebook page during the last two weeks of November 2011.
The dealership put all the recipes together and offered them to customers in a free e-book.
Since then, Howdy Honda has published cookbooks every year. In 2014, service advisers handed out holiday cookbooks printed by Performance Loyalty Group in the service lane.
Last year, the dealership changed course, putting together a summer picnic grilling cookbook. Customers could purchase it for $2, with proceeds going to a local food bank.
But submissions slipped, so Tina Fajardo, the dealership’s marketing coordinator, said she plans to launch another holiday cookie campaign, with a printed and digital cookbook, in November.
“We’re always trying to find different ways to connect to the community,” Fajardo said. “In Texas, homestyle cooking is a big deal. [We thought] how much fun would it be to gather those [recipes] and bring the community a little bit closer while advertising Howdy Honda?”
[Read the full article here]
For more information about UltraCare, LoyaltyTrac or any of the other products Performance Loyalty Group offers to help auto dealers gain and retain customers, build stronger relationships and drive more revenue please click here or call us at (866) 744-5525.