As dealerships look to streamline and improve their fixed operations business, the growth in advanced scheduling and appointment tools is seeing some stores reap significant benefits. Recently, one U.S. dealership, located in the Nashville, Tenn. area reported that an online service menu and appointment scheduling technology from Xtime helped it generate $287,269 in repair order business over a three month period.
“Not a bad RO figure, given that most customers go to our website’s Xtime online appointment scheduler initially just to book an oil change with us,” noted Glenn Hartley, service and parts director for Nissan of Rivergate. “From our use of Xtime, our CSI and retention have improved,” Hartley said. “We’re now getting as much as 30 per cent of our appointments a day from Xtime’s online appointment scheduling solution.”
To help it improve its service-to-service and service-to-sales retention, the dealership installed Xtime’s ServiceCRM solution in 2012. Since then, Nissan of Rivergate is generating 99 per cent of its service appointments through this online service-scheduling tool. As a result, the dealership said it is witnessing an average 85 per cent show rate, with customers on average, spending $175. The service department processes 1,500 repair orders a month, of which 70 per cent are customer-pay.
Studies by Xtime of dealerships using its ServiceCRM’s online service menus and appointment scheduling are recognizing significantly better retention rates than dealers not offering such conveniences. Dealers using Xtime’s web-based online scheduling tool to enable consumers to book their own service dates and times have shown a 4.3 percentage point improvement in retention.
“By giving customers opportunity to schedule their own service appointment, I have a 24-hour appointment scheduler working for me,” said Hartley. “Using it, customers fill up our day and they often fill hours late in the day that advisors, if allowed to take appointment calls, might not book. Xtime takes human weakness out of the appointment equation.”
