Your customer’s journey begins with the Service Appointment
Recently we were doing training in a boardroom on the second floor of a dealership that had a huge window overlooking the showroom floor and service reception.
We had a discussion about what they thought would happen and how the appointment process should be carried out. After we had a clear idea on what was supposed to happen, we had the General Manager make the call and actually witness everyone ignoring the call as it bounced from employee to employee.
We thought the GM was going to have a stroke right there and then, but we think we need to look at this and take it as a learning opportunity for everyone. The appointment is the first step in your customer’s journey with your Service Department.
Challenge #1:
Pick up your phone, block your number so it does not show up on call display, and pretend you are a customer making a service appointment in your dealership. We have found this a very powerful exercise for General Managers to carry out.
The truth may hurt a little but there lies the opportunity.
The appointment is the first step in your customer’s journey with your Service Department. We want to look at all the processes needed from service appointment to vehicle delivery.
The appointment process will set us up for failure or success before the vehicle even arrives in the service drive. The person making the service appointment should be knowledgeable and confident; they are the first impression a customer gets.
The person making the appointment either from your BDC, appointment coordinator or service advisor should know the PLAN. What is the PLAN? How many hours are you booking your shop for? (Please don’t tell us you are booking by the number of appointments; if you are, your PLAN just failed miserably.)
What specials do you offer? How many appointments are you booking per time slot to accommodate the client? If you have three service advisors you cannot book five appointments. Too many times we hear service advisors say, “Drop it off first thing!” What does that mean? First thing could mean something different for everyone.
Wolfgang’s first thing in the morning is 7:00 am while Andy’s is 9:00 am. Booking five appointments for three service advisors means two people are pissed off with you before you even talk to them. What time does everyone start? If everyone starts at 8:00 am, how is it possible to have work for your technicians ready to go at 8:00 am? This is one of the biggest time wasters we see.
Do the math! If you have a door rate of $140 and 10 technicians each wasting 15 minutes per day that equates to $105,840/year (10 x .3 x $140 x 21 working days x 12 months per year). That’s just 15 minutes!
Next, does the person making the appointment know your specials, understand what a maintenance service is and how much it costs?
If you want a tip to help your front line staff have more confidence, have them spend time in the shop with a technician performing a big service and see what is involved. You should see what that does for a confident boost!
After the appointment is made make sure the client knows where the dealership is and what is going to happen when they arrive. We wonder why our customers do not drive in the service drive…because during the appointment process we don’t tell them to.
We need to explain that when they arrive at the dealership to pull up to the drive-thru door and get as close as you can and the door will open, drive in, at which time a complimentary alignment check is performed.
Once inside our service advisor will greet you and perform an active check in at the vehicle. (Make sure to also tell the customer to allow extra time for the walk around with your service advisor.)
Service advisors often tell us that their customers do not want to spend the time for a walk around or active check in. NO!? If you don’t tell your customer that during the appointment process of course they won’t have the time. Our customers are super busy and we have to respect their time.
Challenge #2:
Listen to the end of the call.
Does it blow your customer away? It should, it’s your chance to be different!
We will get into why a walk-around conducted by the service advisor is so important in the next issue. This is just a phone call.
What other methods do you have in your dealership to book a service appointment?
You probably have other methods like Online Appointment Booking (OAB) or texting or some manufacturers have vehicles that are capable of booking service appointments from the car.
Regardless of what digital methods you have, you need to get the above-mentioned points explained to your customer. When the appointment is complete, have a text message go out to the customer showing them a map to the dealership, maybe a picture of the service drive or better yet, a video of the check-in process. How cool would that be?
This is step one of your customer’s aftersales journey …exhausting isn’t it? We don’t even have the car at our dealership yet…stay tuned for step two.
