ALTHOUGH SOME ASPECTS IN OUR INDUSTRY HAVE ADVANCED, OTHERS HAVE HARDLY CHANGED.
An old hero of mine, Sir Winston Churchill; once said and I quote: “the further backward you can look, the further forward you are likely to see.”
So as we plough our way through another year, my mind keeps drifting back to when I started in the automotive industry more than five decades ago. To be honest, most industries have evolved since then and taken on an entirely different approach to business.
But what about our own industry? For certain the bricks and mortar have changed. Thanks to the manufacturers, we now have larger service departments and less work with higher overheads (we’re still trying to work out the logic of that one!) DMS systems within the store have definitely made communication between the different departments, the factory and the customer a lot easier.
SALES STILL THE FOCUS
Fifty years ago, the manufacturers were more focused on shifting the iron than what was taking place in fixed operations; it was the sales people who were superheroes. Yes, they might have said that the sales department sells the first vehicle and it is the service department that sells the second one, but the service staff got little recognition for it. In the past, the industry never really focused on doing anything much to promote what was called the back end of the business and still doesn’t to this day.
On a recent Christmas Eve a dealer principal drove a van into the workshop full of fresh turkeys for the staff and was very upset when the technicians refused to take them, the reason was interesting. They said that they had been ignored by him all year and so did not want to take his turkeys.
Of course, one of the biggest changes over the years has been the change in name from mechanic to technician. I am still not sure why as I personally liked being a mechanic, you can call a pork chop a lamb chop but it is still a pork chop! The message from the staff was perfectly clear, so if you are a dealer principal reading this, ask yourself how many times in a month do you walk through the service department and talk to the staff?
Another question might be when was the last time you attended a service meeting, instead of a sales meeting. I think a little bit of an ex-mechanic just slipped out!
TRUST REMAINS AN ISSUE
Let’s re-cap: dealerships have become larger, the use of computer software has made dramatic changes and the product technology has gone through the roof. But there is another huge change that we have missed, that is with both our staff and customers! During training seminars we asked this question, “if you have children how many of you think that you have the same amount of control over them, that your parents had over you?”
This normally causes some laughter, as kids today want answers and have trouble accepting “no” without a good reason why, and even then might argue with you. The same can be true of your customers — they turn up to buy a new vehicle often armed with more information than the sales person and have definitely become more demanding in the service department.
The one thing in our industry that has stayed constant is our lack of trust from the general public and, sad to say, it’s not without some reason.
The amount of friends who tell me stories of why they do not trust their dealership’s service department is downright scary and hard to defend. I myself have been looking to buy another vehicle and it has not been a positive experience. Only this week I visited an Audi dealership, I walked in the showroom, sat in an A4 for a while and then walked around the new vehicles on the lot.
At least two sales people looked up from their desks, but not one bothered to ask if I needed any help. Maybe that is better than being stalked but only marginally. At a Volvo dealership we were out on the lot and a salesman shouted to us from the showroom, “If there is anything out there you like, come in and see me,” then sat back down! Many years ago I predicted that customer service would be the differentiator of the future but I am still waiting for the industry to wake up to that fact!
There is a reason why the independents still have such a large share of the marketplace, not only are they eating our lunch but at times we deliver.
