3 Ways Good Service Departments Lose Service Customers and What You Can Do About It

3 Ways Good Service Departments Lose Service Customers and What You Can Do About It.

There are many reasons service customers defect from our dealerships and do their maintenance and repairs elsewhere. However, there are 3 ways we lose those customers consistently.

1st, we stop communicating with them the way our customer likes to be communicated with. For example, if your customers have stopped responding to mail order reminders, why are you still sending them? What are you hoping to accomplish?

I was in a store recently and asked the service manager that very question. His response... "Well, what else can I do?"

What I have found in many stores is that we have not kept up with those changing communication channels and are out of step with our customers. Here is a short inventory you can do right now to see how you stack up to the market.

1. Are you listing the 10 competitive items on your website? This list should include things like battery replacement, wiper blades, alignments...the same things your customer checks online before they call to make an appointment.
2. Is your website complete with easy to read articles/video content for your customer to read or view about common repair items, or ways to get ready for weather events, etc?
3. Does your website have an "About Us" page and are the pictures up to date on that page? Every customer checks your website and they make a judgement of your dealership before they come in. What does an incomplete "About Us" page without pictures say about your dealership? Plenty.

What about those mailers...do they work? I can only tell you that in recent years I know my success rate went from an expected 1-3% return with a high of 5%, to .5 to 1.5% at the most...and I am not alone in that. Maybe instead of a mailer, you send an invitation.

2nd, get in the game by providing your advisors 3 necessary communication tools. These are texting, email invoices and text/call CSI followups.

I don't know how any advisor can only rely on voice communications these days. Everybody texts. My Dad texts and he is 82. Your customers are texting everybody on the planet. If you are not using this communication tool, you are on the sideline. Get in the game.

Next is email invoices. Saves time, customers can pay by email before they even get back into the store and your advisors can look like they are masters of communication by including in the email a brief explanation of what they did on the repair order. Win, win, win!

Lastly, followup programs should attempt the initial followup by 2 texts in succession, followed by 2 calls in succession, followed by an email. Modify as needed! This was the strategy I used in may last store to take the CSI from the lowest in the history of the store (when I took over), to consistently beating the zone, region and nation.

Finally, friendly service provided by trained service advisors kills the competition. Every time.

Not everyone on your team is a saint. They don't need to be. What they need to do is be friendly while following a service sales process to make sure the customer is driving away in a safe and reliable vehicle.

When your team is trained to do this the right way, the customer gets a consistent experience (every time) that leads to consistent sales and consistent CSI. There are no surprises.

Training is the beginning of success in service sales. There is no recognized successful organization on planet earth that does not have a training program. Once they have been trained, you just need to find friendly people or help your people be friendlier.

I was a store recently and one of the advisors there was successful, however, her manner in the service drive was a bit abrupt. I asked her to soften her tone and to slow down her sales presentation. Instant sales per transaction increase. And, she found that there was less stress because when you are friendly, the customer has a tendency to be friendly.

Those are 3 ways good service departments are causing customer defection. Address your website and get it updated, provide some relevant pricing and transparency, make sure your "About Page" is up to date and has recent staff pictures, get in the communication game by modernizing using text and email invoices and start a training program.

Stop the defection cycle.

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