Is your service department ready for the vehicle inventory shortage?
Ariel Velazquez
Area Sales Director at Solera- TN - MS - AR - Puerto Rico - AutoMate DMS | DealerSocket CRM | Inventory+ | AutoPoint: Empowering the automotive industry through purpose and metrics. - Vehicle Life Cycle Expert
You don't represent or service most of your customers' brands.?
There has been a severe issue with new vehicle inventory over the last few years, and the problem isn't going away anytime soon. A chip shortage, supply chain issues, COVID, "The Great Resignation", we can name many factors, but it is a reality dealers cannot control, and I am not here to fix it.
What effect does this have on my service department other than just the supply of parts? The reality is that most franchise dealers have set up their service departments to handle and serve the brand they represent, and in many cases, they do more warranty work than maintenance. Most franchise dealers are selling used vehicles and many of them aren't the brand they represent due to the inventory shortage, and many customers are keeping their vehicles longer until prices and inventory are better. The majority of customers who buy from your dealer are not from your brand, so your service traffic will decline.?
The majority of your service software providers nickel and dime you and won't give you labor rates for other brands. Worst of all, the software you use is either provided by the brand or is part of the brand's "Endorsed" program. Neither your advisors nor your customers are used to servicing other brands at your store, neither is your marketing targeted toward those customers. And the sadder part is that you are ready to do the work, since these are the same vehicles you prepared before you sold them. I can hear some dealers telling me that they are full of appointments for the next three weeks, and I challenge you to check if most of them are for an oil change that makes you almost no money and the customers are just doing them to keep the warranty. How about other maintenance? What is it about independent shops that attract your customers??
领英推荐
There is an easy way to fix this, but we need to start with the goal of getting more of these jobs to service, management needs a clear plan, then training, and finally, the tools.?
So what do we do now? Are we waiting for the service to drop? Is this something we are preparing for??
You can follow me on?Facebook?or read my other articles at?Velazquezauto.com
Customer Success Manager, Enterprise, Digital Advertising Strategist, Account Manager
1 年You make some good solid points I used to love discussing service specials with my dealers and making it a focus. Always always make sure you focus on the fact that you as the dealership service all brands!!! Take advantage of the time of year and focus on what customers are needing right now.... if its summer road trips are coming... ask yourself what's needed for a roundtrip and create a page with some strong SEO talking about road trip tips and link it to your service scheduler. There are so many things you can do to boost yourself in the market and get seen by your customers.