Is your building age/layout helping or hindering?

[lostgopher]

The dealership that I presently work at has been in business for over 80 years. Trouble is that the main building is that old or older as well. There is body shop and a truck repair shop across the alley. A building across the street for people to do there training via sattelite. A warehouse a block away where tires and body parts are stored along with vintage cars. Plus there is a used car lot with two separate buildings a 1/2 mile away. Techs have to walk across the alley, thru the shop in the main building to come to parts department in the front portion of that building. This also is where people have to go to pay their bills. We can be this nicest people around, but there has to come a time when you can inconvenience some of the customers out the door, by chasing them around town. I was wondering if any other dealers have sat down to look at their own buildings from the customers perspective, or efficency of how the employees do their work as a way to better CSI?

[Richard]

Hindering. Our service dept is setup up all worng for today's way of business. The parts retail counter is in the service customer lounge, and the cashier is on the service lane. Half the parts warehouse is a file room now.

When I 1st came here there were 3 rows of bins stretching the length of the parts department (with no breaks!!). I've since changed all that.....

[texaslp]

Our building is not all that old but the cashier location is not convenient at all for service customers.

I feel your pain, having worked in a very old facility before. Problem is, it's not like it's an easy fix.

[cantfind12]

Building layout is very under rated and often improved or remedied by using other "viewpoints." Its no secret that the dynamic of more women being innvolved in the purchase and service of vehicles has brought changes to the layouts of progressive service drives and showroom floors (Thanks Ladies) yet is still a common observance to see customers exposed to the noise, fumes and occasional expletive of fixed ops or see sales people doing the "homeless troll" of the lot. With that you must incorportate employee and paper flow between the departments and how they are viewed by customers. After a customer pays the bill a minor misplacement of keys undermines your ability to practice the same way lost paper work would unnerve you in a doctors office after bloodwork.

[Tyler Robbins]

It is often unfortunate, but a reality, in that facility layouts are designed based on whatever the current servicing "trends" are at the time. Even more unfortunate how demanding the manufacturers are at dictating the design of the facility. Most have adopted an A, B, C, D, E or 1,2,3,4, 5 design, all of which are essentially the same, just different in size, and all are designed assuming land with appropriate square footage, and the assumption of no city or town by-laws or ordinances that restrict certain heights, proximity to the street, etc. Realistically, dealers HAVE TO choose one of them, with little or no customization for the dealer.

I worked for a dealer who has a fantastic "downtown" location. A wide, not deep land plot - Building on the left, inventory and parking lot on the right - simple right?

The "design" plan called for a Service Drive Entrance that faced the main road. The size of the land, and required total building size required that the drive door be approximately 1 car length from the main road. The city simply wouldnt allow this, as if there were more than 2 cars outside the drive door, cars would be backed up on the street (the main thoroughfare into the city). The solution, after years of negotiation with the manufacturer was to effectively turn the dealership 90 degrees so that the front of the dealership "faced" a side road, and the "Drive Entrance" was forced to have a lane that passed through the inventory from the side street, effectively losing inventory parking of approximately 100 units. Now as you approach the dealership on the main street from the West, you really see the "back" of the building, only from the "East" do you actually see the "front" of the dealership. What a waste... the dealer's personal "design" option was perfect and still maintained that all-important "look", but since it didnt meet the "plucked from wherever" requirements - he couldnt build it, and thats just the outside!!

I will state that there a lot of great dealers out there who do an excellent job of marketing to and retaining customers in their markets - in reality - those dealers know better than some architect sitting in an ivory tower in Detroit or LA how their dealership should be laid out to meet and exceed the needs of their customers, and not just to meet the "trend" of the day, but over the next number of years!

For those in an older facilty, your tiles may be worn, your ceiling looks terrible and the layout is challenging, but in all fairness, the biggest difference between an 80+ year old facility and a new facility is the cleanliness not the function!

[X476]

Our building may be older and not the perfect set up, BUT it is PAID FOR. In these times that In my opinion is pretty important.

[the hammer]

X476
that sounds like a fair statement and logical but now with the new dealer agreements gm is forcing on us you either upgrade or get left behind

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most people work just hard enough not to get fired and get paid just enough not to quit.

[X476]

hammer,

I now what you mean since Chrysler decided we cant be part of the "new Chrysler". I feel for all the mom and pop stores that built GM and Chrysler and now get screwed because they are not shiny enough.

[sallen1]

my stores are vintage 1946 and 1967. Looked at rennovations a few years ago but waaaay to much money, 3 mil a piece and where was the volume going to come from... too many dealers in town to succeed. So I held off...

It was the right move. The "facility" part of the agreement has some money behind it and the footprints are smaller.