Slow Time.....what do you do with it?

[Richard]

Our afternoon traffic has slowed down lately, and a lot of time we don't have a lot to do. Our warehouse is kept fairly nice, and we are working bins already, but does anyone else have anything that they do to get business in the door in the afternoon? Cleaning's great, but it doesn't add to the bottom line.....

[kenm]

you could make thank you calls to your w/sale customers, follow up calls to special order customers, reminders to service customers..etc.

[puredealer]

You can always work to see what you can do to decrease expenses- office supplies, shop supplies, chemicals-

Shop around to get more competitive rates to help reduce your costs.

-Michael www.puredealer.com

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www.puredealer.com

[Matt Parsons]

Richard, depending on the comfort that your service and parts departments have in working with each other, this seems like a great opportunity to get on the phone and follow-up with customers who have recently been in for service to gauge their level of satisfaction, and to contact both parts and service clients that you haven't seen in some period of time (say greater than 6 months and less than 18 months).

I am sure (in working with you over the years) that the parts department is squeaky clean. Why not focus your attention on helping the other departments run a bit more smoothly.

Another idea, is this a good time to perform scheduled clean-up on your system - for example common name and address, checking file retention information etc?

Let us know if we can help by generating any specific reports for you that can assist with any of these activities via query or Executive Assistant if you are using our data mining tool.

Best Wishes - Matt

[imacdude]

Richard,

During the slow times, I would have my employees begin perpetual inventories. I may also have them spend time in sales for current model product knowledge, Sit them down with the lates bulletin books. Get on the phone to special order customers. Is that a good start?

John Belen

[Richard]

Well, one thing I have started is Training. Today we had "Tips for Upcoming Parts Professionals", just some basic do's and don'ts for our particular dealership. We've done a lot of cleaning, place looks great, the dealer is happy, and so far, no layoff's. (PS, we had near record Nov's, Dec's, and a better than average Jan.....I don't know why it 'feels' slow...the numbers show otherwise)