transient owners?

[darrenfein]

I was wondering if anyone had any good guidelines for transient owners. Specifically, I am wondering if I am servicing everybody else's nightmares or if I am barking up the wrong tree. We currently service about 1275 vin's per month (under warranty), 55% of those are vehicles that we sold. Although we are grateful for others coming to our dealership and we look forward to ultimately selling them their next vehicle. We are wondering if the 45% owners that came from somewhere else are affecting our CSI in a negative way. We do follow up on all of our customers, but have not broken down the information by selling dealer.

Any feedback is appreciated.

[robc]

What I first would do is figure your CPVS on your cars and your visiting owners. Since the DA report gives you % of vehicles and dollars ($) then you can multiply these numbers by your totals and divide the two results to get you CPVS for transient. Then subtract the above results from the total and divide them again to get the CPVS for your customers. The harder part is then doing the same set of numbers for your peers. (If this seems confusing, and it is the way I wrote it, then just e-mail me you numbers and I'll figure it for you. I'll need your and your peers transient numbers (# and $) off the top of page one, number of vehicles serviced in three months and I'll need your 3 month expense from page 1 and the amount you are over peer.)

Your rep can actually pull the transient numbers for each of your repair categories as well if you suspect that it is mainly transient work in a certain category.

That being said, 9 out 10 times the answer is not transient vehicles. It is rare that I find that this alone is causing your high expense. And when it is, most of the time it is the result of used vehicle expense more than just transients in the traditional sense.

Is 45% a lot? Maybe. Again, what your peers are doing are you best indication. 45% in Florida is nothing, in Fargo it's a lot. So, that depends on how far you are from peers.

Hope that helps!

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** Rob, Editor WD&S **
Help is only a message post away!
robc@dealersedge.com

[This message has been edited by robc (edited 11-14-2000).]