NISSAN

NISSAN

Postby Ranger Z21 » Wed Aug 19, 2009 2:36 pm

I came from one of the Dodge stores that got shut down, I am now with Nissan. We are trying to grow the CP business with more traffic flow, I've tried the free and low price oil change, any suggestions.

Also were is all the gravey work I've heard about. It is nothing but oil changes, how are you to make money and turn hours. My Dodge store did 3 times the amount of work, and twice the repair work. Any suggestions on how to deal with this change.

Thanks so much for any advise.
Ranger Z21
 

NISSAN

Postby Ironchild » Wed Aug 19, 2009 2:58 pm

In my experience which equates to only Nissan and VW/Audi at our store, Nissan's just don't break down as much. At least they have been reliable in the past. That's why I drive one and have owned 6 in the past 5 years. Our Nissan parts inventory is a third of VW if that says anything. With Nissan (at least here) it is mostly maintenance.

------------------
"You want a 710 part?"

Ironchild
 

NISSAN

Postby sp7128 » Wed Aug 19, 2009 3:30 pm

"With Nissan (at least here) it is mostly maintenance"

as stated above ...You have to market to the maintenance schedule that is recommended by the factory and if you have maintenance minders..you are even fighting a harder battle....Maximize every vehicle, that comes in for a campaign/update, with incentives to the techs/advisors for necessary CP upsells..And remember most sales/upsells come out of the wheel wells.
sp7128
 

NISSAN

Postby Ranger Z21 » Wed Aug 19, 2009 4:18 pm

Ok next question cost of sale. How much is your cost of sale. It seems to me that you only need one or two high paid techs, and a bunch of C or D skill level techs is that true.
Ranger Z21
 

NISSAN

Postby sp7128 » Wed Aug 19, 2009 4:44 pm

1) Nissan stand alone?

2) how many bays?

3) hours/days of operation?

4) union?

5) rural?

6) # of competing dealers in area?

Stay away from the loss leaders and "give away" coupons, all you will do is train your consistent customers to expect coupons and discounts.

Maybe a "Hello, I'm new to the dealership and would like to reintroduce you to our service department," Meet-n-Greet type mailing, to your non-current customer base would help to attract more owners....Include an in the service drive vehicle inspection... wipers, tires, lights, paintless dent and glass chip. A quick walk around, email gathering, DMS info update and then contact the customers 3 to 5 days later, if something was noticed on the inspection/walk-around and offer an incentive price to them for attending the Meet-n-Greet. Put and expiration date on the mailer and the offer you extended to them for the incentivised repair.
sp7128
 

NISSAN

Postby Art_Mopar » Thu Aug 20, 2009 12:09 am

I too made the change from a closed Dodge Store to Nissan. Two weeks into the job I was hospitalized for 4 days, when I got out I found out I was unemployed. Anyway, your right there is no gravy work, no more timing belts, just oil changes. All I can suggest is some sort of oil change type retention program and then perform and present multi-point inspection results on every vehicle. If ever there was a franchise that could justify a quick lane or oil change express lane it would be Nissan! If it turns out you are my replacement then god bless you, you'll need it! The only other suggestion is to run a NNANET (our whatever the Nissan equivalent to a VIP on Dealer Connect is) and try to pick up any open recall campaigns. It is such a pain in the a** to run that you may not be running them at all, which was the case at my former store, and just about every vehicle that came in my door had an open recall on it (yes even the 2009 models)!

[This message has been edited by Art_Mopar (edited 08-20-2009).]

Art_Mopar
 

NISSAN

Postby Ranger Z21 » Thu Aug 20, 2009 9:51 am

ART I hope you found a better place to work, seems like you didn't need to be at the other place anyway. I will say after 23 years at my last dealership it is really hard to get used to the new way of doing business, Nissan has a lot to learn about doing business. I will say they make a fine vehicle, one of the best I've seen. Good luck ART and may God Bless You.
Ranger Z21
 

NISSAN

Postby mikethomson » Thu Aug 20, 2009 5:10 pm

We average 1.9 - 2.0 hrs / ro, which we find is acceptable.

It makes a big difference how old your customer base's vehicles are.

We took over this store about 8 years ago, and for the 1st 3 years it was a nightmare trying to find business, because ever vehicle was > 3 years and > 60k. Once the vehicles aged, and we had done our job retaining the customers it became clear sailing.
mikethomson
 

NISSAN

Postby DRAINKEPPER » Fri Aug 21, 2009 3:22 pm

Ive noticed some of you post on both the parts and service side of this forum. I am strictly the parts manager but would like to throw something out here and see what response I get. As to the Nissan service comments, we used to follow Nissan recommended service schedule for 30-60Ks which included oil change, air filter, fuel filter (if serviced) wipers, coolant change, transmission drain and fill, and belt replacement. Now our 30-60K service is Oil change, air filter and wipers. Everything else is considered an up-sale. This procedure was changed with the strong push by our BG rep, so your up-sale is coolant flush, trans flush, oil treatment, fuel treatment, and other flushes. To make the story short, when my Nissan Rep. was in he informed me our customer pay parts $ per RO had dropped 3% since last year and was now 10% below the group. Service manager doesnt seem to concerned (part owner who would rather be somewhere else) I told him (our nissan rep)we had cannibalized our customer pay work, turned it into up-sale work and know one is trying to sell anything.. Service says the customers were shocked by the cost of the old 30-60Ks (I think about $350.00 with 4x4 being more). Any suggestions, comments
DRAINKEPPER
 

NISSAN

Postby btk » Fri Aug 21, 2009 5:00 pm

Letting an outside vendor run yur service department is flat out stupid. I, for one,use BG products but at my discretion, we offer the factory drain and refill trans, service or the bg flush-factory drain and refill -89.00 bg flush-139.00 and we explain the difference. I have always followed the factory maintenance schedule for service-I feel people expect that from the dealer and then menu price services so they can eliminate things if they like. If people come in for a 30 k -you should offer what their owners manual states and then structure anything you want from there. My 2 cents
btk
 

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