driving up customer pay

[MuDDy Thoughts]

Our Honda store has a changing demographic ($down) and driving in new Cp business is becoming a REAL challenge. Any thoughts?

MuDDy

[btk]

What is your current retention, how many active customers to inactive customers? You can ask you DSM for an urban science report which will report your UIO and also retention if you are not sure what it is. You can also obtain a garage predictor list to try to get names , but you should really know who are you going after so you know where to spend your time and money and can track your results.

[MuDDy Thoughts]

Thank you btk. I have forwarded your information to the Managers at our Honda store.

MuDDy

[topshop]

"Our Honda store has a changing demographic ($down) and driving in new Cp business is becoming a REAL challenge. Any thoughts?"

Where is the CP work going...who IS doing it?

Why them instead of you?


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Tom Ham
AutomotiveManagementNetwork.com

[robc]

Yes - I first say I agree with btk ... nobody has the depth of market research that Honda offers - take advantage of it.

Related - working with a shop that sales were slumping, they bring in a sub-prime department and do ok. Miracle of miracle, a portion of sub-prime were getting new vehicles. Now these people could barely afford the monthly stroke on the note, let alone maintenance packages. The shop went to low cost maintenance and aftermarket accessories and performance parts. Funny thing - people that couldn't possibly afford a $350 service suddenly could afford spoilers. This is not a market accustomed to maintenance - so there is no way you are selling them the timing belt with the waterpump and the motor mount and suspension parts that you do on all the other Honda customers.

[JustBob]

Robc,

Interesting. Other cultures particularly the 3rd world ones (not all) do not understand perhaps more importantly do not practice maintenance, especially preventive maintenance. It sounds as though this store stumbled upon that. Perhaps in studying demographics of a target market the cultural differences should be closely studied.

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Have a tremendous day
Bob Britting

[sp7128]

Muddy
Is your Honda store a Honda Express Service Certified department or are you performing your own version of Express Service?

[MuDDy Thoughts]

Yes we are (Express Certified). Any additional help is welcomed! Thank you all so much for the information provided so far!

Our meeting this morning was an eye opener for the Managers at that store because of the help you have provided.
Thank you all again.

MuDDy

[hondaman1]

personally anytime a customer declines a repair, i require the SA to bring me the ticket and i call the customer. they brought the car in to get it fixed.usually when they decline the repair, they have shopped around and found a better price.

i always ask why they do not want the repair done and 99% of the time it is becuase of cost. so at that point i ask them what they think is fair.

most of the time i usually give 10% off, so not hitting a homerun but i am keeping the business in the shop.

also never ever be undersold on tires. lose money if you have to.whoever does the tires has a good chance of capturing the brakes jobs,the alignment that should be sold with any tires, and FE work needed on alot of cars, then when that happens, more lost revenue.if i have to i will lose money on tires just to keep a customer in the door and to keep him/her coming back.

also if you do not add in a tire balance, wiper blade inserts, and a battery service to every 15k,30k,45k,60k,75k,90k service etc.this will add roughly $70 to every service and increase $$$ per RO.

have to find ways to keep your customers also. i have a greeter/SA assistant that greets every customer on the drive within 30seconds of arriving,we offer bottled water to every customer, get them with the SA who has the appt set up or the next available one. if they are both busy she gets the pertinent info only til a SA is available. ALWAYS PUT A WOMEN GREETER ON THE DRIVE.men love it and women are more comfortable also.

if your honda and your not using owner link, you are losing invaluable FREE advertisement and you can also make up coupons and email them, and bypass the cost of postage. always make sure your website has coupons on it.

never have coupns expire in a 1 month span.always make your coupons good for 90 days. alot will not come in becuase they wont need in 30 days, but could use them in 90 days.

i also run a shuttle service that departs the dealer at 7:30,8:30.9:30,10:30,11:30 etc up til 4:30.

then if need be we pick people up at 8:00,9:00,10:00,11:00,12:00, etc up til 5pm is the last pick up.

if you losing business based on perception that there is no value in your owrk, then your SA's are not doing a good enough job of making hte customer understand the value of what needed to be done.customer want to be pampered and understand exactly where there money goes and and why it has to go into repairs.

hope this helps out bud!!

[sp7128]

A couple things that helps our customer retention, which keeps cp up, 1.) air condition your shop and parts counter, customers these days expect convenience and they sure do not want be standing in swealtering heat to PAY for a repair that they are already second guessing or pick-up a vehicle that let them down for a warranty reason. 2.) Look around your service dept/drive/customer waiting area, is it clean , well lit, inviting, seats in customer wait area clean, books/papers current, TV up to date with a good picture, free WiFi. It's 90 plus today and our service drive is 76 degrees, parts dept 74 degrees, and our shop 16 bays and detail/carwash is under 80 degrees. Think about it you need to go to the dentist, you walk in and its 90 degrees you staying or comming back later, you go to grocery store there A/C is broke it's 90 degrees, I walk out and go to next closest with A/C. Same way for cleanliness what we think is passable and what the customer thinks are two totally different things. My owner just bought a closed big 3 facility and was already landlord on another big 3 store. I understand now why some fo these franchises are in the state they are, (dirty, filthy, univiting, outdated, dungeon facilities), take a ride down to the competing local tire store or oil change place and do a visual see what you can improve on. We sell image now just as much as we do complete quality repairs.

[This message has been edited by sp7128 (edited 06-12-2008).]