In house service follow up

[jgroth]

We currently use Newgen and they can't dispute they aren't getting the job done with follow up. Our customers consistently rate our follow up system 17 points below group. We are looking to take the follow up program in house and eliminate the outlay of cash required and to improve our customer contact quality. How do you pull the required reports for follow up and how have you been tracking the system you put in place. I look forward to your response.

[dodgeboy]

We also used Newgen for awhile. They also admitted that they were not performing as promised. (then they wanted to charge us more to straighten out their records). We do all our follow-up for sales and service in-house. We are a 5-star Chrysler-Dodge store and follow up is high on Chryslers list of priorities. In service, we take the CSI copy of every repair order and have our caller contact every customer within 7 days.
She has been instructed to try to contact by
phone at least three times and log each attempt. For those that can't be contacted by phone, a self addressed stamped postcard with a short survey similar to the questions on Chrysler's CSI survey is mailed to those
customers. Our phone contact rate is between 95-98%. And the post cards are usually mailed back. This meets our 5-star needs, but best of all, we know what are customers are saying and it is less expensive.
There is more to it than just phone calls though. Our caller is responsible for keeping all the phone calls and postcards logged in an orderly fashion so we can easily track or trend customer complaints.

[HWalker]

Quick questions for those on the Service side: How many utilize their advisors for all follow-up calls? How many have an individual not involved in the transactions making the calls? Which do you find more effective?

[This message has been edited by HWalker (edited 11-18-2002).]

[Mike Vogel]

Our cashiers give every customer (including quick lube ) what we call a service follow up postcard that can be returned postage prepaid. We track postcards by advisor/team.
Originally we tracked returned postcards ourselves but have started using a company called Scantrax by Diversiform. My expenses have been cut using them and the results are terrific. We get about 250 returned postcards per month and they e-mail any negative cards the day they are received so that we can follow up with customer immediatly. I also have a part time follow up person that phones all warranty repair customers along with all customer pay repair orders over $200.00. Scantrax also gives me month end reports by advisor and by question so I can review with advisors. E mail me at toyotaservice@claremontautocenter.net if you have questions about scantrax. Thanks !

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Mike Vogel
Claremont Toyota
Claremont, CA

[Fireball47]

Newgen is also our follow up sevice along with a company called e-leads - both of which are falling terribly short of our goals. We are going to take this task in house to improve our ratings as well.

[michael1]

Is anyone using Dealerhq for their follow up?

[Steves2sense]

Your issue with Newgen may be bad phone numbers. If that's the case, in house won't be any better. I'd suggest bringing in the Newgen Rep and allowing them an opportunity to give you your money's worth. If it's factory sponsored, your factory rep should also be able to get their attention.

Bringing it in house will only be as good as the person you have calling. Consider paying a spiff for number/% of customers contacted to encourge them.

Advisors calling sounds nice, but usually is ineffective. They aren't likely to tell you any negative info on themselves. Also, it takes valuable time away from today's customers. You may want to focus your advisors on making today's customers happy while getting independent feedback on yesterdays.

Hope this helps. Good luck!

[t-hemmy1]

I USE URI FOLLOW UP AND THEY ARE GREAT. THEY ARE NOT THE CHEAPEST BUT THEY GET THE JOB DONE. CSI HAS COME UP 15 POINTS.I GET FOLLOW UP SHEETS E-MAILED EVERY MORNING FOR THE ADVISORS TO CALL IF THERE WAS A PROBLEM.EACH MONTH A DETAILED BOOK SHOWING BREAK DOWN FROM TECHS. QUALITY TO ADVISORS QUALITY OF JOB DONE. E-MAIL VICKY CARTER AT vcarter @uriinfo.net SHE DOES GET THE JOB DONE

[mark rouleau]

We are using Dealerhq... they definitely meet our five-star requirements, but they are expensive, and the quality of the phone interviewers ranges from excellent to substandard.