Express Lane

[jp116393]

We are considering signing up with Express Lane. Has anyone had any experience with them? If so, what is your opinion?

[slapenta]

jp116393:

If your goal is to increase long term customer retention and sell more vehicles at your dealership then Express Lane will be instrumental in helping you to achieve your goal.

In todays market place most automobile dealerships are losing around 80% of their routine maintenance business to the aftermarket establishments such as Jiffy Lube, Firestone, Midas, etc. for items like oil change service, brakes and tires. This happens because most service departments have not made the necessary adjustments to their business model to provide a timely and convenient experience for their customers when it comes to performing light routine maintenance. If you think there is any doubt in what I am saying, just ask yourself why are these people in business?

Express Lane delivers a very timely and convenient environment for your customers to have light routine maintenance items performed such as oil changes, tire rotation, wiper blades, air filters, cabin filters, batteries and bulb replacement. Service departments that have implemented Express Lane have been delivering the following results for their customers:

--Perform oil change service and complete a 100% bumper to bumper vehicle inspection process in 8-12 minutescustomer out the door!

--Perform oil change service, tire rotation, wiper blades, air filter, bulb replacement and complete a 100% bumper to bumper vehicle inspection process in 24-30 minutescustomer out the door!

How do I know this...because I have been contracted to participate in the OEM Express Lane initiative for Chrysler-Jeep-Dodge dealerships.

Take time to view the most recent article from Dealer Fixed Ops magazine that has a cover feature on a very successful service manager that is selling brakes, tires and has also implemented Express Lane in his service department.

Click on this link to view http://www.dfo-magazine.com/index.asp?article=2060

Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions regarding Express Lane.

Steve LaPenta
slapenta@bellsouth.net



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[jp116393]

Thanks Steve,

You sound like my Express Lane sales rep!

One of our primary goals is to increase the capacity of our shop. We are so busy we are taking appointments two weeks out. What customer wants to wait 2 weeks for an oil change? How many people are we pushing to the independents?

Currently we are averaging 20 LOF's per day. These all go through the main shop and with our set up, they take a half an hour per job. If we can pull these out of the main shop, we figure that we are adding upwards of 10 hours a day of capacity(20*.5 hrs).

The other benefit that I can see is that because we are so busy, we are focused on just getting the work done that is requested by the customer. We, therefore, tend to avoid upselling. The mindset from the advisors to the technicians is that we do not have the time to do additional work, so don't bother. From looking at Express Lane, it looks like this mindset would be changed too.

I have two concerns with Express Lane:

1. Training and support- It looks like they would be involved for the first 6 months, but then it is up to the dealership to take it from there. How good is the training and do they offer support after the first 6 months?

2. The potential high turnover- A decent tech won't want to make $8 an hour for very long. Therefore, I am more than likely going to have to rehire, retrain, and in Chrysler's case, recertify a new technician every year or so...and that is a best case scenario.

Jason

[camaroman]

JP, where are you located? We are kinda slow up in the northeastern PA area. Send some of your work up this way.

[slapenta]

Jason:

I don't want you to view this as a sales pitch because you already have acknowledge your own areas of opportunity.

As stated, I am one of the Express Lane trainers that would visit your store to help implement the Express Lane process.

You have some great questions that need to answered and before committing to Express Lane you are welcome to call me at 561-714-5071.
I will gladly answer any of your concerns as you and I can discuss if Express Lane is a good fit for your store. I look forward to speaking with you.
Steve LaPenta

[GMFXDOPSMGR]

We started our Express Lane in June before Chrysler came in to set us up. My Service Manager and I visited a pilot store here in Fl. and came back fired up!! We implemented it with a dicated advisor, three lof techs, lift, etc. We did not try to do it like we saw at the pilot store, just 3 techs and pushed to get good times. We are today finishing our installation with our Chrysler trainer and we will be in the 12 -15 minute lof change. It is already getting great responses from our customers. They wonder what we have done!! It is better then GM's concept, Ford's concept and is like a pit crew at NASCAR. Every tech has specific functions they perform at every step of the routine. GREAT CONCEPT!!!

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Tom Edwards

[slapenta]

Tom:

Good job and keep up good work!

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[bfree]

Does anyone have the GM version of the Express Lane? What type of financial commitment does it take? Is there any training provided?