What Makes a Great Dealership?
Learn what sets top dealerships apart. Get expert tips on customer service, management, and sales strategies to boost your dealership’s success.
Dealerships have a unique opportunity to interact with consumers during one of their biggest and most important purchases: car buying. Buying a new vehicle can be a stressful experience for your customers. But what if it could be smooth, stress-free, and even enjoyable? The truth is that dealerships that prioritize a customer-centric approach thrive. So, what makes a great car dealership? Let’s explore the key characteristics that set these dealerships apart and turn one-time buyers into loyal fans.
How Dealerships Win Customers for Life
A top-notch car dealership is typically known for its exceptional customer service; every interaction is an opportunity to provide customers with a wonderful experience. Great dealerships prioritize timely and attentive service, whether answering inquiries, facilitating test drives, or arranging smooth vehicle deliveries. They also take customer feedback seriously and continually seek ways to exceed expectations, ensuring a positive experience from start to finish.
According to Cox Automotive, a staggering 70% of new car buyers defect within the first three years of ownership. Retaining used car buyers is even more challenging, especially if they’ve purchased an off-brand vehicle. This underscores the critical importance of exceptional service; dealerships must work diligently to retain customers and build long-term loyalty.
Sales professionals are the face of your dealership, and customers will remember their interactions with them. Your employees act as brand ambassadors, and when they greet customers warmly and provide information readily, they enhance your business’s reputation, build trust, and encourage engagement. Leaving the best possible impression with customers boosts your dealership’s reputation and increases the chances of sales, return visits, and word-of-mouth referrals.
Transparent and Fair Pricing
Many customers visit your dealership armed with research regarding the vehicles they’re shopping for, so there’s a fine balance between overwhelming them and providing them with the details they need.
Transparent, competitive, and fair pricing is essential for a successful car dealership. These dealerships build customer confidence by providing comprehensive pricing information and eliminating hidden fees or surprises. They will ensure customers receive good value for their investment. Honesty and integrity are emphasized in all financial transactions, fostering a trustworthy relationship with clients.
Knowledgeable and Professional Staff
Behind every outstanding dealership is a team of knowledgeable and professional staff. They possess a deep understanding of the automotive industry, including the technical aspects of vehicles, financing options, and current market trends. These experts guide customers throughout the car-buying process, offering valuable insights and advice. Great dealerships also require regular training to keep their staff updated with the ever-evolving world of automotive.
As you’re looking to innovate, consider investing in technology that allows you to offer on-the-lot vehicle comparisons that give quick access to the cars being considered—even makes and models you don’t sell. You may keep customers from shopping elsewhere simply by being able to access, review, and compare information from your location. Whatever your customers are looking for, encourage your sales pros to respond to individual needs on a case-by-case basis.
Happy Employees
Your employees are key in the relationships customers have with your dealership. They create the perception that customers have when they think of your brand. The level of employee engagement at your dealership can define the entire mood for both customers and staff; in fact, it can make or break the success of your business.
It is important to create an environment where employees can thrive and feel comfortable. A workplace that fosters creativity and values employee opinions and input makes a difference in employees’ actions and satisfaction levels.
When employees are happy, they are more responsive and work more efficiently. They also tend to be better problem solvers. This allows the whole team to perform at a higher level and work more effectively toward common goals.
Investing in employee satisfaction is an investment in customer satisfaction. By creating a work environment that fosters creativity and values employee input, dealerships can empower their staff to provide exceptional service. This, in turn, leads to happier customers, repeat business, and a thriving dealership.
Clear Processes
For dealerships to eliminate weak points and be considered great dealerships, speed of service and personalization need to be addressed by adopting clear processes. Do you have a process for greeting customers in the service lane? Do your Sales Managers express their expectations on the lot? What about taking calls? Importantly, is personalization connected to the process?
Perhaps the best thing about processes is that they make car-buying easier and faster by automating (or nearly automating) repetitive steps. With processes in place, you’ll easily determine and eliminate unnecessary steps or bottlenecks slowing you down. This not only allows employees to work more efficiently, but it also gives them time to focus on the important stuff—like having relationship-building conversations with customers.
Consistency
Nothing keeps things moving like consistency. Consistency leads to routines, and routines build momentum. Consistency also makes way for innovation because your team isn’t focusing on all the little, repetitive details.
Keep your customers in mind with every process. How long will they be waiting? Where will they be while they’re waiting? If you see a customer waiting, does your team know where they are in their vehicle buying process? Is there a way to speed things up between departments?
Once your dealership is running like a well-oiled machine, employees will have more time to respond to customer questions and needs. Customers will come to expect this, and that’s a good thing! Keeping things consistent ensures their satisfaction.
After-Sales Support
A great dealership’s commitment extends beyond the initial sale. They recognize the importance of after-sales support and assist customers throughout their ownership experience. This includes comprehensive after-sales services such as scheduled maintenance, repairs, and warranty-related issues.
By providing ongoing support, the dealership team builds long-lasting relationships with customers, becomes a trusted resource for all their automotive needs, and offers peace of mind long after the purchase.
Relationship Building & Loyalty
A successful car dealership makes building solid, lasting relationships with customers a top priority. Excellent dealerships listen to their customers’ needs and tailor their services accordingly. They strive to create a seamless, personalized experience, fostering loyalty and trust.
Make your customers feel like your number one focus. Do your research, and know customer names, whether they’ve purchased from you, and if they’re in a good position to trade. With the right software, predictions can be made for what and when your customers are ready to buy. This is key to saving customers’ precious time, meeting their needs faster than the competition, and retaining them for the long term.
Technology Plays a Part
Customers expect a seamless, personalized, and truly useful experience, especially when car shopping. Technology that is consistently being improved upon can take in new information about your customers, analyze it, and create deliverables that meet your customers’ current vehicle lifecycle.
A traditional CRM is too limited to deliver this kind of service alone. It does not learn or deliver at a rate that will keep your dealership in step with your customers. Narrow, limited technology leaves little room for your dealership to grow and does almost nothing for the customer experience.
If there is one piece of technology to invest in to create a great dealership experience, it’s a customer experience management tool. A platform built with the infrastructure needed to allow for synergies between software, your employees, and your customers to effectively differentiate your dealership from the competition.
The customer experience management platform created by AutoAlert, AutoAlert CXM, finds patterns that allow you to offer benefits to customers already in your database that fit their needs at just the right time.
