“There was a big blind spot when it came to finding out about the customer experience,” he stated. “No one had ever applied analytics to the service side of the business … and if you’re not measuring the process with something like [the study], the only people who know whether processes work or not are the customers.”
About 13 % of dealerships incorporated within the find out about completed rankings upper than 80, which means that they’re doing with regards to the whole lot smartly. However 20 % of the dealerships scored underneath 40, which means that they both didn’t lend a very simple scheduling procedure or they drove the client away, he stated.
“If a dealership scores under 40, something is drastically wrong,” O’Hagan stated. “Maybe they have a serious staffing problem that forces them to constantly put people on hold for more than two minutes or, even worse, the caller gets lost in a phone tree with no way out, gets a busy signal when transferred to a service adviser or gets a voicemail that says the mailbox is full.
“It’s stunning how ceaselessly such things as this occur.”
Group 1 Automotive posted the highest average score — 65 — across all of its participating dealerships; 27 percent of the nearly 151 stores scored higher than 80. Berkshire Hathaway Automotive (81 stores) ranked second with an average score of 63, and Ken Garff Automotive Group (66 rooftops) was third with an average score of 62. Four other dealership groups followed right behind, with average scores of 61: Ken Ganley Automotive Group (51 stores), Hendrick Automotive Group (three dealerships), Herb Chambers Cos. (60 stores) and Morgan Auto Group (62 dealerships).
When ranked by brand, the three highest-scoring were Acura, Lexus and Toyota.
The bottom three were Land Rover, Hyundai and Jeep, according to the study.
“The consequences inform me that some dealerships did a stunning process of interacting with shoppers who attempted to time table provider, future others didn’t and obviously wish to toughen,” O’Hagan said. “What we all know from defining and measuring auto broker processes for fairly a future is that each one sellers wish to pay alike consideration — measure and observe information.”
What surprised O’Hagan most about the survey results? The wide gap between dealerships, he said.
“We may suppose that each one of those immense, a hit corporations would function very in a similar way,” he said. “However there are some bulky variations.”
O’Hagan said employees can build customer loyalty by injecting some pertinent talking points that reinforce the caller made a good choice by opting to come to the dealership. For example, they could talk about positives such as the availability of loaner vehicles or Uber or shuttle rides. Perhaps the dealership offers free vehicle pickup and delivery, is a family-owned business or has certified master technicians.
“It really works like enchanment — those self same issues are what the ones shoppers upcoming regurgitate to alternative folk,” O’Hagan said. “It’s virtue taking the difficulty to make stronger all of the sure causes to patronize your dealership.”
