Category: Uncategorized

Meeting the high expectations of modern consumers can be challenging, especially considering everyone wants their own personalized, streamlined sales experience.   

This guide will help you shift your mindset and implement the sales and marketing tactics of today’s forward-thinking dealers. You’ll learn how to embrace data and deliver the experience consumers want by: 

• Using data to create personalized communications 
• Integrating your CRM with your website   
• Using behavior insights to make marketing decisions 
• Providing consumers with search filters and other tools 

• Using data to recommend after-market products 

Ready to adopt future-forward strategies and see real results?  

Download our guide to overcome today’s sales and marketing challenges.  

What do your service customers expect from you? What kind of experience and features do they require? Today’s automotive consumers prefer to purchase online, so it would make sense your service customers would prefer to interact with you online as well.  

Dealers that want to give consumers the digital experience they prefer should look for the following capabilities in their service solution. 

Scheduling 

In today’s busy world, convenience is currency. When you can save your customers time, you create a more ideal, more attractive service experience — and it starts with the service scheduling process.  

Look for a service solution that gives your customers the convenience of online scheduling 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Your customers should be able to book an appointment right from their phone with real-time appointment availability.  

During the scheduling process, show your customers their previously declined services. With the ability to review pricing information and technician notes, your customers can make informed decisions about what services are needed and which services to approve. While they’re at it, maybe they also want to schedule a Lyft to get to and from the service appointment.  

Arrival 

In a digital-first service experience, convenience is notable throughout. When your customers arrive at your shop, you’ll want to give them the option to check in for their service appointment using their mobile phones. This simple feature streamlines arrivals and expedites the entire service process. What customer doesn’t want that? 

When your advisors do their initial walkaround, give them the tools capture notes and pictures at any time using their digital devices. This data, including tire recommendations, would be automatically uploaded and shared digitally with your customers.  

In addition, the ideal service process and solution should empower your service team to communicate with customers more efficiently. Your advisors need to relay information about recommended repairs via text message, forming an immediate advisor/customer connection. 

During Service 

Your customers want to stay informed. Whether they’re tracking a package on their phone or checking wait times online, anything less than up-to-the-second information won’t meet expectations. Phone calls for status updates have practically become a thing of the past.  

The same is true for service updates. Your customers want a service experience that gives them real-time status updates in the palm of their hand. They want to see what’s been completed and what’s in progress, without calling the dealership. When the inspection is complete, they want to view video of their additional service recommendations and approve repairs right on their phone. 

A service department that offers customers all these conveniences saves time and increases service department transparency — trust is one of the most important qualities your customers consider when choosing a service provider.  

Check Out 

It should come as no surprise that today’s service customers want the choice to pay either online or in-lane. The ideal service solution allows your customers to pay as they prefer. If they decide to pay at the dealership, don’t make them wait at a cashier counter. Instead, make it a quick credit card payment on an advisor’s tablet.  

If your customers prefer to pay online, your solution should send them a text or email payment request with a link to securely pay through. This option streamlines the entire vehicle pick-up process, saving you, and your customers, time.  

As you bring your service department into the age of customer convenience, consider a service solution that will help you meet and exceed your customers’ high expectations. From service scheduling to vehicle pickup and every service state in between, your solution should increase transparency and trust, save time, and allow your customers to complete more of the service process on their time and terms. 

Delight Customers to Grow Profits

Ready to create a fully digital service experience at your dealership? Book a demo to see how Xtime can help you give your customers the convenience they want and grow the profits you need.  

Stepped away? Your customers still expect speedy communication when they reach out. Join Xtime Performance Manager Daniel Watts as he walks through how to set up and forward out-of-office messages. With this tool, you can stay on top of incoming text messages from your customers even while you’re away.

Xtime Performance Manager Tiffani Stefanescu provides a step-by-step overview to help you and your team create well-organized, professional video walkarounds, with tips for preparing for your presentation, looking professional for the customer, and useful talk tracks. 

At Napleton Auto Group, a five-store dealership in Wisconsin and Illinois, people come first. It’s not just a slogan. The auto group sincerely believes that when you put people first — customers and staff alike — success follows. Customers return regularly, and employees find fulfillment in the workplace.  

Napleton goes the extra mile to implement a proven people-first plan. They support their team with the right tools and time-saving technology to ensure high customer satisfaction, transparency, and trust.  

Time-saving Technology 

As a company that respects their customers’ time, Napleton Auto Group wanted a service technology that would give customers more control over their experience — a technology that would allow customers to quickly and easily schedule a service appointment directly from the dealership website.  

Napleton turned to Xtime to save time and simplify the service scheduling process. Giving customers the ability to book appointments on their own terms has provided the auto group more control of workflow and shop capacity, ensuring a speedy, highly efficient service experience. Napleton also uses Xtime to send service recommendations with pictures and video, streamlining the approval and payment process, further growing efficiencies. 

Above and beyond the conveniences and advantages of the technology alone, Napleton Auto Group appreciates Xtime’s commitment to their success. Helpful sales reps and performance managers go out of their way to answer questions and provide key time-saving employee support — savings that eventually gets passed along to appreciative customers.  

“If they don’t have the answer to all my questions, they know someone who does,” said Danny Randolph, President/Co-Owner of Napleton Auto Group. “It’s always easy to get an answer in the right amount of time in order for us to make quick decisions.” 

Ensuring Satisfaction  

“The customer comes first” has always been the first rule and the first step toward a successful sales and service strategy. But it’s also easier said than done. When push comes to shove, it’s easy to sacrifice service experience in favor of convenience. But Napleton Auto Group believes dealerships can do both.  

With Xtime, customers get personalized check-ins, tablet reception, and the ability to review and approve service recommendations based on pictures and videos. All of these features work together to create the kind of service experience customers seek out. They build transparency into the service process, which in turn grows customer trust in your service department.  

“Let’s be honest, car dealerships in past generations haven’t had the best reputation,” said Danny. “I think that’s really starting to change these days through trust and transparency. When you leverage systems like this that lay everything out for the customers … they trust it and they trust us more when we utilize tools like (Xtime).”   

Thanks to Xtime, Napleton’s service employees are more engaged, and workflows are easier to manage while they provide a better service experience for customers. This focus on providing a superior service experience has resulted in more billable hours that have really added up and a faster, more efficient service experience for the auto group.  

With the help of Xtime and connected Cox Automotive technologies, Napleton Auto Group continues to find success by taking care of their most important asset — people. Integrations between technologies save time, improve ease-of-use, and ensure a superior sales and service experience for customers and employees alike. 

Ready to save time and give your customers a superior service experience like Napleton Auto Group? Book a demo to see how Xtime can help your dealership put your people first.