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According to research from Epsilon, 80% of consumers are more likely to make a purchase when brands offer personalized experiences. So there’s no question of if your dealership should offer shoppers personalized buying experiences, but many dealerships today are left wondering how.  

Manually personalizing every email and landing page is complicated, expensive, and simply unrealistic for most dealerships. But innovative dealership marketing tools exist that make personalization at scale possible and profitable.

Watch this short video from Mo Zahabi, AVP of Sales Engineering at Cox Automotive, to learn how marketing automation can make a big difference for your bottom-line results.  

See for yourself how Automotive Marketing Platform engages shoppers and boosts results. 

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Successful dealerships don’t operate in silos. When your departments work together, your employees, customers, and business all benefit. While Dealertrack DMS already has a wealth of data available, integrating with Xtime provides better insights and increased accuracy to help you make the educated decisions that drive business.

Hosted by Matt Warpinksi, Manager of Performance Management at Xtime, and Jade Mitchell, Sr. Manager of Performance Management at Dealertrack DMS, view this webinar to learn how to optimize Dealertrack DMS and Xtime integrations, including how to:

• Set up your technologies to increase employee efficiencies
• Produce consistent and accurate pricing between technologies
• Increase effective labor rates and drive profitability

Your customers expect a superior service experience that prioritizes personalization and caters to their every convenience.

Across all industries, there is more and more focus on customer experience. The service lane is no different – if you want to increase retention, boost satisfaction, and maximize your customers’ experience, we’ve outlined key areas to focus on.

• Strategy 1: Simplify the Appointment Process – Getting on your service schedule should be the least of their worries.
• Strategy 2: Keep Customers in the Know—Download the Xtime app for ease of communication.
• Strategy 3: Ensure Efficient Greetings and Check-Ins—Try self check-in with a tablet.
• Strategy 4: Present Additional Recommendations Effectively—Communication and attaching photos and video builds trust.
• Strategy 5: Close with a Lasting Impression—Xtime makes it easy for customers to pay and schedule future appointments.
• Strategy 6: Keep in Close Contact with Your Customers—Send special offers and mention declined service for a customized experience.

Keep these 6 tips in mind and your dealership will be on the way to a memorable service experience that creates repeat customers.

To learn more about these strategies and other tips, check out our guide, “Best Practices for Maximizing the Customer Experience”

A day in the life of most service departments is an adventure. From the moment you turn on the lights, power up your equipment, and open the service department doors, your customers are waiting and your team is busy with another round of repairs.

Before you know it, more customers show up unexpectedly, you can’t keep up with call volume, your business bottlenecks, and the day gets away. At this point, your team is just doing the best they can. In all the confusion, well-intentioned service processes go out the window and it’s every tech and service manager for themselves, each working to get the next customer and RO out the door.

Unfortunately, this kind of chaotic service process means that each customer gets a different experience—some are satisfied, others, not so much. To make matters worse, your technology can’t keep up with your team. Your current solution is difficult to use. It doesn’t facilitate communication between your team, your BDC, or your customers. And, in the end, you (and your customers) get an inconsistent, antiquated service process that lacks efficiency and any semblance of consistency.

If all this sounds familiar, you’re not alone. A day in the life of a typical service department is a dance that exists somewhere between controlled dysfunction and sheer determination to get the job done. It’s a common service complaint, and it’s one reason why so many customers are opting for other service options and many dealers are leaving dollars on the table.

There’s a lot of room for growth and improvement, to say the least. In fact, according to a 2021 Cox Automotive Service Industry Study¹, there’s roughly $214 billion in potential revenue up for grabs. That means dealerships willing to prioritize processes and give their customers the type of service experience they’re looking for could be first in line to capture a huge chunk of the market currently left on the table.

Consider the following process improvements to help you prioritize the service process and give your customers the experience they expect.

Innovate Your Operation with Digital Tools that Drive Better Processes

Your customers are looking for honest solutions to their automotive problems. They drive up to your service bay, speak with an advisor about a needed repair, and expect your team to provide a trusted recommendation.

For their part, your team is ready and waiting to offer friendly advice and proceed with needed repairs. But they can’t do it alone. Your multipoint inspection software should set them up for success with digital tools that remove barriers to inefficiency and establish a consistent workflow from the get-go.

You can’t just ask or expect your employees to work harder. You have to provide a defined pathway to improve workflows first. An automated service inspection technology that’s easy to use can help your team focus on the customer, while also helping you maximize shop efficiency.

When your technology is intuitive, customer-focused, and follows the same proven inspection formula every time, efficiency naturally follows. In fact, the right digital vehicle inspection software could help you grow your revenue by $123 per repair order.

Make Convenience Your M.O.

There’s a lot of money to be made from your service department (remember that $214 billion that’s up for grabs?), but improving profits is just one piece of the service process—the final piece, to be exact. And if you’re only focused on your bottom line, your customers’ experience will suffer.

The truth is that most of your customers don’t fully understand their vehicles’ exact repair needs. They do, however, understand what they want. They want your service team to thoroughly inspect their vehicles and present them with every repair option. And, they expect this process to be completed quickly, conveniently, and efficiently.

The multipoint inspection influences the entire service experience. The right solutions can deliver convenience from start to finish—from scheduling, approval of service, and even payment and financing options.

Service departments with a customer-first focus find ways to become more profitable. When you prioritize the process, a standard operating procedure that gives your customers a consistently convenient experience, you boost the reputation of your entire service center. This leads to an increase in referrals, repeat customers, and positive online reviews. Profits always follow process.

Unravel the Mystery of ‘Under the Hood’

You know cars. Your customers most likely don’t. While this information gap keeps your service drive alive, it can also lead to an inherent sense of distrust. In fact, two out of three drivers in the U.S. don’t trust you—an unsettling statistic given that trust is one of the four most important qualities your customers consider when they choose a service provider.

The consumer experience is now even more important than the car repair itself. As expectations continue to rise in this customer-comes-first culture, the service process becomes even more important. Your customers don’t want to deal with a subpar or even good-enough experience. They want convenience and they want transparency—transparency in service recommendations, estimates, and approval process. When transparency is lacking, it leads to declined services and frustration. When it’s present, your process and profits improve.

A multipoint inspection technology that utilizes photo and video sharing can give your customers inside access to your service department without being there in person. When your customers see and understand the need for a recommended repair, you inspire trust, promote retention, and lift your revenue in the process. It also leads to a 70% lift in revenue per RO when video is attached to ASRs.²

Again, your customers don’t always understand what goes on underneath the hood of their vehicle and they’re reluctant to invest in repairs without a trusted recommendation. But once you’ve established that trust, once you’ve shown them that your service experience is built around their interests, your customers will reciprocate the respect. In fact, 53 percent of customers will stay loyal to your service department because you developed that trust.³

A day in the life of most service departments is an adventure. But it can be an adventure for all the right reasons: a customer journey of convenience and transparency made possible by the right process and the right tools.

If your service process has been more chaotic than convenient, more trying than transparent, it might be time to rethink your multipoint inspection software. A well-structured, consistent service process that considers your customers first is so much more than routine. It gives your dealership the digital tools to address rising expectations and capitalize on operational opportunities.

Integrating the right multipoint inspection software into a dealership’s daily fixed operations can enhance your team’s capabilities, improve customer engagement and retention, boost efficiency, and help you stake claim to your portion of a billion-dollar opportunity.

Ready to learn how you can revolutionize your daily service routines and improve customer convenience, transparency, and trust? Take a tour of Xtime’s Multipoint Inspection Technology here.

¹2021 Cox Automotive Service Industry Study

²2016 AAA Survey, 2018 Cox Automotive Service Industry Study, Xtime Data, Period Analyzed Q1 2021

³2016 AAA Survey, 2018 Cox Automotive Service Industry Study, Xtime Data, Period Analyzed Q1 2021

New technology is often packaged in promises: perfectly robust—a solution that can do everything and deliver next-level customer experiences, no problem. Sounds too good to be true? Often, when you’re evaluating new technologies and tools for your service department, they just might be…

That’s because no matter how proficiently trained your service technicians are, or how adept everyone is with the highly complicated systems you’re using to run your business, your service pros will eventually move on. The next generation of employees that come on board will need to get up-to-speed (and fast) on your technology to deliver the customer care you’re known for. So, it begs the question: are you evaluating technology for its ability to adapt to your business? Is it easy to use?

When your shop management solution is both robust and easy to use, you can maximize your team’s productivity, facilitate more consistent processes, and easily manage your workload. In the end, all those efficiency gains get passed along to your customers by way of a better service experience. Consider the following benefits of an easy-to-use shop management solution.

Technology that Facilitates Service Capacity

Peak-time bottlenecks lead to poor service practices. When service customers are lined up at your dealership, your team doesn’t have the time to diagnose and identify every additional repair order. They’re too busy trying to get one customer out the door, so they can welcome another in.

Your service scheduling technology should help you visualize capacity, so you can easily make daily adjustments and space out your service visits to avoid bottlenecks to your business. An easy-to-use shop management solution can help your team manage shop capacity and put a daily cap on certain types of repairs, creating a steady flow of appointments that balances the day.

Technology that Facilitates Helpful Support

Even when your solution is easy to use, it’s nice to know that you have an experienced support team backing you up to answer questions, provide solutions, and even strategize with your dealership about how to get the most out of your technology and your team.

The right shop management solution will be easy for your team and your customers to use because it looks like the technology they interact with every day. It doesn’t have a foreign, unfamiliar interface. It’s intuitive in its design. And, when you do need support or ideas to boost the efficiency of your team, your provider is there to help you maximize your shop management solution.

Technology that Facilitates Communication

Whether between your team or with your customers, communication isn’t always the most effective way to spend a day. When your techs have to ask for an opinion on a repair or check for parts availably, it takes them away from the job at hand and slows down the entire service process. On top of that, your customers want constant updates about their vehicles, and taking phone calls and reaching out to them takes time that could be spent maximizing the repair process.

When your shop management tool facilitates instant communication between team members, you can increase efficiency and maximize repair orders. Prioritize a shop management solution with a chat functionality that allows your team to easily share pictures and videos of repairs and get on-hand parts and inventory information.

Your shop management solution should also facilitate communication with customers. By giving customers the ability to make decisions about repairs during the scheduling process and real-time status updates on their phones throughout the service process, you make it easy for your customers to do business with you.

There’s hidden potential in your service department. It’s just a matter of finding the right shop management technology to help you tap into that potential to address excess service capacity, improve communication, and get the most out of every repair order.

Book an Xtime Inspect demo today to see how an easy-to-use shop management solution can help your dealership.

Customers expect personalized, relevant marketing from dealerships. But delivering personalization at scale—while balancing multiple departments, tools, and staff members—is often challenging.   

Automotive Marketing Platform powered by VinSolutions simplifies marketing processes, engages customers, and delivers personalized marketing experiences across the ownership lifecycle with advanced data insights, automated workflows, and the hands-on support of a Marketing Account Manager. 

Dealers with Automotive Marketing Platform see an average return of nearly seven times their investment in the tool, based on analysis of VinSolutions dealers with Automotive Marketing Platform powered by VinSolutions from June 2020 to November 2021. 

See for yourself how Automotive Marketing Platform engages shoppers and boosts results. 

Learn more

Marketing moves fast. The tools, tactics, and technologies that were effective just a few years ago have given way to new approaches that prioritize personalization. It’s no longer all about the business—it’s about what your business can do for your shoppers. 

Traditional dealership marketing tactics, like birthday cards and purchase anniversary emails, aren’t cutting it anymore. Today’s consumers expect your dealership to provide real value with every interaction. They want personalized, relevant marketing that meets their needs, when they need it.  

Failing to provide the experience shoppers expect means limiting your sales potential. Is your dealership’s marketing meeting consumers’ expectations, or is it holding you back? It isn’t always easy to identify when there might be a problem.  

Whether you think your marketing is doing just fine or you know you have room for improvement, keep reading for six signs that your marketing might be limiting your success. 

1. You’re Seeing Declining Marketing Results  

Let’s start with the most obvious sign first: declining marketing results. Marketing—and the technology that powers personalized customer connections—moves pretty fast. It can be a lot for any dealership marketing team to keep up with constant changes.  

Falling behind the marketing times often results in poor or declining marketing results from your website and digital advertising, fewer calls, less traffic, and fewer unique hits.  

The key to reversing declining marketing results is getting to the true root cause of the problem. Whether the issue is your technology, your messages, the way you’re using your budget, or some combination, identifying specific problem areas is a crucial first step. Making changes—even sweeping ones—when you don’t know what is underperforming probably won’t help.  

2. You’re Having Difficulty Tracking ROI  

A solid understanding of your marketing ROI can give you an accurate, data-driven picture of where you are and where you’re going. It can help you make course corrections and understand what kinds of messages are most effective at engaging your customers. Unfortunately, another sign that your marketing might be holding you back is that you don’t know how your marketing is performing or it is very difficult to track.  

Non-integrated marketing tools make monitoring marketing campaigns cumbersome. It requires pulling information from fragmented systems and compiling and comparing data to determine marketing effectiveness.  

When you streamline your auto dealership software and your marketing vendors, however, you also streamline your ability to monitor your marketing campaigns. You can quickly make changes to poor performing campaigns and make strategic marketing decisions across your entire business. Simplification of systems equals simplification of tracking marketing effectiveness. 

3. You Have a Fragmented, Generic Marketing Approach 

To truly personalize your marketing, you have to rely on tools and data to give you insights about your shoppers. If you have an incomplete view of your consumers, that is impossible to do. Without the right data, you’re forced to deliver disjointed, generic marketing. This type of marketing treats every consumer the same—sending the same standard messages into the universe, hoping that something sticks. 

Using multiple software tools from multiple marketing vendors often creates disjointed marketing messages. These multiple tools and vendors might get the job done in a roundabout way, but they’re also unnecessarily expensive and not very good at communicating or sharing data with each other. 

The solution to disjointed marketing is to streamline your software tools. Rather than trying to balance multiple marketing vendors and tools that don’t speak to each other, find an automotive marketing solution that lets you quickly and easily leverage shopper data to personalize marketing campaigns with relevant and timely content. 

4. You Rely Solely on Third-Party Data 

Many advertising technologies today rely on third-party cookies to find, track, and reach consumers. But many major web browsers—including Google’s popular Chrome browser—have stopped or plan to stop allowing third-party tracking cookies.  

If your automotive marketing solutions rely solely on third-party cookies rather than your own first-party data, your marketing will soon be in trouble. And even before cookies become obsolete, relying on third-party data means you’re missing out on valuable opportunities to personalize shopper journeys and connect online and in-store experiences. 

Fortunately, there is a solution to this problem. While third-party data becomes more regulated and less useful, your dealership’s own customer data (known as first-party data) and the data supplied by partners (known as second-party data) will become more valuable. Using data that your dealership gathers through its own consumer interactions, you can reach specific consumers more effectively with personalized marketing messages.  

To reach a broader population, you’ll want to partner with trusted vendors that integrate with highly visited third-party consumer sites, such as Kelley Blue Book and Autotrader. With a robust set of first- and second-party data, you can smoothly transition away from third-party cookies without losing the ability to personalize your message and marketing approach.   

5. You Have to Manually Execute Everything Yourself  

There’s no way around it; delivering the type of marketing that today’s consumers expect is complicated. Personalizing marketing requires using a variety of data and tools, and doing it all manually and on your own is often a painful experience—for you and your shoppers. If you’re executing all your marketing strategies manually, you’re likely missing out on opportunities to improve efficiency and return.  

Automation is dealership marketer’s friend. By automating your marketing workflows, you can deliver dynamic, proactive, and personalized content to consumers, without having to manually manage and execute every step.  

And because automated marketing content and timing is informed by real-time data about each shopper, you can know that you’re delivering the right message, to the right person, at the right time. Plus, the follow-up for best next steps in reaching out to your shoppers is already in motion. 

Beyond automation, look for vendors who provide experienced marketing support. A marketing account manager—someone who is experienced in the industry—can help ensure your marketing is executed in a way that aligns with your strategy, as well as keep you up to date on best practices and changes in technology.  

A good marketing account manager can help your dealership implement the right tools, get the most out of those tools, and ensure that you’re maximizing your marketing investment—giving you more time to focus on selling cars.  

6. Your Marketing Solution Isn’t Integrated with Your CRM 

When your dealer CRM and marketing tools don’t share data, your sales team can be left in the dark, not knowing what marketing shoppers have seen and engaged with.  

But when your marketing solution integrates with your CRM, your sales team is equipped with more information to help them connect with consumers and close deals. In addition to having shopper data at the ready, your sales team can see all personalized marketing activity that has reached each consumer.  

Instead of having to check both the CRM and a separate marketing tool, robust integration between tools lets your team leverage real-time shopper data and activity directly from the CRM customer record. It streamlines sales workflows and allows your team to be more informed in their conversations and assigned tasks.  

Get More from Your Marketing  

Is your marketing holding you back? Are all the signs and symptoms pointing to lack of personalization and integration in your marketing approach? If so, how do you get back on the path to better profits with more personalized marketing messages meant for each individual shopper?  

A modern marketing solution—one with advanced data insights, automated workflows, seamless CRM integration, and the hands-on support of a marketing account manager—can help you engage buyers by delivering the right message at the right time, every time.

Webinar | Reach Todays Buyer’s with Intelligent Marketing 

Watch the webinar

It’s the trifecta of service department success — your customers, your team, your dealership. When your service department prioritizes all three, you win. 

But, how do you triumph in this balancing act? Technology. Specifically, your service scheduling technology. It initiates the entire service experience and brings all three priorities together from the onset.  

So, let’s make sure you have the right solution in place.  

Evaluate your service scheduling technology with the following Q&A, curated to help you deliver the experience expected of your service department, internally and externally, today. Does your technology meet the needs of your customers, your service team, and your dealership? 

Key Consideration 1: Your Customers 

Question: Is there digital-to-in-store continuity for customers?  

Answer: Customers need to see and hear the same service recommendations and pricing at every touchpoint, from booking and check-in to approval and payment. With the right technology, your customers will see the same recommendations with the same quoted price throughout the service process, creating continuity and building trust. 

Question: Can I streamline the customer experience and reduce check-in and wait times?  

Answer: To do so, you need to control the flow of customers into your service department. The right scheduling tool will help you balance your day, reducing bottlenecks during the most sought-after appointment times. Your technology should also facilitate your customers’ ability to make decisions about repairs during the scheduling process. When your customers have every piece of necessary information, including services that are currently due on their vehicles, open recalls, and previously declined services, you can streamline and optimize their experience.  

Question: How do I create a more individualized experience for service customers? 

Answer: Personalize everything — reminders, notifications, and all communications leading up to and throughout the service process. Your technology should even facilitate your ability to greet the customer by name when they pull into the service drive. Personalization increases the quality of customer interactions. 

Question: How can I make the service process easier and more convenient for my customers?  

Answer: In addition to fast appointment booking from anywhere, anytime, your customers need vehicle service to fit into their busy schedules. The ultimate service experience begins with scheduling technology that incorporates transportation options like service pickup and delivery. 

Question: How can I improve the service experience to increase customer satisfaction and retention? 

Answer: Customer satisfaction is a function of convenience, transparency, and trust. Find service technology that facilitates all three to keep customers coming back with advanced capabilities like rideshare or pickup and delivery, and flexible customer financing.

Key Consideration 2: Your Service Team  

Question: What’s the best way to maximize my team’s productivity?  

Answer: Help your service department reach its potential with robust shop management.  
Manage capacity for a steady flow of appointments, balancing your day and reducing peak-time bottlenecks. You service scheduling technology should help you visualize capacity so you can adjust when needed for optimum daily service business, while accounting for the scope of skill-specific services to create an efficient and productive workload for technicians. 

Question: How do I know it’s the right scheduling tool for my team? 

Answer: The right solution will be easy to use, provide helpful support, and boost the efficiency of your team. User-friendly tools include intuitive interfaces that look like the technology your team interacts with in their everyday lives. 

Question: How can I ensure that all service-related calls are answered in a timely fashion and my team isn’t overwhelmed with too many calls?  

Answer: Implement tools that allow customers to quickly schedule service online and communicate with your dealership digitally. These tools should free up time for advisors and technicians to focus on customers. 

Question: Can I help my staff to organize their day and be more efficient? 

Answer: Your team should be able to get a sense of appointments, walk-ins, and waiters to help prioritize and organize their day with a scheduling solution that also allows you to load your shop in a manner that maximizes your service department’s potential. Look for the ability to designate the scope of skill-specific services to create an efficient and productive workload for technicians. 

Question: Is there a way to identify and capture more recalls? 

Answer: Yes — automate recall identification. Your technology should actively search each VIN for open recall campaigns during appointment scheduling, whether it’s done online by the consumer or internally by your team, and at check-in. This functionality identifies all service needs up front, gives your team helpful recall prompts, no matter how busy the service drive, and helps you properly manage capacity to ensure more recall business.  

Key Consideration 3: Your Dealership 

Question: How do I address poor scheduling practices that result in inefficient ROs? 

Answer: Manage shop capacity so that your team can maximize every RO. You may miss out on additional service recommendations if your capacity is not optimized for top performance — find technology to help you place daily caps on your less efficient service work and support your team’s ability to thoroughly inspect each vehicle. 

Question: Should I expect a good return on investment from my scheduling technology? 

Answer: Yes, you certainly should. The key is a scheduling solution that displays previously declined services and open recalls from the outset, so customers can browse options and book and approve services before their vehicle ever arrives at your shop. And, because this information is also visible to service advisors and BDC reps, your technology can help your team quote consistent pricing and keep your service drive running like a well-oiled, profit-producing machine. Convenient transportation options in the scheduling process also help drive your return on investment — a Cox Automotive study showed consumers using service pickup and delivery spent $275 more per RO.  

Question: How do I give my customers the service experience they expect?  

Answer: Driven by interactions with companies like Amazon and Starbucks, today’s customers expect to schedule their service appointment right from their phone with all the information they need at their fingertips. They are busy and appreciate convenience. Your scheduling technology should make online booking fast and easy and provide added time-saving benefits like service pickup and delivery.   

Question: How do I know if my current scheduling solution is outdated? 

Answer: First, confirm the tool you’re using was actually created to facilitate a more efficient, productive, and profitable service drive. For instance, your dealership’s DMS was not meant to function as a scheduling tool and likely keeps you from delivering the digital, convenient service experience your customers expect today. The technology you need will help you control your shop capacity, automatically routing customers to the right advisor and specific services to the right technician. Not only does this promote more efficient workflows and generate additional revenue, it creates happier, more satisfied customers, leading to better online reviews and higher CSI scores.  

Question: Is there a better way to recapture previously declined services and generate additional revenue?  

Answer: Your service scheduling technology should automatically serve up previously declined services at the next customer interaction, reminding customers of recommendations at the beginning of the scheduling process, driving more fixed ops revenue and a better overall customer experience. 

Conclusion 

Your customers. Your team. Your dealership. When your scheduling technology works to elevate all three, you prevail, delivering on performance expectations both internally and externally. The questions above are your thought starters and a means to evaluate your service scheduling technology.   

You can win the trifecta with the right service scheduling technology for your dealership. Book an Xtime Schedule demo today. Let’s get the conversation started. 

Tiffani Stefanescu and Matt Warpinski provide an in-depth and detailed look at Xtime’s robust (and lesser-known) features that will allow your staff to find new efficiencies with ease. Learn how to:

• Create balanced daily workloads that are in tune with your service department.
• Meet customer expectations, including promise times, transparency, and improved communication.
• Close the gap on lengthy RO cycle times, which limit your ability to increase RO counts and RO values.