A Passion For Customer Care

Imagine if everyone on your service team was known for having a passion for customer care. They would make the customer feel appreciated from the moment they had arrived to the time they exit the dealership. The team would understand every customer’s concern and the detail required to fix their vehicle correctly on the first visit. They would place a great value on the customer’s time, understanding that people have better things to do with their lives than to wait endlessly at a car dealership for a vehicle repair or maintenance.
 
If this was an established culture at your dealership, would there be any doubt in your mind customer retention and satisfaction would never be an issue. Price would hardly ever be discussed and every team member would be proud to be a part of the dealership. This should be a standard in every dealership with all of us understanding the importance of achieving this level of quality in our service Department.

It’s A Marathon Not a Sprint

If you were to rate your dealership on a scale of 1 to 10 on your customer experience and passion of your employees, how would you do? If you were to see any opportunity for improvement and have the desire to improve, it’s important to understand your situation can not be changed in 24 hours. This is a journey involving the entire team striving for improvement to develop and implement processes constantly.
 
Seeking best practice processes and implementing them on a consistent basis is a requirement when you develop a passion for customer care. Without this, your customers will get bruised and beaten up with your poor processes, and will generally feel they are just an inconvenience to your day. The customer will feel like nobody cares at your dealership and they will always wonder where they could go to receive better treatment.

Developing Your Team Passion

Developing the passion in your team starts with leadership. This leadership rewards passionate customer care and won’t allow any team member to provide anything less. This type of culture lifts up the team every day acknowledging exceptional performance. Leadership must understand the value of everyone on the team and provide the clarity of how they should perform daily functions to improve the customer care experience.
 
The common dealerships process their customers like cattle. They say things like sign here, sit there, and are interrupted by the phone often. They never even go to the vehicle to look at the customer’s concerns and get irritated when the technicians ask questions about what was written on the repair order. If this brings to mind your dealership, it’s time for a change. It’s time you develop a passion for customer care.

Sincerely,
Rob Gehring, President
Fixed Performance Inc.
rgehring@marginplus.net
1-888-205-8718
Fixed Performance complete fixed operations coaching consulting