This article was written by Robin Cunningham and was originally published on the NCM Institute Up to Speed blog. 

Is it just me, or does it seem like so much of what we take for granted in life is a zero-sum game? Meaning, if and when we or somebody wins… somebody else has to lose.

Football season has just started and baseball season is winding down; and it’s all about who is winning and losing. We take that for granted and quite honestly, don’t think much about it.

Even in our world of the retail automotive industry, there is a lot of zero-sum game thinking at work. We see the competition of Ford F-150s outselling Chevrolet Silverado; Camry outselling Accord; BMW, Lexus and Mercedes battling it out for the Luxury crown every year. In our local markets, dealers battle each other for the right to call themselves the number one selling dealer in town or the number one CSI dealer in town, of every brand. These are pretty innocent competitions really, but a lot of dollars are spent each year by the manufacturers (and some dealers) to make sure someone knows who the winners and losers are.

For the last three years I have worked as a lead instructor at the NCM Institute. I spend all my time with dealership managers, showing them how they and their associates can WIN in their department or, in the case of general managers, the total dealership. It became apparent to me some time back that the way we approach everything here is: NOT a zero-sum game! In fact, we believe there can be a win-win-winfor all of our efforts.

• A win for the customer
• A win for the dealership
• A win for our associates

As the Church Lady used to say on Saturday Night Live, “Well, isn’t that special?”

Yes it is! Let me give you a couple of examples.

USED VEHICLE DEPARTMENT

Around 90% of all customers do all their pre-shopping of used vehicles on the internet. When we price our vehicles at “market-based” prices, we show all of our cards up front on both our website and any third-party sites that we use, including:

• Pricing
• Pictures
• Vehicle descriptions,
• “Why buy from us” marketing messages

When customers send e-leads, call us or walk in the door, they can interact with dealership personnel who have been trained on value-selling. That includes our salespeople being trained to anticipate that the customer has been on the internet, to acknowledge that, and reinforce that by using Value Folders that include:

• Car Fax, service records
• Reconditioning reports
• Data confirming how competitive our pricing is

Week in and week out, the dealership managers we work with are confirming that they are discounting up to $700 average off of internet pricing…without the customer really even asking for it! When we price and sell our vehicles at or near the average price to market, especially within the first 30 days in stock, we get to turn our inventory dollars up to 12 times per year. Our salespeople get a commission from the highest average gross the car will ever have, and our customers are value-sold cars that they found themselves on the internet at a price they feel good about because we showed them all the supporting documentation to support their decision. Win, win, win!

SERVICE DEPARTMENT

Most service advisors are working with too many customers per day and taking inbound phone calls.  This pretty much guarantees that they do not have time to build the crucial relationship with each customer, which is their number one priority. Because they are too busy, there is rarely a walk around with the customer on each car; rarely is a menu or any recommended maintenance discussed; rarely is a multi-point inspection performed – and if it is, it rarely produces many additional service requests because our relationship with the customer isn’t that great.

When we slow down the service drive process and mandate that each service advisor perform a walk around with the customer, a trusting relationship begins to be established. If an appointment coordinator or BDC is taking inbound service calls, they can establish if the customer’s car needs anything based on time, mileage or history – over and above what they originally contacted us for. We can inform our advisors of this information and hold them accountable for communicating this to each customer. When we perform multi-point inspections and communicate any findings back to our clients, they will take that information more seriously due to the trusting relationship begun by our advisor. Our advisor will set the customer’s next service appointment based on time, mileage and history. The customer now has a reason to become a “retained” customer, the dealership gains the ongoing business from those customers – and the advisor not only generates more dollars and hours  per visit, but helps ensure that the customer wants to come back over the lifecycle of their vehicle.  Win, win, win!

See? It is possible. One of the pleasures of my work is showing our clients exactly how win-win-wins can be achieved. If you would like more examples or are ready to learn more, feel free to contact me or any of our associates.