Written by Robin Cunningham of the NCM Institute Center for Automotive Retail Excellence. Originally published on the Up to Speed blog. 

In order to write this blog article I am compelled to admit that on occasion I will visit… a fast food restaurant. The reason I say it that way is that I am generally known as a very healthy eater who takes pretty good care of himself. That being said, if I leave too little time to get somewhere and I need to eat something, it can happen.

Recently I was working off-site, but had to get to an NCM team meeting at 1:30 p.m., but had cut it too close, given that I had not yet eaten anything that day.  As I was driving towards our offices I was mentally deciding my options. it turned out itt was going to have to be faster than I wanted. I knew I was going be near a McDonald’s that was on the way. I vaguely remembered it being closed some time back for a remodel or even a brand new building, but I had not been there for many years so I didn’t really know. As I walked in I was impressed about how fresh, modern and well, un-McDonald’s-like it was.

As I walked in I was greeting by a well-dressed, middle aged woman who smiled and said, “Welcome back!” I had to smile because I had not been there, of course, for years. So, I instantly knew something different was going on. I stepped up to the counter and a very well-dressed, middle-aged man wearing a tie, with a big smile, greeted me and started telling me about the daily specials.

While my order was being put together I walked into the restroom to wash my hands. As I turned around for a paper towel, the dispenser was empty. There was a hand dryer on the wall, but I could not get it to work. I walked out the door with wet hands to tell someone and it seemed like within seconds another well-dressed, middle-aged man came up to me and asked me if he could help. I told him what was going on and he took me back into the restroom and showed me the sensor on the hand dryer that I had missed and proceeded to dry my hands.

I came out, got my food and sat down to eat in view of people walking in and being greeted with “Welcome back!” I really was amazed at the level of service being provided and knew for a fact that this just doesn’t happen by accident. On my way out I approached the woman who was greeting everyone, told her what type of work I did and that I really appreciated and respected what was going on there. She smiled and said it was a new way of doing things and it was decided that the best place for the store manager to be was out in front greeting and being involved with the customers during peak times.

I have to admit, this experience was so different than I would have ever imagined that I knew I was going to write about it.. I know of another McDonald’s not that far away that is completely different. You walk in and there might be one person working the counter that has three registers, with many people standing in line to be waited on. When you look around to see if anyone might be in charge, it would appear to be some industrious, but very young person and lots of other very young people standing around not even really trying to look busy.

So what in the heck does this have to do with how much SERVICE you may or may not be providing in your Service Department…or any department for that matter? Do you have a morning rush on your Service drive that prevents your advisors from having the time to properly greet your customers? This, of course, is required in order to build the relationships we need with our customers if we expect them to stay loyal to us. But just as important, it’s to make sure we are able to identify everything these vehicles need while they are in our care and custody…and sell that work today!

Actually we should already know all or most of that information by the way the reservation process was handled when the customer called us. And ideally that call was not handled by our service advisors. By the way, where are your general manager and service manager during this peak timeframe? At McDonald’s, the store manager was on the “service drive.”  Just sayin’….

Are we actually ANTICIPATING our customer’s arrival as much as is possible? If we have too low of Labor Gross Profit margins, too low Hours Per Repair Order and too low Effective Labor Rates, this is one of the primary causes.

As retail automobile dealers, our competitive advantage is to provide GREAT SERVICE. If we stage it right and anticipate what is really happening on our Service Drives, we can be very profitable. Why would customers not want to come to our new or remodeled facilities when we have: loaner cars or shuttles, and in many cases, beautiful waiting rooms with flat screen televisions, espresso machines, wireless Internet, etc.? We should be as competitive as the Independents with our competitive and maintenance labor categories and we can be profitable doing it.

One definition of SERVICE I found was: an act of helpful activity; help; aid: to do someone a SERVICE.

As our good friend Dave Anderson says: “Give it a try!”