Last week I was driving down a highway and noticed several state troopers alongside the road in an old service station. One stepped in front of my car and flagged me in to the parking area. The officer quickly walked around my vehicle checking all of my turn signals and headlights. He also quickly checked tire condition and the emergency brake function. He did use me to turn the switches and push the brake and the process took only a few minutes. The trooper also checked my current insurance status and driver’s license.

Fortunately my vehicle passed with flying colors and I received a state vehicle inspection sticker that’s good one year on my windshield. I could not help but think this state trooper just performed a customer intake vehicle inspection better than 90% of all the dealerships in the United States.

I’ve heard so many reasons over the years why they cannot perform customer intake inspections I can say there can’t be many missed. The most common excuse has to be I don’t have time to inspect the customer’s vehicle. As this officer illustrated it doesn’t take much time to professionally look over a vehicle. Proper scheduling will ensure enough time to professionally care for a customer. Understand this state trooper didn’t have a drive in lane some dealerships believe they must have to perform vehicle walk around inspections. Let me state without question there is no reason not to perform customer intake inspections every time every car. Is your dealership as good as this state trooper inspection? What’s your excuse?