🗨️ “…long wait times for appointments, communication shortfalls and gaps in fixing vehicles correctly limit the industry’s progress.” – JD Power 2025 US Consumer Service Index Study
🗓️ Long wait times to get an appointment are an easy way to encounter customer deflection in the Service department.
📝 Just ask your Appointment Co-ordinators to track how many calls they get a day, where customers ask when they can get in, they give them a date, and the customers says, “ok, I’ll let you know”.
Consider also tracking when customers miss or cancel an appointment. I’d track all that. It’s part of the leaky bucket of customers that the service dept has – but it is an easy fix.
🥸 When I was trained at NADA, Bob Atwood was my Service instructor. A few things he said that really resonated when you run up against capacity issues;
🔹 Service dept should be open the same hours as your Sales dept.
🔹 If you have a 100% facility utilization problem (meaning you’re using all the hours, and bay space available), the easy fix is extended hours.
🛶 If you’re open 8-5 or anything similar to those hours, you’re missing the boat.
🔧 Look at what your biggest competitor has for hours – and it’s not another dealer. It’s the aftermarket shops – like the lube joints. Convenience is what consumers value most.
❌ I wrote other posts on how to fix the problem with a shortage of techs, to keep business rolling, how to get more customers, lost customers, and really fill up the Service drive.
✔️ The good news is, that this is such a huge problem for every dealership, that if you focus on it, it’s easy to grow a lot fairly quickly.
💰 If you have more customers, you have more money. It’s a big cycle. People = Production = Profit —> Rinse & Repeat (& grow).
——-
📞 Need An Outbound Service BDC? Dealer eBDC