In an increasingly competitive digital business environment, consultants are becoming more critical than ever for bolstering your profits. Service departments in particular provide dealerships with a lot of opportunities to capitalize on predictable revenue streams without directly selling cars.
Of course, bringing in an expert to help develop your is an investment, and it’s one for which your business will need to see a significant return. It’s fair to ask what tangible results you should expect to receive from automotive service consultants, and they should be offering programs and strategies that are backed up by experience, data, and a deep understanding of the industry.
But what factors separate the companies that put on a good show and the winners that deliver for your bottom line? We’ll answer this question today, giving you much-needed information that will help you check a potential agency’s credentials so you can choose the ideal partner.
1. A Second Set of Eyes
So often in business and in life, we’re too close to our own problems to see them clearly. Automotive service consultants are impartial, third-party experts who know exactly what aspects of your dealership might be hindering your sales goals and bottom line.
A great consultant will be able to take an objective look at what’s working well for your service department and where money is being wasted or left on the table. They should also offer mystery shops to explore revenue opportunities that may be lost over the phone and help improve your service department’s customer engagement from the ground up. You may know your business well, but there are always little details you’ll miss that can lead to significant profits.
2. Connect with New Trends
The internet is changing business faster than anyone could have imagined just a generation ago. New tech, new angles, and new processes are constantly being invented by the competition, and automotive service consultants make it their business to stay on top of these developments.
Online services are altering customer habits and affecting how service departments interact with consumers, and your consultant can help you stay ahead of the curve. Whether it’s updating your website, using apps and reminders for service checkups and troubleshooting, or just raising awareness of the value propositions of an in-house service department, there are plenty of opportunities to keep your numbers up.
3. Implementation, Not Just Advice
The best automotive service consultants don’t just hand you a report and say goodbye. On the contrary, they roll up their sleeves and get to work alongside you.
Thorough employee training is key to implementing their solutions. Consultants who take ownership over training and coaching deliver returns far beyond their fees. As the source of new information, procedures, and techniques they are ideally qualified to be the people who carry out the plan.
Look for consulting agencies that focus on coaching employees over time so that their expertise is fully integrated into your business and backed up by real results.
4. Superior Customer Service
As the internet homogenizes the shopping experience, customer service is becoming a major differentiator. It can be tricky to measure the value of customer service—but it undoubtedly has a profound impact on your bottom line. Businesses that focus on a customer-service-centric mindset bring in 4-8% higher revenue!
You need to get on board with this, as your competition likely has already; two-thirds of companies are competing with customer service improvements, up from 36% just over a decade ago.
Any automotive service consultants worth their salt will be looking to deliver the following qualities for your customer experience:
- Consistency of information and on-brand messaging.
- Clear communication that drives toward revenue opportunities.
- A focus on customer needs.
- Fast response times and follow-ups.
The very best partners will look to achieve this through:
- Efficient, reliable protocols that match customer needs with service solutions.
- High-quality scripts that ensure every customer receives the same service every time.
- Active coaching that works with individual employees over time to elevate your service team as a whole.
5. Greater Customer Engagement
Finally, the internet is great for many things, but it robs the auto sales industry of one of its greatest tools: human-to-human interaction. The right automotive service consultants can be the keys to ensuring your business measures up.
People will always need their cars serviced, but dealerships are generally viewed as being a more expensive option compared to quick-stop service chains. From the sales floor to a first oil change, the value of in-house and brand-specific service work should be reinforced for customers to ensure they keep coming back.
Importantly, this is not about just fixing problems. Great automotive service consultants understand that there’s a lot of marketing and education that goes into creating a customer who feels most comfortable bringing their car to your bays. They’ll equip your people in every department with value-added propositions and offers that keep driving business through your service department.
Finding the Perfect Automotive Service Consultants
At Phone Ninjas, we’ve made a name for ourselves as automotive service consultants who can help you find every possible revenue opportunity to max out what your service department can do for your business. We’re not just experts in automotive marketing and sales on paper, either—we have decades of experience selling cars and running service departments, and we know exactly what it takes to connect with customers and get your business firing on all cylinders.
We can’t wait to start helping your service department reach its full potential. Reach out to us to schedule a demo today. It even includes two free mystery shops that gauge how your phone and internet customer service is doing, and how we can help.
As the Vice President of Phone Ninjas, Chris delivers leadership, coaching, and mentorship to 55 team members providing software sales and phone skills coaching. He fosters powerful partnerships and collaborations with leaders across various business sectors, establishing expectations, communicating vision, and escalating performance to maximize productivity and effectiveness.
