Once dealerships understand the role of offering complimentary maintenance as a customer retention strategy (as discussed in Part 1 of this series) and set up their own program, the work has only just begun! The next step is ensuring that your complimentary maintenance program is effectively bringing customers back … and to do this, you’ll need to look at the numbers. Are you tracking the customer journey?

Performance Administration Corp. offers a variety of resources to help you track each customer’s journey with your dealership, as well as see how your overall organization is doing. Here are some of the ways we can help you know where you’re at and what adjustments you need to make, as well as tips to help you boost your success with tracking the customer journey. 

Service Activity Reports 

To determine if your complimentary maintenance program is helping to cut down on customer churn, an end-of-month report is a useful tool to see the results in black and white. How many new lost opportunities were there, and how many lost customers were contacted and won back? Monthly reports help lay out the numbers to see where your dealership can focus and improve.

While end-of-month reports are incredibly helpful, many dealerships feel that seeing these numbers at the end of a 30-day period means a missed opportunity to create change sooner. This is why Performance Administration Corp. offers its clients a Weekly Service Activity Report detailing numbers such as new lost opportunities, what percentage of lost opportunities have been contacted, the number of customers won back for that week, how much was paid in claims for customers who were won back, and more.

Dealerships find that by having access to these numbers on a weekly basis, they are able to see trends and make adjustments as needed rather than waiting for the end of the month to do so.

The Lost Opportunity Transformer 

Without proper followup, customer retention can feel like a mystery. It can be a challenge to get a customer booked for complimentary service and make sure they stay booked. Some customers will fail to show up for a previously-booked service or come in for one service appointment and then completely disappear, never to be heard from again. Having the appropriate tracking tools can help you prevent lapsed customers from becoming lost opportunities.

The Lost Opportunity Transformer is one such tool. It helps your staff identify and send targeted messages to customers according to how long they have failed to return to your dealership. Have they simply gotten busy and are a couple of months overdue for an oil change or have they written off your dealership completely due to a bad experience? In addition to assisting your team with contacting these customers, the tool provides a notes section for customer feedback, which gives your dealership the opportunity to address problems and make changes when necessary.

Getting Creative With Drawing Customers Back 

As you reach out to lapsed customers, keep in mind that if a customer is putting a service appointment off because they’re busy or are unenthused about the idea of spending part of their afternoon in a car dealership service waiting area, you may need more than a basic reminder to entice them back. This is a great opportunity to go the extra mile to build that all-important customer loyalty. 

If you’re working to contact customers in the wintertime, consider this example: since dealership service departments tend to be less busy in the winter, why not boost your business (and score customer points) by offering a discounted rate on a service if they visit December through February? This kind of creativity is a win for everyone involved, as it makes customers feel valued and brings much-needed service dollars through your door.

We Can Help With Tracking the Customer Journey

If you’re an existing client and would like to have access to Performance Administration Corp’s Weekly Service Activity Reports, contact us to have this feature activated and to receive training on how to fully utilize the tool. We also invite those who are not clients to reach out for a webinar on all of the complimentary service, customer management, and marketing tools and resources Performance Administration Corp. has to offer.