Posted on June 5, 2017 by Joey Green
According to the NADA 2016 Dealership workforce survey, two of every five service advisors leave each year, which equals a 39% annual turnover rate. On average, a service advisor’s tenure is 2.3 years. Hiring and retaining employees has been a growing challenge for small to large dealerships nationwide. Turnover affects dealerships in multiple ways, such as lack of continuity with customers, lost sales, wasted time, expense training and inconsistent accounting and document management. Often the highest performing dealerships have higher retention rates.
Dealership Turnover and Increased Training Time and Expenses
Having all your dealership employees trained on your document scanning and retrieval software leads to better dealership operations. However, what happens when the service technicians you trained to find key customer information faster by using the document management system leave. Every time a service advisor or dealership employee leaves the company, it costs the dealership additional time and money to train new personnel on the appropriate documentation process and software programs used. A 10-percentage-point increase in turnover will cost the average dealership $7,500 in gross profit per employee per year according to an ESI Trends study.
New personnel have a greater chance of making mistakes that could lead to costly audit charge backs. They can miss capturing proper signatures, forget to document necessary information or misplace service and repair documents.
The New Millennial Workforce
Millennials have been raised in the digital era. They have spent most of their lives on tablets and in a technology-driven world. They currently comprise the largest generation in the workplace. According to Time magazine, by 2025, three out of every four workers globally will be millennials. NADA reports, 51% of newly hired service advisers in 2015 were born later than 1981. Millennials bring a new skill set and mindset to the workplace that encourages a paperless dealership back office to drive cost savings and increased operational efficiency. They have used computers and software programs most of their lives. They are accustomed to searching online for answers.
Intuitive Document Retrieval System and Maximizing Employee Retention
Employees who can easily use software and find the information they need to help their customers will be more successful and in turn, happier in their jobs. Training on the document retrieval software empowers personnel to work faster and make a greater impact. Provide your service technicians, advisors, warranty clerks and other back office employees with tools to better perform their daily tasks.
By equipping them with the tools and training needed, they will be more satisfied, which will increase dealership retention rates. It is also a good idea to include them in the software review process to get their buy in to the new technology being implemented. This may lead to higher employee retention rates and increased daily productivity.
Dealership turnover can greatly affect the bottom line. Help decrease the turnover rate by training employees on a document retrieval system and by looking for employees who may already be familiar with this type of system, or at least comfortable with technology.
Learn more about One View document scanning and data archiving solution today.