Posted on June 2, 2017 by Joey Green

Dealerships want to continually engage customers, upsell and increase retention. A happy, loyal customer will return for future business and refer your dealership to their friends and family. Those customers assume you already know their vehicle history and expect the information to be readily available. Customer satisfaction is absolutely key to improving your CSI and KPI. Some customers may only come in for service every few years, so it is increasingly hard to keep track of their activity.

The service department is the center of your dealership operations. Service managers need to generate more billable time. According to NADA, in 2015, new vehicle dealerships produced three times the net profit in their service department than in their new and used car sales departments combined. In 2016, service and part sales were over $6 million.

Reliable data available at advisors fingertips has the potential to improve productivity, generate additional revenue opportunities and improve customer interaction.

Create Sales Opportunities by Reviewing Previous Service Tickets
Service technicians save hours daily by being able to immediately find customer and vehicle documentation from their workstation. On average, advisors spend 10 minutes per RO printing and handling the paperwork. Most documents within a dealership are copied nearly 20 times. Handling multiple pieces of paper takes time to find, read and understand. Glancing at vehicle history at their workstation allows service technicians to make smarter recommendations more quickly thus increasing productivity by saving time and earning more money.

Generate Additional Revenue Opportunities
Dealerships can scan their service tickets and repair orders for online retrieval and long-term, secure data archiving. This allows them to search by car make, model, color, year, owner name, and more to find all the information necessary on the car and customer. Within seconds, the advisor can see their entire previous service history. By capturing documents electronically, dealership personnel can see all hand written notes made on the service ticket. Often times, the DMS does not store all technician comments or related service appointment notes. An advisor can refer to a previous RO to see if maintenance was missed or if there is an opportunity to sell additional routine maintenance that has not been performed in a while or is due for service. A J.D. Power study found that 47% of people will agree to have additional service repairs done at the dealership initially recommending them. Knowing what has previously been recommended and performed, shows the customer the dealership has an invested interest in a lasting relationship.

Improve Customer Interaction
Having all of a past customer’s history readily available via web-based software, service advisors can make a lasting first impression and show customers they are committed to their long-term service. Service advisors increase their credibility with instant access to view vehicle and customer history. Customers counter wait time is minimized since service advisors can immediately share past maintenance repairs, what was done and how much it cost. Advisors can even print any documentation within a click for the customers to take a copy.

They are able to validate their service recommendations by referencing via the online document retrieval software. Offering quality service equates to increased revenue and customer confidence in the dealership. If a customer questions their proposal or labor that has been completed upon pick up, the advisor can show documentation to back up their work.

Service advisors can also prevent costly discrepancies with customers. For example, if a customer picks up his/her car and does not recall seeing a scratch on it prior to dropping it off, the service advisor can pull up the RO on his computer while speaking with the customer and instantly to see what the walk around agreement shows as marked at drop off.

Tips for Getting Started Using Document Scanning and Retrieval to Upsell