If your New Year’s resolution is to provide your customers with a better service experience, you’re on the right track to improving your profits. In today’s competitive fixed ops landscape, every advantage you can gain over your competition helps. And because customers make the decisions about where to service their vehicles, their experience is paramount.

To help you prepare for the new year and follow through on your resolutions, we’ve put together a short customer experience checklist for your dealership. Review this list to make sure you’re giving your customers a superior service experience, while also boosting profits.

1. Tailor the service experience to each individual customer.

Your customers are used to being treated a certain way based on their interactions with the other service and retail industries. The “customer is always right” mentality, paired with intense industry competition and advances in personalization technology, has led to an environment where customers take notice of every detailed difference between businesses. As a result, the actual customer experience matters more than ever before.

Fill unsold shop capacity for big benefits to your bottom line while giving customers the experience they expect with a robust marketing tool. You can also customize offers with invitations when you work with the right tools. At NADA 2020, we unveiled enhanced marketing capabilities for Invite, including the following personalization feature:

• Text Marketing—A new marketing channel designed to improve customer engagement and overall marketing conversion. Meet your customers where they are — their phones.

2. Increase service department transparency.

Some dealers think that overloading customers with repair options promotes mistrust and scares away business. In reality, there’s nothing more frustrating for a customer than missed repairs. They want to know what’s going on with their cars. When you give customers more service lane transparency, customers are more likely to trust you and drive away with a positive experience.

Transparency also benefits the dealer. Customers are more likely to give the go-ahead for services when they can see the need for a repair. The best digital inspection and service selling solutions will help you deliver thorough and consistent service inspections. And in 2020, Inspect will offer several new features designed to increase transparency and improve the customer experience.

• Enhanced Multi-Media—Record and send video of needed repairs to consumers with mobile app support.
• Service Tracker—Give customers real-time, on demand access to vehicle status updates online or on their mobile phone.
• Self Check-In—Let your customers begin the check-in process when they arrive at the dealership, eliminating the need to wait for the advisor.
• FlexPay—Give your customers maintenance financing options built directly into a consumer microsite.

3.  Increase service department efficiency.

Service more vehicles and bring in more revenue with products designed to boost service department efficiency. A highly efficient service department also has big benefits for customers. Customers appreciate dealers that respect their time. The less time their cars have to spend in the service lane, the better for customers. At NADA 2020, we introduced several new features that boost efficiency in your service department.

• New Mobile App—Inspect will add a new mobile app for iOS and Android with video capture.
• Intra-Dealer Chat—Share messages and media with co-workers with an integrated, intra-dealer chat experience.
• Hands-Free Technician—With voice activated transcribing technology, service technicians can document their service inspections to improve quality of service.
• Rideshare—Exceed customer expectations with an integrated, on-demand ridesharing option available directly through Xtime, allowing you to simplify and streamline transportation options.

Start planning with this customer experience checklist to give your customers a superior service experience now and in the New Year.

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