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To paraphrase the great Henry Ford, if customers don’t drive you, your team, and your dealership, they won’t be driving your cars, either. Customer service is the biggest element in selling cars today. If you aren’t paying attention to your customers’ satisfaction, someone else will, and they won’t be your customers anymore. So, how do you build customer satisfaction and use it to your selling advantage?

The Best Team

Be very thorough in your hiring process. Follow up on all of your potential employees’ references and former employers. In this economy, while it’s a buyer’s market, it’s also an employer’s market. With the recession, a lot of great workers are out of jobs, and, while this is unfortunate, it can work in your favor when you’re looking to hire the best of the best.

Once you’ve hired your team, make sure that they know you think they’re the best. Give them incentives for stellar performance. Foster a positive work environment. Give them the chance to give you feedback and input about ways to improve your car dealership. The more ownership they can take in their jobs, the more they’ll put into making your business a success.

Training and Communication

Make sure that you have a good process in place for your sales and service teams, and make sure that they can interact smoothly and efficiently. This should not be a case of the right hand not knowing what the left is doing. If your sales and service departments don’t communicate, you could be in for a rude awakening. If, however, your customers see how well and efficiently the two function together, they’ll be impressed and feel that they can trust you to sell them a good product that will have a long and easy maintenance life with you and your team.

Direction

Don’t micro-manage your staff, but do pay attention to interactions with customers. When you see something that works very well, be sure to point it out and give that staff member accolades. If you see an interaction that could be problematic, intervene gently if you have to. Otherwise, wait and take that employee aside to discuss this weak point and how it can be strengthened.

If you keep these things in mind and maintain a hands-on style of management, you’ll be able to see problems coming down the line before they become big issues. You’ll also be able to streamline your sales and service departments, making your customers’ experiences even better, driving them to give you great reviews and recommend you to their friends.