Who wants to go to an auction to compete for expensive used cars? Yes, it must happen, but are you also acquiring used cars from your service drive?

Too many dealers have tried and failed at approaching their service customers. That’s because they rely on people too much and haven’t put the incentives in place to keep the people consistent at doing that job. It takes some work to figure out which service customers to approach.

We did that work for you!

We had to do this to automate our post-service offers, which are a nice backup if you can’t reach these customers ahead of time. This article focuses on how you can fire off an offer without needing to stand in the service drive as appointments roll in.

Pre-calculating Service Appointment Equity

We take a secure & certified feed of service data from your DMS to discover who is coming in and what they’re having work done on. The vehicle information is then run through multiple processes to determine whether we already know this car, whether it was purchased from your store, or if it is a conquest opportunity. If we know the car and that it was purchased at your store, then we know the contact details and can determine what they owe on that vehicle. Then we run the car through a localized valuation engine to get the value. The difference in what they owe and what the car is worth (their equity) is shown to you.

We take some educated guesses regarding conquest opportunities because that car was not purchased from your store. Even though our guesses hit the mark often, it doesn’t matter how accurate they are. One of the best parts of our services is that we deliver an interactive experience where the customer can take control of things to update with what they believe is correct.

Texting service appointments

You have the choice of emailing or texting these customers with a pre-appointment offer. You can do both. Texting gets you more immediate results. We work with the cell phone carriers to ensure deliverability and compliance with their rules. Because of these efforts you are assured your texts get through and don’t get you blacklisted.

Texting is fun to watch because you can usually see someone playing with their trade a few minutes after sending it. When that happens, you can follow up with another text or call to give them deeper affirmation that getting a professional appraisal at your store is a smart move while their car is in for service.

What is the process?

• Open the service appointment dashboard and look for the customers you want to target
• Hit the text and/or email button to send them an offer
• Wait for activity
• Follow up to tell the customer how easy it is to get a “VIP vehicle valuation” while their car is already at the dealership
• Coordinate with the service advisor on how you will look their car over – it is best to do this before they have paid for that service
• Deliver the trade and/or acquisition figure before they pay for service, so you have the option to pay for their service if they decide to take action with your offer – not having to come out of pocket for that service work can be a powerful incentive to the customer to trade

If you would like more details on ways to approach your service customers, check out this article: Unlocking Sales Gold in Your Service Drive with Automation, a VIP Experience and Objection-Busting Solutions