There are so many costly gimmicks, ploys, tactics, and calculated maneuvers designed to “reclaim” your service customer base, I lost count at $5K a month. The issue I have with this substantial expenditure is that none of it is used to address th

I long for the old days. You may remember when we didn’t need no stinkin’ process for converting a newly sold customer into a servicing customer. Why? Well, within a month or two (or week), something was gonna break, squeak, whine, tick or otherw

  Join Ed Kovalchick, CEO Net Profit Inc., for a webinar on Thursday, August 25 at 11:30 a.m. EST on: The Garage® –  A Strategy For Surviving The Coming Crash In Customer Repair Order Count. Click here to watch Ed’s video explainin

Automotive manufacturers have been sending out customer satisfaction surveys to vehicle owners for decades. These “How did we do?” questionnaires fill thousands of mailboxes every day. After I bought my last SUV, I received three of them: one wan

Creating a long-term relationship with each new and used vehicle buyer can be accomplished by utilizing inexpensive fundamentals! Current selling and servicing practices lead customers to believe that any service operation can be used. If there is a

A recent study released by J.D. Power and Associates really underscores the importance of when to ask the customer for additional service work (see graphic below). As you can see, if your service advisors time it right, they can greatly increase thei

Once, service and parts were considered as one… Back when our industry began, a little more than a century ago, most dealerships were primarily repair shops or custom coach builders. service, parts and body repairs were all together and the busines

Last week I participated in a mediation conference and explained to a consumer that the “issue” they were experiencing with their vehicle was not caused by a defect, but instead actually was a normal operating condition of the vehicle and a by-pr

GRAPH TO BE INCLUDED There are 50,000 fewer service bays in the United States than there were ten years ago. According to The Lang Report, there were 1,180,000 services bays in 2010 compared to 1,230,000 in 2000 (see graph below). Dealerships lost a