Cue from airlines helps dealership cut no-shows, from Automotive News.
The “appointment boarding pass” notifies them that their “booking is confirmed,” and includes a reservation number, appointment time and date.
In the fall of 2012, Robert Karbaum sat at a gate at the Las Vegas airport waiting to fly home to Toronto. The e-commerce manager at the seven-dealership group Weins Canada Inc. had been in town for an innovation conference, at which dealers pitched their best ideas for a chance to win prize money.
As he sat staring at the digital boarding pass on his phone, Karbaum had an aha moment: Weins stores, which sell Toyota, Lexus, Volkswagen, Audi and Hyundai, had been struggling with low show rates for scheduled test drives. What if he could use the formality of the boarding-pass process to get customers to take their test drive appointments more seriously?
“The airline industry’s show ratio is as strong as it gets,” Karbaum says. “The whole business is built on the fact that people have to show up for their appointment on time.”
