Guides / Follow-up
Your service drive sees more customers than your sales floor
Most dealers market to conquest prospects and ignore the owners walking through the service door every day.
Your service drive sees more of your customers in a month than your sales floor does in a quarter. Most stores spend their marketing budget chasing strangers and ignore the owners already walking through the service door.
The customers you already have
Service customers already trust you enough to hand over their keys. Many of them are in a good equity position, driving a vehicle that is getting older, and sitting in your lounge for an hour with nothing to do.
That is the warmest audience you will ever have.
Build a handoff, not a hope
"Sales should talk to service customers" is a hope. A handoff has a trigger and an owner.
- Set the trigger. Each morning, pull the day's service appointments and flag customers with good equity, high kilometres, an expiring lease or finance term, or a big repair estimate coming.
- Assign an owner. One salesperson or the used car manager gets the list each morning.
- Make the approach low-pressure. "While you're waiting, we've had a lot of interest in your model. Would you like a quick number on it? No obligation."
- Log it. Every conversation goes in the CRM, even the "not now" ones.
A big repair estimate is a trade conversation waiting to happen.
Loyalty offers beat conquest ads
Offers tied to a customer's own history outperform generic ads. Some examples:
- Service customers with older vehicles: a trade appraisal plus a loyalty bonus.
- Lease customers within six months of maturity: an early upgrade conversation.
- Customers due for tires: a tire package with a loyalty discount.
Send these by email and text to your own database. They cost a fraction of conquest advertising. See service-to-sales: turning the appointment list into trade leads.
Market the service drive itself
Service drives revenue and keeps customers coming back. Show it off: post short videos of your techs, explain seasonal maintenance, and run service offers on your Google Business Profile. A customer who trusts your service department is far more likely to buy their next car from you.
What to measure
Track how many service customers each month got a sales conversation, how many got an appraisal, and how many bought. Even a handful of extra units a month from customers you already own adds up quickly.