Auto Dealer Monthly Magazine is the daily operations publication serving the retail automotive industry. This automotive publication serves dealer principals, officers and general managers with the latest best practices.
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By Stephanie Forshee DE A LERSHIP SPOTLIGHT ©ISTOCKPHOTO.COM/KZENON SERVING UP SALES Terry Longmore was focused on service-department sales long before it became fashionable. That dedication is paying off for Beasley Ford Lincoln, where Longmore's department is capturing 3 to 5 percent of his store's sales leads from customers waiting in the service lounge. Twenty y Twenty years ago, Terry Longmore's boss n was know was known to punish a salesperson by sending ing him or her to the service department to sh sales. Today, he's the general manager fsh for s at B at Beasle Ford Lincoln in York, Pa., and he Beasley has h has just hired two new employees to feld the serv lane r service la in hopes of a proft boost. Longmore's "quality assurance representatives" aren't being punished, however. Teir job is to converse with customers waiting in the service lounge by asking strictly educational-based questions such as, "Do you want to know how much your vehicle is worth?" or "Did you know your extended warranty is close to expiration?" Te staf then uses TEGA Technologies' Service Turn, a web-based application that 28 mines and organizes customer data, to answer such inquiries for customers on the spot. And with interest rates as low as they are and fuel economy as efcient as it is, Longmore calls it the "perfect storm." With a mobile device in tow, these new employees can be heard asking customers, "'Hey, by the way, I don't know if you knew this, but we can give you a better rate, we can give you a safer vehicle, a more fuel-efcient vehicle. Does that interest you?'" "Who's going to answer 'No' to that?" Longmore asks. "Tat's kind of a no-brainer." A LITTLE EXTRA At February's National Automobile Dealer Association (NADA)'s Convention & Expo, AUTO DE ALE R MONTHLY • AUGUST 2013 J.D. Power and Associates' senior vice president, John Humphrey, predicted that 2013 will be the year dealers maximize profts in the service drive. Tat announcement is old news to Longmore. Beasley Ford Lincoln's closing ratio on the service side sits at a modest 3 to 5 percent, but he thinks an extra fve to nine sales — at a store that averages about 180 combined newand used-unit sales per month — are signifcant, considering the alternative is to not make an efort at all. Longmore says Beasley Ford Lincoln, which he joined four months ago, isn't the frst place he's used Service Turn. He also employed the tool while working at one of three Kelly Nissan locations owned by the nine-