Jamie, a customer service manager at a Scooby Doo dealership, explains how a lifetime alignments offer (Firestone: $179.95 upfront, then free for life) keeps customers coming back. The catch: retention tools only work if you market them and match your dealership's specific situation.
Jamie is Christian, a customer service experience manager at a Scooby Doo dealership, one of Massachusetts brands I love. I wrote service for Scooby Doo Jamie when I was a kid.
I love the brand, honestly. It's great.
So you, you have a couple interesting posts I want to talk about. Let's start with the first one, that.
Maybe you feel the same way, but it's interesting to me the way people approach and see things. So you put up a question and you said, doing some research on creative ideas today.
I stumbled across Firestone, who offers lifetime alignments. I called them incognito to see what it's all about. And apparently you pay 179.95 for the first alignment. For as long as you own the vehicle, you get alignments for free. If a shop does this and internalizes an alignment, let's say once a year, paying the tech their time at their rate, do you see this as a customer retention tool and selling opportunity or just a waste? And so give me a general sense about the feedback that you got from that and then I'll tell you my. My opinion. Yeah, sure.
So it was, if you read through the comments, it was a very wide range. There was a lot of, you know, it's a great idea. Then there was some people that were just flat out saying, no, wouldn't work, can't work, there's no way it'll work. I had one comment from a BDC person who actually said that, you know, you don't really need it. As long as you can offer a great experience, the customer will come back. You don't need retention tools. So there's kind of just a lot of different ways to look at it, I guess, which I guess is why I post the way that I do. It's just to show there's just such a broad, you know, range of answers that you really just have to make it work for your specific dealership. I think, I think that everybody kind of has a different ebb and flow. It's just you have to really get to know what makes your customers tick and what makes your department tick.
Yeah, but so just in general, though, when we talk about.
Using that as a retention tool, because that's what they're doing. Right?
Right.
You do have to have some sort of marketing to get people in so they can experience the great customer service. So just having great customer service in and of itself.
Doesn'T give you the opportunity without the customers. And so there has to be something that brings them in.
Exactly.
So it always surprises me how thin sided people are in their comments where they're not looking at the whole picture as, hey, as managers, as you know us running service departments, we have a basic toolbox and you don't have to use that. You go to the toolbox and you need a screwdriver but all you have is one wrench. You can't use the wrench where you need the screwdriver. And so what I admire and like about the way you're approaching this is you're asking like, hey, this has to be working because people are doing it. So you know, let's. I just wish the conversations were, were deeper and more insightful than judgmental and that won't work. That's stupid.
You know, it just, that's social media though. You know, it's a platform for the keyboard warriors. So it's, I take it with a grain of salt, you know, I, I just really genuinely like starting that conversation and get people thinking and maybe somebody who's just like me who just genuinely wants to know is thinking the same thing but doesn't necessarily ask. So I just like to throw it out there and then just kind of see what happens. And so far it's been great engagement. So.
Yeah, no, and it's a great question. Thanks so much for watching this clip of Service Driving Revolution. We're uploading new stuff every day, so make sure you subscribe and click the bell icon so you don't miss out. If you have a question you'd like us to answer on the show, call 8333 Ask SDR and we'll answer your question on the show. That's 8333 Ask SDR. For special deals on our books and training, head over to offers.chris collins inc.com now that's offers.chriscollinsinc.com I'm Chris Collins and I'll see you in the next video.
