Chris Collins argues car dealerships should return to relationship-based community businesses instead of siloed sales and service. The physical space matters: service drives, waiting areas, and how staff greet customers shape whether people stay loyal or leave.
The model was that there was a car dealer in every market for every brand and they were a part of the chamber of commerce, they sponsored the local high school, they were seeing their clients at the grocery store. It was a relationship based business and it wasn't just sales, it was a relationship based business. As far as there, there it wasn't as siloed as far as, well, you're a sales customer, you're a service customer. It was, you are our customer. And I think we're coming back to that as an industry. We're coming back to seeing customers as one thing and retention as something that involves every department, not just one department, and kind of leaving it to chance. And so the, the relationships that you have with your customers and with your local market, with the local media, with local businesses, all of that plays into that and.
Is where the leverage is more, more or less then this, the second part of that, that, that is a cousin to the first one, which is relationships is the experience. You have a lot of autonomy to create an experience in a, in a dealership. Even to the point where many times dealers, when they're building a new building have got us involved in the process. And where you put the waiting room, how you design the drive, all of that is kind of up for negotiation as long as your plan makes sense and you know, you just do it soon enough and, and you get the, you know, the architect's approval or get the manufacturer to sign off. But I've never had them not sign off. I've also never had them come back and go, why did you do it that way? Like they kind of design them as a, is a, you know, a stamp. They're just stamping them out. Where we put the, the waiting room, how we design the service drives is, is very, very antiquated. Very antiquated.
There's no reason to have the waiting room by the service department. If you're in the new car business or used car business, you should have them walk through your vehicles on the showroom floor and you should have it spread out. Not, you know, one, one guy holding a remote in, in a waiting room and everybody's watching Fox News or everybody's watching ESPN is, is not a customer experience. That's something that they're enduring because they have to.
Yeah, I was going to say it's more like. That's torture.
Yeah, that whole thing. But if you spread them out and you get rid of the big TV and you get them to walk through the showroom and there's places for them to hang out, you're going to sell more cars and you're going to have a better relationship in that way. How we design the service drive, same sort of thing, is very counterintuitive. And those are places where you have leverage. You have leverage in the experience. You have leverage in how you answer the phone. You have leverage in how people are handled and greeted. The, you know, just all of it. You have leverage in that, in that part of it, which I think is the part that they, they leave to chance. Right. To the franchise architect.
Yeah, thanks so much for watching this clip of Service Driver 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 to offers.chriscollinsinc.com now that's offers.chriscollinsInc.com I'm Chris Collins, and I'll see you in the next video.
