Dealerships can convert 4-5% of service repair orders into vehicle sales by assigning dedicated salespeople to the service drive. Success requires these salespeople to attend early meetings with service advisors, use software to identify customers with equity, and offer incentive bonuses to service staff who help close deals.
Okay, let's talk about the subject that we wanted to kind of highlight today. And that is how you sell vehicles from the service drive. And I think one thing that we need to do in fixed ops is we need to run a really good department that's consistent month in and month out. And we need to help the other department. We need to transcend our department and help other departments prosper in these times because a lot of dealerships are struggling with sales on the front end. And there's a lot of opportunity in the service drive. And so I think at Top Dog this year, I was thinking about asking somebody that we know that their dealerships convert about 4% of their RO account. into car sales in the drive. And I think the 4 to 5% is doing a really, really good job. But that's, you know, you're selling, you're selling a handful of cars a day out of the service drive. And so I wanted to kind of talk about what I've seen work. And then at Top Dog, we'll probably go deeper into this and really have a step-by-step guide. But I think it's time for us, to start embracing this and not waiting for sales to come and try to do it and go, you know, go out and seek it out and help. And, you know, most of the time what happens is sales starts that, they start selling in the drive and then it goes away. Like it only lasts like a month or 2 because you have to staff it different, you know, that sort of thing. So the first thing on my list of, What makes makes it work if you want to sell vehicles in the service drive is you have to dedicate salespeople. Like they have to be dedicated to service. That's their job. They're there Monday through Saturday or Monday through Friday, whatever it is. They're in the drive. They're there, so they would be there for the shift meeting. It's 6:45 in the morning. If service opens at 7, which it does in most places, that salesperson is in the shift meeting at 6:45, ready to go, communicating with the advisors, talking about what's coming in, that sort of thing, highlighting customers that they want to make sure they get face time with. But it's a planned thing. They're dedicated. That is their world. They live in service. Not this. Oh, hey, we'll schedule a salesperson in service every once in a while. That never works because sales usually runs at a different time. So usually sales opens at nine. Service has been going for two hours. It's a it's a completely different business, right? So you got to dedicate them. The really big stores will also dedicate a manager. So dedicating somebody to, to the drive and then the service manager and advisors should, should be a part of that. Now, if I'm devising it, I'd have some sort of bonus for the advisors, for their customers that bought a vehicle. They'd get some sort of bird dog and maybe there'd be some sort of override for the manager. Just to get get the attention on that and the focus going that way. But the advisors for sure, because if you think about it, an advisor loses the job if somebody buys a vehicle and they're not getting paid. And so you want to make sure that it that they are compensated in a way for that that makes them look forward to it. Like they're excited about somebody buying a vehicle. And then the other part of that is understanding that you're getting the customer back, which is the circle of life, right? So whenever sales sells them another vehicle, we get them again in service. And, you know, usually the trade cycle's 3 years or something like that. It's even longer lately, but getting them back. So compensating them on that. And then there's a bunch of stuff on the sales side. That happens that if I was a service manager, I would, I would want to understand it. But depending on what software they're running, they have the ability to look at the cars coming in and see where they are equity-wise compared to what the value is of the vehicle they have, what, what sort of terms there are on like models. And, you know, is there a vehicle where they can have the same payment?
Yeah.
With, you know, not very much down, or are there new programs? Sometimes manufacturers will do pull-ahead programs where there's some sort of bonus that makes that, makes that sort of deal work. So understanding kind of how that math works, like really understand it. And then also understanding how a lot of the scripts that, that they will use for that is not so much about selling them another vehicle. But what they will talk about is we need your car on our used car lot because it's in high demand. That's kind of the thing that they will say is, hey, your vehicle is in high demand. It'd be a great time if you want to trade it in because we really need it, which makes the customer perceive that they're getting more value for their trade-in in that sense. So a lot of times the conversation starts with You know, we need, we need the vehicle on the used car lot versus, hey, do you want to, do you want to get a new car? Yeah.
And today, now more than ever, that, that's pulling really well. Uh, people are shocked at how much their car is worth today. Like, um, people that bought a new car a few years ago close to COVID don't know what that thing, what that thing's worth today. And so that, you know, that, that piece pulls really well. I'd also underline, when you see this work very effectively, part of having dedicated salespeople and then being a part of the shift meeting and all of those things, they become part of the service department. If it's somebody that you're rotating a schedule where a salesperson just has to work service 3 days out of the month or something, they're still just from the other side coming over to the dark side.
Yeah.
And both sides view it as kind of an inconvenience at best. But when they're part of the department, like our service scheduling process, I've seen several people use equity mining within our service scheduling process. And the advisors have a process called pregame where they're going over their ROs and looking at the opportunities, checking history and things like that. And there ends up being a pregame for the salespeople. that are in service also, whether it's equity mining or looking at the vehicle they have and kind of preparing for that. And when there's that level of preparation with that over on the service drive, I've been a part of a lot of trying to sell on the service drive, but if there's dedicated people and it's set up as part of your system, the engagement with the customers is way more organic. Because it's a weird thing to come in for service if you don't set it up right, you know, and me try to sell you a car. There can be a level of it where that little voice in the customer's head, uh, when they go to a car dealership, there's that little voice in their head, you know, that, that little thing of, uh, skepticism. And, uh, and it gets louder when they feel like they're being sold to or something. And there's a way to make that whole process you know, very organic. But if it's something you're just gonna try and you're gonna make salespeople go over there every so often and stuff like that. So, um, yeah, that, that first one goes along with these other, these other 2, but I don't think you can emphasize that piece of it enough, uh, because I think that's where a lot of people get it wrong.
