Nowadays, finding a way to retain your customers is an important part of the business. Car prices are rising through the roof, and not building the loyalty of your customers can be a quick route to losing them. Building loyalty for your dealership can be difficult since people aren’t buying cars as regularly as they buy other products, but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t possible to do. Using the right tools is important to focus on to ensure that your customer retention is as effective as it can be.
Better Communication
Customers care about how you communicate with them. Having open and honest communication with your customers makes you someone that they feel they can trust and allows you to have difficult conversations when you need to. When it comes to your phone agents, having them properly trained to communicate with your customers and deal with their concerns is important. Phone scripts are an important way to make sure that they don’t miss out on important steps of the conversation and give them the tools to deal with difficult customers. The biggest thing to remember is that customers want to be heard and understood, especially when it involves things like their car. When you are able to provide that for them, it goes a long way toward earning their loyalty.
Innovative Marketing
Marketing is often thought of as a way to bring in new customers, but it is also an important step for keeping your current customers coming back. The loyalty phase on the marketing funnel includes follow-up emails and phone calls about new services you offer, sales that are currently happening, and reminding them of everything your dealership has to offer beyond just selling cars. You should also keep it interesting. If you only ever send emails, they may stop paying attention. Social media campaigns, events, and other engaging marketing tactics are an important part of keeping customers engaged and returning to your dealership repeatedly..
Solid Customer Service
The customer service that you provide as a dealership goes beyond the sales experience that customers have. Many people have come to see dealerships as a one-stop shop for everything to do with their cars, which means you need to make sure you are providing quality service every step of the way. From phone calls and communications to car repairs and maintenance, all of this should be conducted with the highest level of customer service. The ultimate goal is to earn the repeated business of your customers, especially if your dealership sells both new and used cars. Having loyal customers not only means that you will have their business, but they are also likely to recommend you to their friends and family. In addition to providing quality customer service, you should make sure that you are constantly striving to improve your customer service. New methods of helping customers are being suggested all the time, so keeping up to date with things is important.
Fun Perks
While perks aren’t the only thing people are looking for in a dealership, they provide a good option to sway people and keep them engaged with your dealership. Loyalty events can easily double as marketing events and provide options for those perks. You can showcase new cars, serve great food, and have drawings for fun prizes at these events. You can work with local businesses to provide these prizes and get the community engaged as well. Additionally, some dealerships will offer free car washes, snacks, and entertainment while you wait, or anything else you can think of. When people enjoy their time at their dealership, even if they are waiting for car service, they are more likely to become loyal customers.
Using all the tools at your disposal is one of the best ways to ensure that you and your business can weather this volatile car market. While prices may be higher than many people want, making sure you have a loyal customer base can help you weather anything coming your way. Customer loyalty can trump almost any storm.
Want to improve how your dealership handles phone calls? Check out our Dealership Phone Training or Active Coaching Services and see how Phone Ninjas can help you!
As the COO | Partner of Phone Ninjas, Chris delivers leadership, coaching, and mentorship to 55 team members providing software sales and phone skills coaching. He fosters powerful partnerships and collaborations with leaders across various business sectors, establishing expectations, communicating vision, and escalating performance to maximize productivity and effectiveness.
Chris is an innovation-driven business executive with over 25 years of experience delivering leadership to teams of up to 75 overseeing development, launch, and sale of website lead acquisition, reconditioning process software systems, and technology that support automotive dealerships across the U.S., Canada, and Europe.
