Service Prospecting

Give your Service Prospecting a name and brand it. Get promotional and display material posted to advertise and promote the brand.

Treat it like it's a separate department within the store. As the Manager treat it like it's your own business.

'You have to open a lot of oysters before you can find a pearl." - Maria Celeste Arraras. There is strength in numbers. Approach as many customers as you can. Many customers will pass, but a few will take you up on your offer.

Some customers, while not interested presently, will engage in conversation. Its one of the side benefits of prospecting. You'll build relationships. They get to know you, who you are and what you do at the store. When the time comes, and they are considering a new car, they'll reach out to you as their point of contact.

Set monthly, weekly and daily goals. Track your results. Goals should be realistic and achievable. Don't get discouraged early. Expect a slow start. As with most selling approaches, you need to plant seeds and it takes time for them to grow. Also, your skills will improve and you'll get better as you develop the right approach, and gain confidence in overcoming common objections.

Become that person. Branding also means brand yourself. Inside and outside of the dealership, let everyone know that you are the person that buys cars. Become an advisor and offer yourself to everyone you come in contact with as the person to call when you have a question about selling or trading a car.

This is no longer the land of low-hanging fruit. Most of those vines have been picked. There are very few opportunities left where you can take someone out of their current lease, put them in a new one, and keep their payment the same. In fact, you may not be able to get close. So what is your reason for offering a change? Think about the iPhone. My original 4 is still sitting in a drawer, encased and in pristine condition. We're now up to 14 or even 15 on the iPhone progression. Yet unlike the 4 each successive phone was replaced, with trade-in credit, as an upgrade. What did I upgrade? It's all about infotainment, safety and the desire to have the latest and greatest!

As a Used Car Manager I wear a lot of hats (literally) so it can be easy to be "too busy" to focus on the drive. You need a sales representative solely focused on the Service Drive but the Used Car Manager should "quarterback" the process. The service schedule sets up the daily game plan. Which cars are most desirable for your lot? What are their equity positions? What is their history with the dealership? Put in place a process for follow-up and track it.

This could be the biggest challenge to implementing a successful service prospecting operation. Early on, the hurdle to implementing a service drive process was the Service Department. Service Managers and Technicians are already suspicious of Salespeople. Now they're hanging out in the shop trying to talk customers out of repairing their cars? It's important to make the repair a part of the process and encourage the work to be performed. How you handle the repair is crucial to the process. In general, encourage the repair and make sure the technicians know that is your intent. If they trade it, keep that tech on the job and let them finish it. Don't move it over to a used car tech. It will not only slow down the recon process but reaffirm the belief that you are taking work away from techs in the main shop. Additionally, if the customer opts to keep their car and do the repair, offer to reimburse them for the bill if they change their mind in the near future. Blending means being an advocate for the repair!

I start my day at 7:30 am scanning bar codes, reading odometers, and snapping pics with my VAuto app as customers roll through the drive. Why not contribute to the experience by offering a friendly greeting to a waiting customer, moving a car further down the lane to help keep it flowing, or even tagging and parking? It's a good opportunity to drive the car you appraise. Introduce new customers to the process so they know where to go in future visits and make them feel welcome. It's another way to blend and develop a positive image of the service you provide to the dealership as well as the customer.