5 Tips For Better Phone Practices In Dealership Service Departments

Most service departments regard the phone as a nuisance rather than a source of cash. That's bad, especially since each phone call costs hundreds of dollars, and phone experience frequently determines whether a customer chooses to repair his or her vehicle with you or the dealership down the street. In our experience, if a customer is calling for the service department, it typically means they have an issue with their vehicle and are less than satisfied at the moment (car problems suck). Thankfully, there's a way to go about handling these situations and leveraging them to generate revenue that will leave both the customer and dealership happy. Let's dive in!

Staying Staffed

There’s been plenty of times when people will call the dealership and get the run around trying to get ahold of the service department, and a lot of the time it’s due to the fact that they’re understaffed. The path to improvement begins with appropriately staffing your BDC or service team. That way, someone is always accessible to answer the phone. Even when you have enough staff, calls can go through the gaps due to clashing schedules or a lack of protocol, so making sure you’re using the appropriate tools to stay on top of your service customers is the first major step to improving the customer's experience, your service departments revenue, and your CSI.

Avoiding Customer Defection By Staying On Top of Inbound Calls

We know this sounds like a no-brainer, but it happens a lot. Customers will call the dealership to get a hold of the service department, only to be met by a holding tone that eventually lands in the service department's voicemail. This is extremely frustrating for the customer and can lead them to defect from using your dealership for service. A way to improve this is to make sure a BDC or Receptionist is able to address these calls as they come in and try their best to connect them with the appropriate person or department, and if that’s not possible, make sure to get the customer's contact information so they can notify the correct department when they are available. 

Scheduling is Key!

One of the key ingredients of making sure your customer stays with your dealership is making sure to answer the phone, and if you haven’t already, you should schedule your call routing so an employee is always available to answer their call. If their initial call is not answered, 52% of callers will not call again. Call scheduling allows you to regulate how calls are routed based on the time of day or the day of the week. Consider using call scheduling to reroute phones to a call center or cell phone outside of usual business hours(s). Even if your service advisers aren't in the dealership, calls must be answered and potential clients must be assisted, or you risk losing them to your competition, or even a bad review on Yelp (Yikes!).

Pricing Should Be Discussed At The Dealership

One of the larger pitfalls of service phone calls is that a lot of customers are looking for the best pricing for their service, and can be scared off if prices are quoted over the phone before they are at your dealership. A good practice regarding this issue is to recommend a vehicle inspection before getting into the nitty gritty of pricing and what needs to be serviced on their vehicle. This also avoids the pitfall that can come of “well you said it would be this…” and opens a whole other can of worms. Keep it brief, and recommend they come in and speak with a service advisor so they can get the correct information on their requested service(s).

Staying Proactive And Outbound

One of the practices that a lot of service departments miss is outbound calls and communication. Even though the customer's vehicle might be sitting in your service bay, it doesn't mean your job is done. I’m sure you’ve heard communication is key, and that is definitely true in this aspect. Customers will really appreciate updates on their vehicles and any relevant information to their visit. It goes a long way and will overall improve the customer's experience, and hopefully snag you a good CSI or review while you’re at it. An example of this is if a customer needed a part ordered to fix their vehicle, you could reach out to them and let them know when the part arrives and inform them that the repair will begin.

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