Our industry, the automotive retail industry, has been revolutionized over the past two decades by the onslaught of technology. Every dealer has a flashy website. Stock logistics and part ordering have been conducted over the web for at least a decade. Customers have been able to all but pick up their new vehicle online for years and company centered networks such as Toyota’s intranet has kept dealers connected for more than 10 years. In fact most areas of the retail vehicle environment have at least partially been placed in the tendrils of the web. What else is there? Let's look at some of the changes IT has made.
Though some have been wary and others downright rejecting of these changes, studies showing that 80-90% of car buyers have done research on the web has manufacturers embracing the extended reach of social media in order to update their image and reach out to the foot traffic in cyberspace. A study by L2 Digital IQ found that 73% of car manufacturers maintain Facebook pages, while YouTube and twitter have attracted 70% and 60% respectively.
http://wardsauto.com/ar/social_media_marketing_100222/
The positive effects touch every aspect of the dealership. We can now complete a sale in far less time getting instant credit reports and processing transactions at the click of a button. Finance approvals are practically instantaneous and the streamlining and time saving in administration dramatically lowered the cost of the so called non productive element of the business.
The manufacturers and owners of today’s cars have integrated technology into their products and lives, and, while I’m still waiting for the hover car I saw in Popular Mechanics years ago, amazing advancements such as electric and hybrid drive-trains, all manner of operator enhancements such GPS navigation and heads up displays and in car entertainment features like DVD players make today’s cars light years more advanced than the hardware that landed on the moon.
A fantastic innovation from GM has taken IT even further by wedding the embedded technology in the vehicles to the delivery system of the internet. GM’s OnStar outfitted vehicles, apart from the well known crash alert system, can send complex diagnosis reports to owners email account, even notifying the operator when tires need inflating. While this may seem to be a novelty it has also in effect answered consumer desires and created the market for further innovations by alerting the consumer to the possibilities. Check out OnStar's demo at:
http://www.onstar.com/us_english/jsp/ovd/index.jsp
As a result our service technicians today are more likely to be plugging into a car’s electronics than changing spark plugs, a far cry from the stereotypical grease monkey.
So even the workshop has also become hi tech but that’s where the IT express slows to a crawl. The systems and methods used to manage the operation are barely making it into this century. Ok, many dealer websites have online service appointment capability but it doesn’t really get beyond the vehicle’s name rank and model number. It’s time to overhaul the nerve center of the service department and how we’ll do that is the topic of my next post.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
IT Enhanced Customer Service
As discussed in the previous post, Information Technology has rapidly reshaped the sales, administration and parts sectors of our business and it is time for the everyday face of the dealership, the Service Department, to catch up. As with every business, communication with our customers is in some ways more important than the technical quality of our work. Customers expect first class technical proficiency and now, by leveraging IT, we can create a dynamic, intuitive bridge to our customers while reducing work loads and improving efficiency.
Now we have to tackle the issue of increasing customer expectation. We are starting a dealer-wide IT upgradation. We are moving from the manual integration of information that used to be there before in each department. We are considering two vendor products - Autopoint and BZ. These two products will provide us the required dealer-wide information integration. We will try to achieve seamless flow of data, along with secure exchange of data in all facets of our business.
http://www.autopointsite.com/
Service Department IS revolves mainly around basic booking and invoicing software and a customer data base. Our aim is to unite all the information about our customers and their vehilces with live data and automated customer services. Making the car service experience more open and giving the customer more tools to inform us of their needs will build a greater rapor and increase customer loyalty. We want our customers to come back because they feel confident and can choose their level of involvement.
With very little change in hardware, the already available data will be used to boost efficiency and productivity. For instance: Technicians can post progress via existing laptops at their workstations, allowing the Service Manager to monitor from their office. Online factory tech advice can be viewed from the same laptops, linkage with spare parts department will allow them to view service appointments and pre-order specific parts.
By far the biggest change will be seen by the customer. Being that the systems are ownership lifecycle oriented, our customers will have online access to their vehicle's service history and a range of other services such as automated service reminders, email notification of any recall issues.
Though it’s currently not available, what if we could offer live updates available through the service portal? This will free the service staff for other duties and give the customer peace of mind. Why not a customer interface that will enable them, for instance, to upload photos of damage or upload audio or video of any errant behavior their car is exhibiting, instead of having to imitate that embarrasing exhaust sound? Perhaps they could even watch their car being repaired on web cam. The increased contact and following data will build a much richer customer profile with the intention of providing a greater value service, and, will empower our clients.
Here is a table from BZ's webite and a customer input screen.
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