Tag Archives: rewards program

What Exactly is the Dealership For Life Program?

Dealership For Life

Dealership For Life was founded to create DEALER OWNED programs that allow dealers to not only BRAND their own program, but choose whether they want to self insure, reinsure or use a product warranty on any of their benefits. Dealership For Life administration can handle it all!

What Exactly is the Dealership For Life Program?

• NEW CULTURE – Total absorption with all dealership personnel and marketing

• DEALERSHIP BRANDING – Promotes your image to your market

• CUSTOMER RETENTION – Keeps your sales customer in-house for all service needs

• SALES TOOL – Adds value to the purchase of a vehicle

• UNIQUE TO YOUR MARKET – Personalized Program that sets dealerships apart

• CREATES LOYALTY – Customers earn rewards that are only redeemable for future services

• COMMUNICATION TOOL – Text, voice mail and email communication to your customers

What has been learned over the past 10 years is that if you give your customers a reason (rewards) to return to your store for all their servicing needs, your opportunity to sell them their next vehicle increases to over 85%.

What are you doing to retain your customers? Start your rewards program today and start retaining your customers.

March Templates Are Here. Retain Your Customers!

March Templates

March e-blast templates are here! Reach out and retain your customers! These templates are included AT NO ADDITIONAL CHARGE to ALL Dealership for Life dealers! What are you doing to retain your customers? Give your customers reasons to return to your dealership. View templates HERE

Freebie Love

I read an article recently in USA TODAY under the heading “ Expect some freebie love when buying a new car “ The article mentioned the things Dealers use to reward customers with, such as a free tank of gas, a second set of keys, floor mats, etc. The article pointed out special perks, such as service vouchers, window tinting, manicures, fresh coffee and cookies. It even listed some extravagant incentives, such as big screen TV’s and AK 47’s!

This got me thinking about a couple of things: first, how far we have come as an industry in trying to create happy customers after we have sold someone a car. I have seen it go from service-drive waiting rooms, nice furniture in the service lounge, donuts to bagels and lunch counters, big screen TV’s, to wireless internet, all in an effort to build a pleasing environment for a previous sales customer; Secondly, just how many of these rewards/perks are so poorly thought out. What is the purpose? Are we just spending money to make someone happy or is there a strategy behind these efforts/expenses?

Most of the rewards/perks mentioned in the USA TODAY article are like throwing darts, you don’t know what the target is. A reward is something someone earns for doing something YOU want them to do. A bribe is something we give to someone in advance, and then hope that the desired behavior follows. A good example of this is when we are raising children. If you say, here is an ice cream so be quiet, that is a bribe. On the other hand if you said, be quiet until we get home and I’ll give you an ice cream, that is a reward. The items mentioned in the USA TODAY article were all bribes. Everything mentioned is nice but purposeless. If we are rewarding them just for buying a car, great but if our objective is to create a customer for life, it’s going to take a much better plan than a free tank of gas.

Airlines and hotels do rewards best. “Fly on our plane, spend money with us and we’ll give you points for future travel”. The same works with hotel rewards. They say, do the behaviors we want, book a room, spend money, and we will reward you with points you can use later. Rewards work much better than perks to create a long-term relationship with a customer who has purchased a car.

When setting up a rewards program the first thing you should decide is, what’s important? If it is the old theory of “just sell the car, there are 10,000 people moving into this state every month”, then just stick with perks. On the other hand, if you want to grow your business with a deep customer base that will support you in good times or bad, you may want to look at a program of rewards that will thank the customer every time they perform services with you.

Free floor mats are nice but for the same expense we could give them a rewards card that can keep them coming back to the dealership for years. We give customers plenty of reasons to buy here, price, payments, terms, but very few reasons to service here. Why not design a program to keep the customer in your service drive for the life of their purchase. JD Powers says that if you keep a customer in your service drive twice a year for the entire time they own their vehicle, they will repurchase 86% of the time at your store. Take a minute and let that sink in. What a great way to incrementally grow your business.

There are many ways to design a program to give a customer a reason to service their vehicle at our store. Some of the best proven practices include, lifetime engine, lifetime powertrain, oil change programs, rewards cards and customized prepaid maintenance packages. Many of which can be reinsured. These options are not perks, bribes or hit/miss. All of these have proven to keep the customer coming back year, after year. They are trackable, effective, and profitable.

So before you spend 400.00 in marketing every month to get someone to walk in the door, think about designing a program with a long-range purpose behind it. Freebie love should last longer than a one night stand. Design your vows and have a long-term marriage with all of your customers.

– Jack Garrity

February Templates Are Here!

February Templates

February e-blast templates are here! Reach out and retain your customers! These templates are included AT NO ADDITIONAL CHARGE to ALL Dealership for Life dealers! What are you doing to retain your customers? Give your customers reasons to return to your dealership. View templates HERE

Why you should visit NADA Booth #6115

NADA100 Booth #6115

Dealership for Life has been helping hundreds of dealerships across the country retain more customers every month with our customized marketing and retention programs that BRAND each dealership specifically!

What are you doing to retain your customers? Is your Service Department busy?

Stop by NADA Booth #6115 and see how your dealership can benefit from our full range of dealer branded retention and marketing products. Since introduced in 2004 DFL has become the leader in administering lifetime powertrain, lifetime engine, and rewards programs for dealers all over the US and Canada. Our process is designed around many of the best practices used in the loyalty business today. Some of which include, individual customer web sites, retention generated custom email campaigns, interactive customer mobile app, full DMS integration and monthly in-store sales/service training that is unmatched in the industry.

Dealership for Life is the most comprehensive marketing and loyalty program in the country. With territory exclusivity, DFL will provide the competitive edge over other dealers.

Enrolling over 30,000 new members for DFL Dealers each month and retaining an average of 80%. Over 2 Million since 2004!

“Our business has grown 320% in the last ten years due in large part to the loyalty and marketing programs designed by Dealership for Life. Their efforts and results have had a significant impact on every department in the dealership.” Chip Doetsch – President of Apple Ford Lincoln

“Now that we have been on the program for ten years, it works as advertised. Eight out of ten customers come back to our service department compared to three or four for the average dealer.” Ken Shreve – President of Hamilton Hyundai

“Loyalty always starts with a great experience. Give them a reason to buy and a reason to stay. When your staff is offering great customer service and following the processes in place, customers would have no reason to defer their business to anyone else!” Jack Garrity – DFL Partner

“With over 30 years of experience in the automotive customer service and repair industry, Hamilton Auto Group achieved sales to service customer retention at over 90%, making it ranked #11 in the nation” Rick Manring – DFL VP of Fixed Operations

Stop by NADA100 Booth #6115 and talk to Chip, Ken, Jack, Rick, and the rest of the industry leaders.

Using Customer Retention to DRIVE SALES

drive sales

I visit about 250 dealerships a year and, from time to time, I hear different complaints about things that are not working the way we would like them to. Some are the usual — not enough sales, can’t find techs, heavy turnover in the sales department, etc. Sorry, no answer for these. However, I think I’ve found a way to address the “customer retention is too costly” problem in a unique way.

I was in an Apple store the other day buying a watch for my wife. She is Apple to the core, no pun intended. She has an iPad, iPhone, iTunes and a Mac. To say she is a loyal customer would be an understatement. The person who waited on me was fabulous. She had great product knowledge, sold me the watch, three different bands, plus a charger for my car and a new, upgraded iPhone 7. As I was leaving, I wasn’t thinking about the $1,000 I had just spent, but instead, “Wow, what a great experience!” This got me thinking about our business, how we can create the same type of experience for our customers.

Some stores have accessory departments, and some don’t. If you do, this is a good place to start; if you don’t you may want to think about starting one. Many of us don’t sell enough cars to have a full-time accessory person. Let’s take this person and use them to build the “Apple Experience.”

One of the problems I hear many dealers talk about is they have a hard time hiring employees right out of college. A dealer in North Carolina told me, “I just can’t hire anyone with a college degree. Who wants to spend $160,000 on a four-year degree and then go home and tell their parents they are selling cars?” Here is a golden opportunity to get some of those people. Take the job as an “accessory person” and turn it into the public relations director for the dealership. Hire only recent college grads and use this as your management training department.

So, how do you pay them and what do they do? To start with, accessories can be part of it, but a very small part. They should talk to every customer who purchases anything at the dealership. If you have a branding program or a retention program, they should review it with every customer. Explain the benefits and how everything works. If you have a customer Website, show them how to set it up, and do the same with an app. Explain your rewards card, your lifetime program or whatever else you are using to separate yourself from the competition. This person becomes a liaison between the customers and all the other departments. He or she can train everyone on the customer retention program you have developed, plus track the results and review them monthly with the rest of the management team and make sure we are achieving best-in-class retention numbers.

But, like everything else in our business, we need to figure out a way to pay for it. This, however, becomes the easy part. Not only will new public relations directors pay for themselves, but it could become a new profit center for the dealership. Think about it — only 18 percent of our customers buy a prepaid maintenance program when they purchase a car. The PR director could spend time on the service drive reviewing our maintenance program with every customer who comes in for service.

But why stop there? Develop a menu for the service drive. Everyone knows that the service writers are too busy to sell product on the drive. With a well-developed menu that includes pictures and features benefits, why not offer key fob, wheel and tire, ding and dent and any other protection or products they may not have purchased when they bought their car? The options are endless. I know a dealer in Tampa whose No. 1 salesperson just works the service drive and Internet leads. When they refer the customer back to sales, they can get part of the commission.

Extended service contracts are another source of income for our PR director. Again, many people in our service department might be interested in an extended service contract if someone just took the time to explain it to them. Have printed material that explains to every customer their options for an extended service contract and have the PR director explain each in detail. Going further, you could develop an online program to sell accessories and F&I products and have this department manage it.

Every dealership needs bright young talent to grow their business. This program will not only put focus on developing this talent, but it will put better focus on creating the “Apple Experience” in our business for every customer. Loyalty and retention — the future is now.

– Jack Garrity

Follow up to the Public Relations Specialist article

I have had a few calls from people about last month’s article. The main question was how you would go about setting up this type of program in a store. I will try to outline the steps I would take to develop the Apple Experience in the service drive. What we suggested was a way to get more millennial and newly graduated college students into our business. How would you create a wow buying experience for the customer after they purchased their car? How would you set up a brand new profit center by developing a public relations manager? How would you get better penetration on F&I products? And finally how would you pay for it all. Let’ drill down on some of these things in a little more depth.

First step is to advertise for recent college graduates. Let them know this is a manager training program. You may want to hire more than one as the program grows. I would start their salary at 600.00 per week plus commission. In order to offset this cost I would have the company I buy my F&I products from contribute part of this expense. I’m sure they will have no problem with this because this person will be selling their products full time and the penetration should go through the roof. If you have an agent or customer Retention Company or really any other company that is doing business in your store they can contribute as well. All of these people will benefit in the long run and what’s wrong with someone paying the dealer to do business in their store. Think about it, if that cost is split three ways you are hiring a college grad in a management position for 200.00 per week. If it is split with more vendors it will be even less. As this person gains more experience they can be worked into other departments and now your management program is up and running.

The second step is setting up the program. Everything we want sold should be laid out on an I-pad. When the customer comes in for service we pull them up and we have a list of what they purchased in F&I and when they bought their car. We will know when they go out of warranty, or when their service contract expires. Did they purchase a prepaid maintenance package or other products like key fob coverage, wheel and tire coverage or ding and dent. The public relations manager can then review the benefits of each product with the customer even showing a short video on the value add for any of these products. If the customer doesn’t have time for a review we can email a feature benefit presentation to them so they can look at it at their convenience. Think of a business development center for your F&I products. The public relations manager will make a commission off of each product he sells. We could also wrap it with an equity mining tool and he could be commissioned on car sales as well.

The third step would be the sale of accessories. Everyone wants to sell more aftermarket products. Tires, batteries, and wiper blades could be advertised in a target marketing campaign. Sell bed liners to truck customers, wheels, rain guards and window tint to customers on the anniversary of their purchase. The PR manager could get all the op code declines and develop a coupon campaign that could go out nightly. With all the information from the DMS at his fingertips he can easily spot when a customer is ready for an upgrade. All of this marketing could be done on-line with just a little help from a graphics department.

Even the question of who manages and trains the public relation/ manager trainee can be answered using one of your vendors. Any vendor who is currently in your DMS could easily work with your F&I provider to develop this program. They could hire, train and supervise and then when you decide to promote them to another department, they could do it again. It really is a low risk, high rewards proposition for any dealership.

The last step is truly the public relations part of the program. This person will be the liaison between the service department and all of the other departments in the store. If you have a rewards program, a customer website, a customer app, weekly coupons, a lifetime engine or powertrain component all of this can be reviewed and sorted out either in person or through email communication. This person’s success will be based on their ability to develop a good relationship with the entire data-base and develop your store into the customer’s dealership for life.

– Jack Garrity

January E-Blast Templates Are Here!

January Templates

January e-blast templates are here! Reach out and retain your customers! These templates are included AT NO ADDITIONAL CHARGE to ALL Dealership for Life dealers! What are you doing to retain your customers? Give your customers reasons to return to your dealership. View templates here

NADA100 Convention in New Orleans

Join Dealership for Life at NADA100 (Booth #6115) in New Orleans January 26 – 29, 2017 and see how your dealership can benefit from our full range of dealer branded retention and marketing products. Since introduced in 2004 we have become the leader in administering lifetime powertrain, lifetime engine, and rewards programs for dealers all over the US and Canada. Our process is designed around many of the best practices used in the loyalty business today. Some of which include, individual customer web sites, retention generated custom email campaigns, interactive customer mobile app, full DMS integration and monthly in-store sales/service training that is unmatched in the industry.

What are you doing to retain your customers? Are you rewarding your customers? Stop by booth #6115 and talk to the industry leaders.

“With over 30 years of experience in the automotive customer service and repair industry, Rick’s dealerships achieved sales to service customer retention at over 90%, making it ranked #11 in the nation” Rick Manring – VP of Fixed Operations

Stop by booth #6115 and talk to Chip, Ken, Rick and the rest of the industry leaders.

New Year E-Blast Templates Are Here

New Year e-blast templates are here! Reach out and retain your customers! These templates are included AT NO ADDITIONAL CHARGE to ALL Dealership for Life dealers! What are you doing to retain your customers? Give your customers reasons to return to your dealership. View templates here