FEATURE

46

SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2016 || FIXED OPS MAGAZINE

I’ve been fortunate to work in a variety of aspects across our industry over my tenured career. In my current capacity, I’m very focused on the activities and changes that are occurring within the Fixed Operations side of the automo-tive retail market sector.

What’s interesting to me is to witness how similar changes and advances that are occurring in the Fixed Ops space match what happened in the front end of the dealership business over the past 10 to 15 years.

It wasn’t that long ago that the only way that you could interface with the New and Used Vehicle Sales Depart-ment was to drive down to your local dealership, walk through the front door and meet with a Sales professional in-person. Nowadays, the vast amount of new and used vehicle traffic starts in a digital format, with potential custom-ers shopping via the web, performing market research regarding vehicle attri-butes and differentiators, and compar-ing one dealers inventory availability to another.

A consumer can even determine the right price to pay for the vehicle of choice through services that offer in-sight into what others have purchased a similarly equipped vehicle for in their market.

EVERY VEHICLE INSPECTED, EVERY TIME

FIXED OPS SHOULD FOLLOW PROCEDURES

LONG CHAMPIONED BY F&I

B Y M AT T PA R S O N S

48

SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2016 || FIXED OPS MAGAZINE

Informed Customers are Good Customers

Most dealers are pleased when an in-formed consumer arrives at their door-step after taking hours of their own time to identify, configure, select and come to a near-buying decision prior to speaking with anyone directly in the dealership. These are ready shoppers who know what they want and what steps they need to perform to secure the vehicle of their dreams.

The Service and Parts side of the busi-ness used to be much the same.

Determining hours of operations and availability of Service scheduling or identifying the correct part or mainte-nance item for the home do-it-yourself-er all required, at a minimum, consum-

ers calling their local dealer to discuss “options.” And, all too often, it also required consumers to take time from their day to stop at their dealership of choice to determine answers.

Nowadays, progressive dealerships of-fer full transparency and visibility to items such as appointment availability and shop load restrictions. There’s in-stantaneous virtual pricing of common and sometimes not-so-common re-pairs, along with parts inventories that are posted on digital buying sites with availability to fitment manuals, elec-tronic Parts catalogs and even on-line repair manuals to assist that home do-it-yourselfer to affect the proper repair.Dealerships are learning that this well-prepared consumer is easier to work with. Often, they have a better under-standing of the process they are enter-

ing into and have self-selected and au-thorized additional repair work through their own research and pertinent infor-mation being fed to them at the right point in their Fixed Ops journey.

Electronic Parts catalogs allow end-users to understand what parts are needed to perform a repair.

SMART DEALERSHIPS

STARTED TO BECOME AWARE

THAT OFFERING EVERY

PRODUCT TO EVERY

CUSTOMER EVERY TIME

INCREASED THE CHANCE

OF SECURING BUSINESS ON

A MORE CONSISTENT BASIS.

50

SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2016 || FIXED OPS MAGAZINE

Finance and Insurance Changes

The next big parallel I see relates to the way that finance and insurance (F&I) used to operate and how the process of vehicle reception / repair is being han-dled by many stores.

Not that long ago, F&I Managers would size up the customer sitting in front of them and determine from experience which product offerings would be pre-sented. They would “sense” a custom-er’s willingness to entertain or even af-ford the offering. Should gap insurance be offered? How about an extended service contract? Is this customer a tar-get for selling a tire and wheel program or is an appearance package a better opportunity to squeeze a few extra dol-lars out of the customer? The role was viewed as more art than science.

Then, along the way, several things hap-pened.

Exposés revealed unfair trade practices. The same experience and offers were not being made to every consumer and, all too often, the color of a person’s skin, their gender or their perceived financial capability determined if they would be made aware of specific offerings and the value they could provide.

In addition, smart dealerships started to become aware that offering every product to every customer every time increased the chance of securing busi-ness on a more consistent basis.

Imagine that.

Fast forward a few years and today you would be hard pressed to find an F&I operation within a dealership that does not follow a very prescriptive, consis-tent process that offers every product – to every customer – every time.

In fact, most stores document this ap-proach through having the consumer sign a declination of services that were offered and not selected, to insure there is no question at a later date that the consumer was presented the option to purchase at the time of sale.

Online Service scheduling has become a mainstay for most dealerships across North America.

I LIKE TO THINK OF MY LOCAL DEALERSHIP AND ITS FIXED

OPS STAFF AS MY CAR’S MEDICAL TEAM. WHEN THE

VEHICLE ARRIVES FOR SERVICE, I WANT THE DEALERSHIP’S

PROFESSIONALS TO PERFORM A FULL AND THROUGH

REVIEW OF THE HEALTH AND STATUS OF MY VEHICLE.

52

SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2016 || FIXED OPS MAGAZINE

Applying New Approaches to Fixed Ops

So how does the current F&I approach apply to the Fixed Ops end of the busi-ness?

Many stores have implemented the pro-cess of performing some type of mul-tipoint inspection routine for vehicles they are servicing. Often, they follow a prescriptive path of utilizing an inspec-tion form that was provided to them by their manufacturer, which easily high-lights items in a red / yellow / green format.

Unfortunately, dealerships too often use this process (whether via a paper-based system of or an electronic multi-point solution) inconsistently. Very few dealerships seem to have embraced the idea of every vehicle inspected, every time the vehicle comes to their deal-ership, with the inspection results pre-sented to the customer every time.

Often, what I see is some random pro-cess where some but not all vehicles are inspected, or inspected thoroughly. Cars with low mileage are often skipped over under the assumption: What could be found wrong on a relatively new ve-hicle?

More sophisticated systems look at items such as a dealership’s shop load capabilities by job type and match those to consumer requests to offer relevant dates and times to perform selected work, taking into consideration consumer transportation needs.

IT SHOULD NOT BE UP

TO ANY ONE PERSON

WITHIN THE DEALERSHIP

TO DETERMINE IF THEY

DO OR DO NOT PERFORM

AN EVALUATION OF

MY VEHICLE BASED

UPON THEIR PERSONAL

CRITERIA, THEIR

PERCEPTIONS ABOUT

MY VEHICLE’S RELATIVE

“HEALTH” OR MY

FINANCIAL POSITION.

54

SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2016 || FIXED OPS MAGAZINE

Matt Parsons is the V.P. of Sales & Marketing with IFM Americas, a com-pany of Infomedia Ltd. He has spent 30 years in support of the automo-tive retailing and automotive OEM market sectors and is viewed as a subject matter expert in technology and its impact on the automotive retailing sector and overall consumer experience.

Vehicles that are in for express Service often receive a truncated inspection process as it’s assumed that the most important aspect to the consumer’s vis-it is the time that they are in the dealer-ship versus the quality of the visit and overall experience.

I recall a case within the past several years where a family was awarded a $7.5 million verdict in a case in which they claimed they had recently serviced their vehicle at a dealership and then had a tire failure that resulted in a death. I dare to say it would have been power-ful evidence for the dealership to show it had completed a full and detailed in-spection of the vehicle, and if a bad tire was identified, that this information was shared with the consumer, who poten-tially refused to take action on the deal-ership’s advice. Even more powerful would have been the addition of photo-graphic evidence attached to the eMPI

to prove what the dealership’s Techni-cian had identified.

Ensuring a Good Process

I like to think of my local dealership and its Fixed Ops staff as my car’s medical team.

When the vehicle arrives for Service, I want the dealership’s professionals to perform a full and through review of the health and status of my vehicle. I want to be presented with detailed and specific information about the results of the test (inspection) that’s performed.

I expect the dealership to be specific with regard to what needs immediate attention (red items), what is worth watching / considering (yellow items) and what’s in overall good shape (green items).

It should not be up to any one person within the dealership to determine if they do or do not perform an evaluation of my vehicle based upon their personal criteria, their perceptions about my ve-hicle’s relative “health” or my financial position.

This should be the standard for Service excellence each and every time I visit the dealership. Every vehicle inspected. Every time. With the results presented to the consumer. Every time.

Photographic evidence accompanying an MPI should not be a stock or canned photo. It should be an actual photo or video of the issue presented on the consumer’s vehicle.