Recalls – it seems like there is a new one each week making the front page of MSN.com and the top of local and network newscasts. While the nature of these recalls pale in comparison to the one Toyota faced in 2010 with unintended acceleration, they are still enormous opportunities for your service department. Warranty claims generate fresh traffic from customers who might have been avoiding getting service work done at the dealership.
What this also creates is the perfect situation for dealers to use the service lane as a primary opportunity to pull customers forward and buy them out of their current cars. There is no doubt that the fear of a defective car can rattle some of the more conscientious vehicle owners, especially the elderly. This unfortunate situation can be turned into a positive if you set up a strategy to pull these customers out of their car with an effective offer to trade.
Most people forget that their car’s value drops a little more each time they get in and turn the key. That is one reason STRONG LLC created the Equity Advisor Program last year and started working with dealers to buy used inventory directly out of their service lane. With this new series of recalls, the opportunity for these purchases will increase especially as you see people coming into the service drive that have not been there in a while. Everybody knows that nothing will boost service business like a good recall, but now it is time to think about what it can do for you in sales as well.
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John Paul Strong
John Paul Strong combines his two decades of automotive marketing experience with a team of more than 150 professionals as owner and CEO of Strong Automotive.
