Some Old-School Customer Service is in Order
Customer service just isn’t what it used to be. This just in: not all your competitors offer great service. But that doesn’t mean your dealership can’t be different, even if it is currently lumped in with the underperformers. You simply need to decide you’re going to be the catalyst that brings about change – starting today!
If you’re over the age of about 40, you remember a day when a real receptionist would answer the phone no matter what company you called. But as you know, today’s business world has become exceptionally impersonal. How many times have you heard the canned voice mail message about how your call is “very important” to them? Too many to count!
Reasons for Old-School Customer Service
It seems straightforward enough, but this reminder doesn’t hurt: when you provide excellent customer service, you give your customers one less reason to go to another dealership in your market. On the flip side, bad customer service – especially when it becomes the norm – has a negative impact on a dealership’s reputation, decreases customer loyalty and chases off frustrated customers. Remember this, too … not every dissatisfied customer tells you about it – but they will tell all their friends!
As you can see, hiring key people is very important, but sadly, it’s also more difficult today than it’s ever been. We cite these stats: overall, 72% of retail employees enjoy customer interactions. But that satisfaction level drops to just 55% among employees between the ages of 16 and 24, while 74% of workers between 35 and 44 years of age claimed they liked interacting with people.
We don’t think it’s too much of a reach to surmise that the younger generation is different from the rest of us. Generation Y has become Generation Why? when it comes to face-to-face communication. Many seem to prefer Facebook or text messaging over good old-fashioned conversation, and to us, that’s unfortunate.
We say these things not to indict young people, but to point out that customers of any age appreciate and look forward to being taken care of in a retail environment. When your dealership employs people passionate about their jobs, you’ll have a decided, consistent advantage over many stores in your market.
Our point is, it may take more time to find the right people, but it is still time well-spent.
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