4 Steps to Sell Vehicles to Your Service Customers
As any dealership employee knows, the relationship between sales and service is symbiotic.
At most dealerships, the idea is that sales customers who get service will stick around until they need another vehicle, and service customers will eventually walk over to the show floor and strike up a conversation with a sales rep. Hakuna matata.
But what if you could make that crossover more efficient?
4 Easy Steps to Upsell Your Service Customers
At a single-point dealership, we found that 66.8% of their local sales customers had visited the service department after purchasing their first vehicle. But on the other hand, only 41.6% of their service customers had ever purchased a vehicle at their store.
What if you could sell a vehicle to 50% of your service customers? For this particular dealership, the jump from 41.8% to 50% would be roughly 250 more sales per year.
So, how can you sell more vehicles to your service customers?
The short answer is “Know who’s currently in your service department.” However, that implies many things. Here are four easy steps to help your dealership gain situational awareness to sell more vehicles.
1. Ask for Email Addresses at the Counter
The keystone of any good digital marketing campaign is email. For every dollar invested in email marketing, you’ll get about $38 back.
At the dealership mentioned above, 68.4% of these “crossover” customers provided their email addresses to the dealership at some point.
Of course, not all customers will have or be forthcoming with their email addresses. If a service customer seems hesitant to give you their email, simply tell them what to expect if they provide it:
- Service coupons
- Notifications when service is due
- Store news
- Information about store brand incentives
Knowing what is behind the digital door is the key to upping your email collection rate. If you can get over this hurdle, you’re ready for the next step.
2. Monitor the Situation
Once you have a service customer’s email address, you can do some neat stuff, like segment your contact list and match email addresses associated with Twitter or Facebook accounts. This allows a dealership to engage with these people in meaningful ways (more on that later).
You could also identify high-equity vehicles or notify your sales staff of opportunities to perform free vehicle estimates as customers walk in the door. This process would probably work best with online scheduling systems, which would allow you to anticipate the customers’ arrival.
To take this a step further, you could modify your service scheduling form to include a field for “Twitter Handle:” and/or “Have you followed us on Facebook yet?” By encouraging people to follow your store’s Twitter account beforehand, you’ll be able to direct message (DM) people while they wait in your lobby, which might be more comfortable than a public message — especially if you’re offering exclusive coupons or deals.
3. Engage in Store
The holy grail of auto marketing is the in-person demo, but getting people to that point can be a struggle. Digitally monitor your service lobby for owners of late-model, low-mileage vehicles who have just checked in for an oil change.
Many dealerships like to place marker boards in the waiting area that inconspicuously list out late-model vehicles for which the dealership is looking to trade. In marketing, this is called a passive tactic. While it may catch some peoples’ attention, there is no way to measure it accurately.
This could be a great time for a sales rep to walk by and ask the customer about their [current model] and ask them if they’ve ever sat in an [upsell vehicle you happen to have on the lot].
This seemingly random conversation creates the serendipity that can turn an otherwise-mundane experience (waiting in a service lounge) into an exciting one (test driving a brand new vehicle). Go get the keys!
Of course, not all of your service customers will be in the car-shopping mood. If you suspect that waiting service customers don’t feel like talking to a sales consultant, they’ll most certainly be in the mood to fiddle with their smartphones.
Here are some ideas for engaging service customers on their phones:
- Install some networked TVs to advertise your text campaign and your social media accounts. This is the long-tail approach, but it will at least engage people and move them to the top of your sales funnel.
- If you want to see more activity, run a simple and fun TikTok contest: Hide a stuffed animal (named Freddy) on the backseat of a vehicle on your show floor. Ask waiting service customers to find it, then post a video of it using the hashtag #IFoundFreddyFord. Anyone who does this can go to the service counter, where they can get a coupon for their next oil change.
- Direct message them a link to a coupon for their next oil change. (Again, DMs would work well for this because only the recipient will see and use the coupon.)
- Provide some fun facts about an appropriate upsell vehicle (i.e. “@Customer123 Nice Equinox! Have you seen the backup camera on the new ones? We can show you now if you’d like!”)
4. Engage Later On
Striking up a Twitter conversation with someone who is in your service lobby is a tactic with great potential for sales, but there are many pieces that have to be in place. First, the person has to actually have a smartphone in their hands. Second, they have to have Twitter or email for you to connect. Third, they have to be in the mood to do something a bit “outside the box.”
In fact, most of the digital-savvy customers in your lobby will likely not respond right away. They may be too busy talking on their phones, watching TV, or using the restroom during their 20-minute oil change. However, you still have a unique window of opportunity to connect after these people get home.
After the service visit is over, your store brand is enjoying top-of-mind awareness, which is a perfect time to ask for online reviews.
With automated email workflows (also known as “drip” or “lead nurturing” campaigns), you could email your service customers within a week after their service visit and encourage them to leave a review on Google, Facebook, Yelp, or paid services like DealerRater.com.
In addition to reputation management, you could also keep a rolling list of high-equity service customers to whom you can send relevant, prepackaged email messages.
For example, you could send an email from the service advisor, asking the customer if they would be interested in trading in their high-equity vehicle. The message could be something along the lines of this:
“Hi [First Name], I just wanted to say thanks for coming in for your oil change the other day. Our sales manager told me that his team is actually looking to purchase late-model, low-mileage vehicles like your [year] [model]. Would you be interested in getting a free trade-value estimate?”
Remember: Targeting Is Key!
Equity messages are tricky. Digitally communicating with the people waiting in your service lobby is not a shotgun approach — especially when you’re dealing with trade-in values.
That’s not to say that you shouldn’t talk to the person getting an oil change on his or her 1999 Oldsmobile Bravada. They might feel comfortable shopping your budget inventory.
The cornerstone of service-lobby awareness is digital intelligence. With all of the digital tools at your disposal today, connecting with visiting customers is easier than ever. If you know who your loyal service customers, why not encourage them to become loyal sales customers?
Learn More Ways to Upsell Your Contacts
Has your dealership been using customer data to its full potential?
With today’s marketing automation tools, the opportunities for keeping tabs on your service (and sales) customers are endless. A marketing agency like 9 Clouds can help you sift through all that information — and use it to convert leads into sales.
If you’re ready to achieve real results with a trusted digital marketing partner, contact us for a custom digital marketing proposal for your dealership.
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John Nelson
As the creative director at 9 Clouds, John leads a team of talented marketers. When he was little, he wanted to be a mechanic. Instead of fixing cars, John and his team are making cars easier to sell. Learn more about John.
