Strengthening the Link Between Sales and Service for Dealership Success
For automotive dealerships, a closed sale is only the beginning of a successful sales pipeline. While it’s clear that word-of-mouth marketing is a powerful asset that should not be overlooked and that repeat customers are a key part of a dealership’s success, the positive relationship required to instigate both processes necessitates ongoing maintenance—not just as a buyer but as an owner. In other words, after a dealership sells a car to a customer, the service relationship that follows is equally, if not more, important to maintain properly.
This is particularly true with online automotive sales on the rise, says PinckneyHarmon. If dealerships want to stay relevant and beat the competition, they must adapt, which means “building a cohesive auto marketing plan that incorporates the most recent digital marketing strategies.” Beyond just understanding your dealership and how to best market it, this also means understanding the consumer, your customer, and their needs. And here’s a not-so-kept secret: Their needs will inevitably include service.
AutomotiveMastermind explains, “Today, the dealership service department is much more than a source of ROs and service revenue – it’s a conduit between dealers’ service and sales departments,” key to increasing sales and cultivating customer loyalty. The service department is the consumer-facing side of any dealership long after the sales team has moved on to new customers, making it the long-term relationship management tool that requires extra focus. By enabling dealers to consistently stay in touch with buyers between purchases, the service department provides a “unique opportunity for dealers to support both their loyalty and conquest efforts.”
MarketDoctors agrees: “If you want to build a loyal customer base and keep them returning for years, you need to focus on service just as much as sales,” calling it a “gold mine for potential sales and repeat business.”
Making Your Service Department a Competitive Advantage
AutoAlert furthers this concept, saying it’s both essential and achievable. They explain, as everyone requires service, whether for light or major fixes or routine maintenance, a company’s service drive should have the highest customer engagement and highest conversion rate. They ask, “but there are many different options, so how do you get customers into your service lane?” The answer is personalization: “A personalized touch will keep them choosing you repeatedly for all their automotive needs.”
This requires proper service staff training and cohesive staff alignment between the two departments. A dealership’s “service advisors should understand that their role goes beyond fixing cars,” MD espouses. They should be trained to “identify and communicate potential sales opportunities to the sales team,” along with encouraging “cross-departmental collaboration and communication to ensure service advisors and salespeople work together to maximize revenue.”
In fact, Digital Dealer breaks down, the touchpoint between the sales and service departments is one of the most important moments of the sales process. “Ideally, the process involves the salesperson personally introducing the customer to the service manager or advisor and scheduling the first service appointment before the customer leaves.” This means, therefore, that the customer is already kept within the dealership ecosystem, limiting the likelihood that they’ll go elsewhere for service later on. Digital Dealer adds, “sales and service teams should be trained together to understand the importance of the handoff.”
This is true from both a convenience and an interpersonal connection standpoint. When customers feel a personal connection with the service department, “they are more likely to return for future maintenance and repairs, building a long-term relationship with the dealership.”
Leveraging Technology and AI-Driven Marketing for Growth
But it’s not just about on-the-ground efforts—marketing plays a crucial role in service department success after the initial sales interaction, AutoMotiveMastermind emphasizes. “To bring more traffic to the dealership service drive… and retain loyal buyers, dealers need to adopt data-driven dealership marketing support through strategies for their service drive.” Analyzing both service and sales customers can help dealerships refine their marketing efforts, maximize ROI on ad spend, and tailor outreach for greater impact.
Plus, MarketDoctors continues, great marketing can bring in new customers through the service pipeline, converting them, potentially, to sales customers down the road. “Ensure that your service department is providing top-notch service by measuring customer satisfaction and addressing any concerns that customers may have. Building customer loyalty will increase the chances of converting service customers into sales customers.”
This is particularly notable when considering the alternatives: as Digital Dealer explains, 85% of maintenance and repair dollars were spent at independent service centers last year, rather than dealerships. That’s 85% of customers that could have been potentially looped back into the dealership pipeline, but the opportunity was missed.
Marketing becomes even more powerful and comprehensive with AI-assisted tools. “There’s so much [data] available that it’s long past the ability of any human to absorb, digest, and make informed decisions. That’s where analysis-based marketing comes into play,” leveraging AI-powered analytics to process vast amounts of data. In other words, using CRMs and call centers with call data analysis programs is essential for understanding customer needs and behaviors—key factors in effectively marketing service departments.
Ultimately, successful service department marketing leads to stronger customer loyalty and the potential to attract new customers.
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