Mishandling phone calls costs dealer service departments

Dealership service departments that let overflow or after hours phone calls slide into a voicemail black hole may be missing out on significant revenue and losing potential new customers. Research from DMEautomotive published in January indicates that dealerships are missing out on calls from customers who represent nearly one-third of their total service dollars.

The study of 8,537 overflow and after-hours service calls at 172 dealerships identified nearly 70 percent of those callers as "swing loyalists." These customers represent 31 percent of all dealership service dollars and have a high propensity to become loyal customers. The data also showed that one fifth of those potentially missed calls were from dealership "loyalists" who represent 59 percent of dealership service dollars.

“The message of this data could not be clearer: dealers must have effective programs and processes for handling after hours and overflow calls or risk losing a large chunk of service revenue and critically valuable loyal customers,” says JoAnn Bedenbaugh, vice president and general manager of DMEautomotive’s Customer Interaction Center.  “With the explosion of smartphone usage, the phone call has once again become an essential source of leads and communication with customers. In fact, phone leads are growing at a greater pace than Internet leads – and, as our data shows, represent some of a dealership’s highest value service opportunities. Unfortunately, those are the calls most likely to be missed.”

According to Mike Martinez, chief marketing officer at DMEautomotive, after-hours calls usually go unanswered, which drives those customers to seek out service at other locations. "The go someplace else," Martinez says. "The dealers are missing out on an opportunity to service a customer that is halfway in the can, but also halfway out of the can."

When customers call after hours, they typically either get a generic message indicating the dealership is closed, or they go into a general voicemail system. In most cases, they never get a response if they leave a message. Overflow calls occur during business hours, but those calls also wind up in voicemail.

While many dealer service departments have extended their hours into the evening, this doesn’t necessarily help. "Our study suggests that the problem is more systemic than just the available hours," Martinez says. "It's a retail operation, they are busy working with customers, so the phones go unanswered. These calls are often coming from mobile phones. The great untold story of mobile is that, while the customer is using a mobile app or website to search out the dealership, when they are ready to make a decision they make a call. Retailers need a way of handling these overflow and after hours calls."

According to DMEautomotive, having an overflow call service in place is a critical best practice. That way, every call is answered and handled, even if it is by someone not at the dealership. Martinez also recommends dealers have a call monitoring and recording service in place so that dealers can spot check how the calls are being handled by internal and external staff. All calls should be logged into the dealer management or customer relationship management (CRM) system.

"The companies that handle this well tend to be more toward the luxury segments, because those calls are valuable," Martinez says. "But frankly you could do this in every dealership in America and find ways to improve call handling."

For example, even if someone answers the phone in the service department, opportunities might be missed because the employee is in a hurry to tend to another task. "This has to go beyond seeing the caller's question as a yes/no opportunity, and uncovering their real need," Martinez says. "And many calls are not logged because people aren't by their desks when they are answering the phones."

Strong CRM processes, call recording and routing, and round-the-clock call centers are key to making sure these potential sales aren't missed. "It's a 24/7 world now, so if you don't have someone staffing those phones you are missing opportunities," Martinez says.

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