Using Document Scanning/Retrieval for Upselling

By David DeHaven, CEO, One View

 

Dealerships want to continually engage customers, upsell and increase retention. A happy, loyal customer will return for future business and also refer your dealership to their friends and family. Those customers assume that you already know their vehicle history and expect the information to be readily available. Customer satisfaction is absolutely key to improving your CSI and KPI. Some customers may only come in for service every few years, so it is increasingly hard to keep track of their activity.

The service department is the center of your dealership operations. Service managers need to generate more billable time. According to NADA, in 2015, new vehicle dealerships produced three times the net profit in their service department than they did in their new and used car sales departments combined. In 2016, service and part sales were nearly $110 billion.

Reliable data available at advisors fingertips has the potential to improve productivity, generate additional revenue opportunities and save time. Here are a few tips for using document scanning and retrieval in your service department to upsell.

 

Create Sales Opportunities by Reviewing Previous Service Tickets

On average, advisors spend 10 minutes per RO printing and handling the paperwork, and most documents within a dealership are copied nearly 20 times. This handling of paper is very inefficient; service technicians can save hours by being able to quickly find customer and vehicle documentation immediately from their workstation.

Dealerships can scan their service tickets and repair orders in for online retrieval and long-term, secure data archiving. This allows them to search by car make, model, color, year, owner name and more to find all the information necessary on the car and customer. Within seconds, the advisor can see their entire previous service history.

By electronically capturing documents, dealership personnel can see all hand-written notes made on the service ticket. Often, the DMS does not store all technician comments or related service appointment notes. An advisor can refer to a previous RO to see if maintenance was missed or if there is an opportunity to sell additional routine maintenance that has not been performed in a while or is due for service. A J.D. Power study found that 47% of people will agree to have additional service repairs done at the dealership initially recommending them. Knowing what has previously been recommended and performed shows the customer the dealership has an invested interest in a lasting relationship.

 

Improve Customer Interaction

Having all of a past customer’s history readily available via web-based software, service advisors can make a lasting first impression and show customers they are committed to their long-term service. Service advisors increase their credibility with instant access to vehicle and customer history. Customers counter wait time is minimized since service advisors can immediately share past maintenance repairs, what was done and how much it cost. Advisors can even print any documentation within a click for the customers to take a copy.

They are able to validate their service recommendations by referencing via the online document retrieval software. Offering quality service equates to increased revenue and customer confidence in the dealership. If a customer questions their proposal or labor that has been completed upon pick up, the advisor can show documentation to back up their work.

Service advisors can also prevent costly discrepancies with customers. For example, if a customer picks up his/her car and does not recall seeing a scratch on it prior to dropping it off, the service advisor can pull up the RO on his computer while speaking with the customer and instantly see what the walk around agreement shows as marked at drop off.

 

Tips for Getting Started Using Document Scanning and Retrieval to Upsell

• Make sure all dealership staff understand the benefits of using the web-based document retrieval software

• Train service employees to search for key data with the use of quality filters options and document drill down

• Develop a daily scanning procedure that quickly enables viewing documents online

• Determine a service process that includes online customer document retrieval to encourage additional business by having service advisors call back clients

To learn more about One View’s secure document scanning and archiving solutions, visit www.one-view.com or contact directly at [email protected] or 317-915-9039.

David DeHaven is the CEO for One View, a document scanning, archiving and reporting software as a service solution. One View enhances the productivity of auto dealerships by giving them electronic access to and ultimate control over their data. Since 1997, One View has lead digital document management including scanning and archiving for the automobile industry. One View stores data in a way that is easy to search, retrieve, transfer and use whenever businesses need access to it. One View services over 3,000 dealers monthly.