“Effective CRM has Many Rewards”

Have you ever sat back and thought about the basis of your relationship with the vehicle owner? Do you truly understand the real nature of what the customer is actively seeking to purchase and what he/she wants out of this dynamic and sometimes complicated relationship?

Understanding customer relationship management (CRM) is a combination of people, processes and, of course, technology. The purpose is to seek to understand the dynamic and sometimes complicated relationship between (in this case) a garage business and its customers. You need to have an integrated approach to managing relationships by focusing on customer retention and relationship development.

CRM has evolved from advances in information technology and organisational changes in customer-centric processes. Those garage businesses that successfully implement CRM will reap the rewards in customer loyalty and long term profitability. However, successful implementation seems to be very rare to many in the automotive repair sector, I suspect because most don’t understand that CRM requires company- wide, cross-functional, customer-focused business processes.

Andy Savva is a former multiple independent garage owner who boasts over 30 years’ experience in the automotive repair sector. Over the next few months he’ll be sharing his advice with workshop owners who want to improve their business’ bottom line, but simply don’t know how to go about it.

So what should we focus on in order to try and achieve a successful CRM implementation in the automotive repair sector? Here are a few areas that I believe need to be observed:

Premises

We can’t do the work unless we have somewhere to do it, so your premises plays a very important role in everything you do. The facility has to meet or exceed customer expectations as they may not give you a first chance purely on the basis of the way your garage may look, especially if it gives the impression of being unprofessional, disorganised and chaotic. In today’s competitive automotive repair industry providing a clean and uncluttered environment and an inviting, efficient, professional looking garage is paramount. As the bar for the quality of service delivery is raised throughout our sector, nothing less will do.

Competence

We’d all like to think that everyone in our profession is competent, but are they? In reality the answer to that question is probably ‘no’, for the moment at least. The customer believes that regardless of who they’ve chosen for the service or repair of their vehicle, that individual or garage is competent or will supply competent technicians to work on the car. Competence in our industry is almost assumed, despite the bad press we receive on a regular basis. The customer doesn’t go out of his/ her way to find it because they believe that they’re entitled to it – it’s a given, an assumption.

Skill

Skill is almost taken for granted in our industry, which is odd because it’s so rare. More to the point, how the skill is acquired and where the training or development occurred is really of no importance to most vehicle owners. It is, however, critically important to you and me – or at least it should be. Our success or failure is the direct result of our skill and the ability of our technicians and reception advisors. Yet we seem unable or unwilling as an industry to charge more for a technician who is schooled and certified in the necessary disciplines. How or why should our customers value that skill if we don’t?

Ethics and honesty

These two are givens as well. Every motorist has made a leap of faith that assumes the person to whom he or she has brought their vehicle for repair is ethical and honest, despite the fact that they think the rest of us may be crooks, thieves and idiots. Ask yourself what it is worth to the customer to know they’re in the hands of an honest and ethical professional when they’re buying a service about which they have very little knowledge to judge the full value!