Transforming Customer Experience at the Dealership

It’s a typical experience: a customer calls the dealership to schedule a service appointment. Then there’s the elevator music, and after one or two minutes, the call gets dropped.  

Abandoned calls in customer service are a chronic issue for dealerships. According to Call Tracking provider, CallRevu, 18% of automotive service calls are abandoned, and 80% of those abandoned callers don’t call back a second time. On average, this results in a 14% loss of revenue by simply not answering the phone.

The new reality in customer retention is prioritizing the lifecycle of vehicle ownership beyond just the initial sale. As dealerships struggle to keep pace in a rapidly transforming market, many dealerships are tentative to shift their focus from products to customer service. But to stay competitive, dealerships will need to evolve—and that means putting customers in the driver’s seat. 

So, how do dealerships maintain relationships with customers past the initial vehicle sale? That’s where Shift Digital comes in.  

At Shift Digital, our Customer Service Specialists (CSSs on the following mentions) provide dealerships with the support they need to have proactive, responsive, and effective customer service. And while we have the capabilities to offer our clients any number of outreach and engagement programs, this Insight focuses on how we tackle a rapidly growing area of need—inbound and outbound call management.  

Inbound Calls—Shift Service Concierge 

When servicing a vehicle, customers engage directly with the service department—not the technicians performing the work. And while the technicians may have done an outstanding job on the vehicle, a customer’s satisfaction is primarily impacted by their experience with the service team. Customers are unaware that the sheer volume of calls received is often overwhelming for the in-house service department, which leads to long hold times for the customer. It used to be that if you reached a customer on hold in under three minutes, that was good enough. Now, that benchmark is 30 seconds.   

CSSs provide dealerships with the added support needed to handle inbound calls as they happen. Our team works on behalf of the dealership to schedule appointments directly through their online service software. We also answer non-service appointment-related questions that may come in, all while providing dealers an almost infinite degree of customizations to meet their business needs. CSSs can easily handle more than 70% of all inbound call volumes with zero dealer involvement when the program is set up correctly.  

Participating dealerships are provided real-time reporting to track the CSSs call performance. Regional liaisons regularly interact with the dealers to review program details, obtain new support campaign information, and answer any dealers’ questions. And, unlike many other third-party customer service providers, our CSSs are local, salaried personnel and college grads—we do not offshore our dealer support.  

Outbound Calls—Shift’s Recall Concierge 

Outstanding customer outreach is proactive—it means remaining in touch with a customer over the vehicle ownership lifecycle. The relationship that starts with a new or used vehicle sale evolves to maintenance and upkeep of the vehicle. It even extends to the point that the customer is ready to trade their existing car for a newer one. But as inbound call volumes can dominate the capacity of the service department team, it’s unlikely they have the resources to provide proactive outreach to customers for vehicle safety recalls. 

Let’s take vehicle safety recalls, for example. When a recall is announced, OEMs notify affected customers via a postcard, often ignored, or never received by customers. At Shift Digital, we recognized that the recall process, which could have massive safety implications for the dealership’s customers, is an opportunity to engage customers proactively. Working on behalf of the dealership, CSSs contact affected customers personally and offer assistance to schedule a recall appointment at their convenience.  

Like our inbound services, CSSs allow dealerships to customize their outbound programs to meet their business needs. Through this program, dealers determine how much outreach capacity they can handle per day and by recall type while also providing guidance on repair times and rental car eligibility, if possible, to ensure quality customer service through the entire recall process.  

According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, tens of millions of cars get recalled each year. Some recalls include millions of vehicles. And every recall is essential. Our customer service program is ultimately a “win-win-win” for the dealership, Customer, and the OEM: the dealership generates additional service business, the customer’s vehicle safety issue is remedied at no charge, and the OEM accelerates the completion of mandatory safety recalls.  

Why work with Shift Digital’s Customer Service Specialists (CSS)? 

We know that the auto industry is undergoing rapid change, and the dealerships are taking the brunt of it, as they are the customer-facing resource. So, our goal in creating our Customer Service Specialists program is to support you, the dealerships, as you continually strive to provide outstanding, ongoing services to your customers.  

There is a saying within dealerships—the sales department sells the first car, but the service department sells the rest…and that starts by developing a solid relationship between the customer and service department from day one. Contact Shift Digital’s Customer Service Specialists today to learn more about how we can help transform your customer service experience.