At Performance Administration Corp., we’re the provider of Certified Maintenance® Complimentary Maintenance Programs, offering personalized maintenance program administration for franchise dealerships, dealer groups and other Administration Companies within the United States and Canada.

Once webuild a custom solution to fit your retention goals,we then guide you through sales staff training for auto dealerships, includingshowroom processes, sales to service handoffand conduct training so you can provide the best possible purchase and service experiences at your dealership.

Here’s a look at just how that training works.

Tools to Build Relationships

Before anything else, we make sure that everyone in your dealership understands how the Complimentary Maintenance Program works. The program is designed to work as a customer retention strategy to bridge the gap between sales and service. It puts a plan in place before the vehicle is delivered so that when customers drive off your lot, there are tools and processes in place to win them back.

It’s really important that we review the program as well as the intent behind the program. We want to make sure your salespeople understand not only what each customer is going to be entitled to within the program, but also WHY your dealership is doing the program in the first place. It gives your salespeople tools to build relationships and drive retention.

We make sure that each salesperson knows how important it is to do a proper service introduction. Everyone knows how important it is to ensure a proper turn-over to the F&I Department. The second, and what I might argue to be a more important introduction, is to the Service Department. After they’ve taken care of all the necessary paperwork in the finance department, then it’s time to walk them back to the service department. This is usually a missed opportunity, but it’s the perfect time to introduce the customer to the service advisor or manager, so that person can simply say, “Congratulations, Mr. Customer, on your new ‘model, make’, we appreciate your business. Let’s get you set up for an appointment in five months to get you on track with our Complimentary Maintenance Benefits Program.”

It’s important that your sales people understand that our technology will send each customer a smart phone compatible email so that each customer can elect their favorite method of reminder from, email, text or postcard. From there, the program will send out service reminders based on those scheduled appointments in conjunction with the driving habits ofeach of those customers. We also train your staff on how to follow up with customers themselves to keep them —and your dealership —at the tops of customers’ minds. The last thing you want to do is implement a Complimentary Maintenance Program for all your customers and then not let them know that they have it. We show your salespeople how to sell not just the car, but you, your personality, and the family name on the store next to the manufacturer’s logo. It’s important that we walk the customer through all the steps, each and every time. It can be easy to become lax when pitching the same thing over and over again, but for that customer, it’s the first time they’re hearing about this service, so you have to be thorough and detailed. If you don’t do that, you basically wasted the money you spent on the complimentary package.

The Importance of Being Proactive

It’s important that your staff is driving customers back for service visits, but it’s also about bringing them back for their second or third vehicle purchase. And to do that, your people must be proactive. It’s about relationships. We show your salespeople how to log into our portal and how they can run a list of all the customers who are scheduled to come in for maintenance that week. This gives them a great opportunity to go over to the service department when the customer is there and say, “Hey, Bill, nice to see you, how’s your car? How’s your family?” Salespeople are usually chasing whatever happens to be in front of them that day (and understandably so), but this gives them an easy way to get in front of existing customers and continue to build those relationships.

Ongoing Training —Where and When You Need It

The training we provide your sales staff during the kickoff of your Complimentary Maintenance Program is in-depth, but ongoing training is always available whenever anyone needs a refresher. We can set up on-demand webinar training with any of our customer retention specialists, or you can schedule it for a time that’s convenient for you. We can do one-on-one training for a new employee who wasn’t there when the program started, or we can give an existing employee a quick refresher course. Or you can get your whole crew together in the sales training room and put the webinar up on the big screen and we’ll go through all the training as a group.

Training For All

While a lot of the initial and ongoing training is for your sales staff, we focus on making everyone at your dealership a customer retention specialist. Whether it’s your customer service reps or an office manager or administrator who really doesn’t have a lot of face-to-face with customers (except for maybe collecting money or forms), we want them all to know the ins and outs of Your Complimentary Maintenance Program.

If people don’t know the why, they’re likely going to question the purpose or intent of the program. So, we try to touch all of the departments and show them why we’re doing the program and how they can be a part of the customer retention efforts. We make sure everyone feels included and is on board with the program and how it can help the dealership, Sell The Next Vehicle™.