Service Lane

Your customer came into the dealership to have their vehicle serviced.

While in for service we discussed options to trade out of their vehicle and they left the dealership without purchasing.

Your initial goal in this process is to contact the customer and thank them for meeting with you during their service appointment. Make sure everything went well for the customer in service. From there you can begin to work on a timeline for upgrading with the customer.

Thoughts:

Service Lane Sales are generally a slower buying process for the customer. They did not walk into the dealership expecting to purchase or even have interest in a new vehicle. It’s important to remember that this is still the dealership’s customer so we don’t want to push too hard for the sale. We want to remain consistent and helpful throughout the customer’s life-cycle and be less self involved during this process.

Other than consistency, another crucial step in the Service Lane Process in setting tasks and completing them. This means we work out a timeline with a customer and meet the commitments we discuss with them. Click here for a guide on setting tasks.

Additionally, we need to consider how we got in contact with the customer and how that relates to the urgency of the situation. Someone that was quoted a large repair bill and walked over by an advisor is going to have a lot more urgency than someone that saw a car in the showroom and thought “Why not?” what’s this cost? This thought process will help dictate your follow up and guidance towards a customer’s timeline.

Remember that regardless of the situation, the customer planned on scheduling an oil change not purchase a 30k car today. This need to be a low pressure situation and attention to detail will an important key in your success.

While this is a long-term discussion, make sure you are highlighting the benefits that come with trading out of their vehicle:

  • Restarting the Warranty

  • Restarting ToyotaCare

  • Upgrading to something nicer/Downgrading to lower a payment

  • Lower mileage on the newer vehicle.

  • Less personal cost in service.

Regardless of the situation, your follow up calls should sound like this:

Word Tracks:

“Hey Brian, it’s Jake from Toyota, I wanted to thank you for spending some time with me the other day while you were in for service. Did the rest of your visit go good with your advisor?…. Great, I know we weren’t ready for an upgrade quite yet, but did you want to check again when you come back for your next maintenance in six months?”

Hey Jake, it’s Brian from Toyota, I wanted to let you know how nice it was to spend some time with you while you were in for service the other day. Did you have anymore questions about what it would look like to upgrade your Camry?”