How to Delight During the Inventory Shortage & Why it Matters

This article was originally posted to DrivingSales.com

Let’s be honest, the car buying experience right now isn’t great for most buyers. Vehicles cost more (if people can even find one), and some buyers are waiting months for delivery. With the inventory shortage creating such negative impacts on customer experience, it’s more critical than ever for dealerships to focus on the things they can control to delight as many customers as possible.

While dealership profitability is higher now than in previous years, there’s no guarantee this windfall will last. Things will return to some version of “normal” eventually. The dealerships that’ll be most successful over the long term are the ones that take action now to make customers happy and ensure they keep coming back.

It’s time to play the long game and think about our customers now as our customers forever. Let’s explore how.

Set the stage for a return customer from day one.

As we say at DriveSure, the service experience starts with the sale. But dealerships should zoom out and look at the big picture of how sales and service are connected. As your number of service customers increases, so does your number of future vehicle buyers—not to mention all the revenue you’ll earn on return service visits in the meantime.

That’s why getting buyers to return for service is so important to preserving your high profitability. Customer satisfaction is largely driven by a feeling of comfort and removing friction. Keep it simple for vehicle buyers and make a low-pressure introduction to the service team. Grab a free copy of our sales-to-service handoff checklist for more guidance.

Train your team to delight every customer.

Employee training is key to the success of any dealership department. And in the current market, every team member needs to be sharp and understand how their roles fit into the bigger picture. The list of training areas for a dealership is endless, but the focus point right now should be on boosting customer satisfaction.

They are experiencing it firsthand, but make sure every employee has a strong grasp on the inventory shortage and other market realities. Talk about how this impacts the customer experience and consider creating some talking points for sales and service team members (like you would for a mock sales conversation). Over time, training your team to delight every customer will pay dividends when it comes to dealership customer retention.

Get good at selling without the test drive.

For as long salespeople have been selling vehicles, they’ve relied heavily on letting customers see and experience the vehicle a buyer may be interested in. Few things are as powerful as letting a customer sit in a new drivers’ seat, smell that new-car small, play with the latest auto tech, and feel the rush of accelerating on a test drive. But with so many lots empty, all that is quickly becoming replaced with showing a customer a vehicle on a computer screen. And with new entrants like Tesla exploring direct-to-consumer models and even Ford moving toward more build-to-order sales, this way of selling may remain popular even after supply catches up with demand.

While this change is a drastic one, it’s still early days. Figure out how to make your team great at selling without the vehicle in front of them. Explore new ways to get buyers excited and experiment with how your dealership can offer value beyond what a customer could do at home on a manufacturer’s website. Adapting to this change won’t be easy, but the future of your dealership may end up depending on whether you invest time and resources into embracing it as early as possible. 

Prioritize customer loyalty.

There are many ways to build customer loyalty, including some tactics I’ve already mentioned in this article. During this inventory shortage especially, small details can make a big difference. Here are a few ideas to consider:

• Engage your customers on social media: In addition to regular content creation and posts, look at fun and light ways to keep people thinking about your dealership. This could be a funny video featuring employees or even an audience challenge where the winner gets a prize from the dealership.
• Provide special offers to your loyal customers: Show your most frequent customers your dealership appreciates them by offering discounts in your online store, service specials, free vehicle detailing, or even special gift packages.
• Send your customers cards on special occasions: Like I said, it’s the little things that make a big difference. Set up a system (to the extent it’s possible) for making sure your most frequent customers get birthday cards and holiday cards.
• Offer incentives with DriveSure: Building customer loyalty is where DriveSure shines – offering a suite of renewable benefits like road hazard tire protection, renewable roadside assistance, and emergency alternate transportation at no cost to your customers for the length of the service interval. With DriveSure, the customer just has to come back to the dealership for service or repairs to renew their perks. It’s never been easier to delight your customers and give them new reasons to return.

The key to keeping customers coming back despite bumps in the road is knowing where they are and how to get out ahead of them. Read our guide on avoiding potholes in the customer journey to learn more.