It wasn’t long into our Fixed Ops Journal Forum discussion on customer retention before panelist Dan Beakey, service manager at 24 Ford of Easton in Massachusetts, crystallized the many obstacles service departments are currently trying to overcome.
“We’re surrounded by challenges,” he said. “Every time we look at our business, we’ve got a challenge. We’ve got a challenge with technicians. We’ve got a challenge with parts. We’ve got a challenge with this overabundance of business. It requires us to go to work. We’ve got to get aggressive and go to work and really go after taking care of our clients, because if we shoot ourselves in the foot or — in some cases — continue to shoot ourselves in the foot, we’re going to lose more customers.”
That Week 1 panel, featuring Beakey along with Dave Foy from training company Quantum5 and Alan Freeman from Jim Ellis Automotive Group, covered a lot of good territory on how to better retain service customers.
If you missed it, or the Week 2 discussion on dealing with staffing shortages, it’s not too late. You can still register here to watch those hourlong sessions “on demand” and also catch Week 3 on Sept. 27 on handling the parts shortage. Week 4 the following week will be on getting your service department ready for EVs.
Our exclusive lead sponsor CDK Global will present a fifth session on Oct. 11.
We’ve put a lot of effort into presenting Fixed Ops Journal Forum sessions that are insightful, informative and full of best practices and new ideas. We hope you are enjoying them so far.