By Jeff Silverman

Marketing vehicles to your service customers is easier with incentives. Last issue, I discussed a simple program to motivate your service employees. This time, I'd like to introduce an incentive plan for your service customers.

Target Customer-pay Repairs
Remind your service customers of the pain, in dollars, of repairing an aging vehicle. Then explain how you can alleviate that pain, while making them feel valued.

Set it up:

• Pull a weekly report of all customer-pay repairs over $500, or whatever significant amount works for you.
• Hand out this list, including repair cost, to your sales team. If a customer has bought from you before, keep their information with their existing salesperson.
• Require your sales team to call all customers that week, with an eye towards weekend appointments.

Talk it out:

• Introduce their pain and your solution – "Ms. Customer, I know you're probably not in the market for a new vehicle since you were in last week and spent $500 on your repair. However, if I could help you recover that amount, would you be interested in upgrading to a newer model?
• Offer the incentive – "You're invited for a select VIP test drive program. If you buy a new vehicle from us, we will either take the entire amount of your recent repair off the price of your new car, or we will give you a check for that amount when you take delivery. How you spend it is your choice!"
• Be gracious if they push back – "We will also give you the same offer at 75% next month, 50% two months from now, and 25% three months from now, so take your time deciding." Prorating the offer gives your established customers a soft cushion to land on if they don't make the appointment right away.

Remember – this is a soft call:
You do not want to lose a service customer by being too aggressive. Even if you don't get an appointment immediately, this process opens the door for you to call every month for the next three months.

Get creative and see how far this program can go. If the customer bought their current car from someone else, add an additional 20% to the payback. If they spent $500, offer them $600 as a "Welcome to our dealership" incentive. Try it – it works!

Stay tuned for Part 3, where I'll wrap up this series and share how you can encourage a stronger relationship between your salespeople and service customers.

Jeff Silverman has been in the automotive business for over 13 years – 8 in retail and over 5 with Reynolds Consulting.