By Jeff Silverman

Marketing vehicles to your service customers happens more naturally when solid sales-customer relationships are in place.

You know the value of greeting customers in the showroom. Now think about extending that to the service department.

Meet Customers on the Service Drive
This is probably the easiest tip I'll give you. Yet, few dealerships do it. Simply assign a salesperson to greet customers on the service drive every morning. Think of them as a sales liaison who is working to build customer goodwill.

They may also be able to engage customers in sales discussions. For example:

"Good morning, Ms. Customer. How are you? I see you're driving the 2008 model. How do you like it? Do you remember your salesperson? Excellent." (If they didn't buy the vehicle from you, be gracious.) "By the way, have you had an opportunity to drive the latest 2010 model since it came out? No? Well..."

Show Appreciation on the Service Drive
Supercharge the sales liaison position with personal notes.

• Encourage every salesperson to handwrite a little card to any of their sold customers who are coming in for service the next day. This can be very simple and classy – "I appreciate your business."
• Have the sales liaison deliver these notes when they greet customers the next morning. That's powerful, right? How do you think the customer will feel receiving a special little card in front of all the customers who aren't getting one? They will feel fantastic!
• Promote new sales-customer relationships with the customers who didn't get a note. Explain that your salespeople like to show appreciation to their customers.

Keep your sales team motivated for this role by letting the on-duty liaison go home early in the afternoon.

Easy as 1, 2, 3
I hope the tips in this series help you make selling to service customers a profitable part of your routine. Remember:

1. Encourage sales and service to work together through incentives.
2. Target customer-pay repairs with special sales offers.
3. Nurture the sales-customer relationship on the service drive.

If you're shaking your head thinking this stuff won't work, let me share a secret with you. I do business all over America and everywhere is the toughest market. Everyone has the toughest customers. In this business, the day is owned by the people who choose to own it, not by the people who choose to be owned.

You have the tools. Now it's time to act!

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