February Dealership Insights Forum Recap: How to Meet & Exceed Customer Communication Expectations

We’re all familiar with how the “Amazon effect” has impacted the industry. To stay competitive, dealerships must prioritize frequent, meaningful customer engagement before, during, and after the sale.

At the February Dealership Insights Forum, dealers gathered to discuss how to break down silos in your team, enhance customer interactions, and exceed expectations across sales and service. The discussion was led by Sara Gauthier, Customer Success Coordinator at IDS, and Larry Ortman, Customer Service Manager at Village RV.

Here are the highlights!

Customer Service vs. Customer Success (& Why It Matters)

Sara Gauthier kicked off the discussion with a short overview of the important difference between customer service and customer success.

• Customer service is reactive: “The customer is bringing me an issue: they want to buy a unit, or they want to buy parts.”
• Customer success is proactive: “You are extending your outreach to the customer… even if it’s around nothing at all. It could just be that no-update update.”

Sara Gauthier: “The customer success formula is that outcomes and experience equals customer success. It’s important to understand that customer service plays a role in that customer experience overall, and it’s important to get both aspects of this right and done well.”

Some Customer Communication Best Practices

Meet Customers Where They Are

If a customer reaches out via text, reply via text; if they email, reply via email.

Larry Ortman: “If they reach out by text, we do the same. Until we’re given permission to call them or respond in a different manner.”

Make Internal Communications Clear

Avoid issues where customer interactions get lost between departments.

Sara Gauthier: “Gone are the days of a customer calling in and you write their number on a sticky note. Dealerships need to get much more savvy about keeping those communications in a central system.”

Create a Cadence for Communicating Updates to Customers

Customers expect frequent communications on the status of their orders, even if the update is that there is no update. Consistent communication builds trust with customers.

Larry Ortman: “You need to communicate with them regularly as to what the status is, or if you’ve run into problems…regular communication if things are on order or they’ve run into a snag. People would rather know that along the way.”

An attendee shared, “All service customers with an open estimate or open work order get contacted at least once a week, whether there’s any movement or not.”

They also added that regular communication has improved online reviews and overall customer satisfaction.

Sara Gauthier: “Engagement, engagement, engagement. You’re forming a relationship with your customer. Think about that process all the way through, from initial lead to through to service, as they get more work done on their unit and come back again and purchase their next unit.”

Leverage CRM and Text Messaging Technology

Many of the dealers present leveraged a combination of tools to manage and improve the efficiency of communications, from integrated Customer Relationships Managers (CRMs) to one-to-one text messaging solutions. In the fast-paced dealership environment, utilizing the right tools is essential for managing the entire sales cycle.

Larry Ortman: “I monitor the communication of leads with the sales staff. So once they’ve been turned over, I’m able to see through IDS all the communication. I keep tabs on how that communication is going.”

He added, “[Our] texting platform is probably the busiest platform that we have in the dealership.”

How Are Dealers Currently Using AI?

Attendees agreed that while AI has some uses in streamlining customer communications, a human touch is still crucial for creating a good customer experience. Nobody felt that AI was going to replace human interaction anytime soon.

Sara Gauthier: “I know in my interactions it can be very frustrating because even though it seems like a very sort of smart thing to do, I particularly like talking to a real person versus an AI interaction.”

Larry Ortman: “We are not using AI in any communication form in our dealership whatsoever. The only application for AI that we’ve done so far is in some of our marketing initiatives, where our marketing team will get together and brainstorm on some issues, but they’ll use AI…but it’s only as good as the ideas you feed into it. It can give you some interesting ideas, but ultimately, you have to flesh them out yourself anyway.”

Another attendee added, “I find that our AI chatbot just angers customers more than anything. The transcripts are usually good for a laugh.”

Role of a Dedicated Customer Communications Contact

Having a dedicated first point of contact for customers can be hugely beneficial. Someone customer-oriented who can manage incoming customer communications and ensure the right people on your team are looped in. Not only does this free up time for your service writers, but it also sets the tone for your dealership’s customer experience.

An attendee shared, “We have a customer service coordinator. She is the first point of contact and sets up the appointment and asks preliminary questions. Once the appointment is scheduled, we have CRM tasks set up to go to the service writer to touch base with the customer before they come in to ask any necessary probing questions. When the unit comes into the shop, we usually send a text to let the customer know that their unit is about to be worked on.”

Larry Ortman: “We have something similar in our dealership. But we use a university student who’s very good with customer service and very good with communication. She handles this type of thing for us during the summer. During the off-season, our service writers will do this.”

Handling Negative Customer Feedback and Escalations

Who is responsible for putting out the fire when a customer sends an unhappy email or text message? It’s important for teams to establish an escalation pathway for handling negative customer feedback.

Text communication will likely harm a relationship with unhappy customers in this area.

One attendee shared, “Generally, if a customer is irate, upset, or belligerent, it will go to our management team of that department to reach out to the customer. First by their preferred method of communication and then generally asking to schedule a phone call to discuss their frustration and concerns, as empathy can tend to be lost in text communication.”

Larry Ortman: “Emotions are hard to convey. A text or an e-mail can be misinterpreted very, very easily. I agree that that requires a phone call or an in-person sit down when dealing with a negative situation that could easily quickly escalate.”