Why is communication important in the automotive dealership industry?

Communication in the automotive industry is one of the most important, if not, THE most important thing for maintaining smooth daily operations. If your departments inside your dealership lack communication, you will end up with customers who won’t return.

The reality is, the old-school way of communicating between the different departments does not get your dealership at the top of Google with customer reviews. The way that it used to be is that everything was written down or passed along verbally. This system allows for things to get lost or not properly translated.

The role of dealership management technology in communication

When a dealership sells a car, there is a process that is systematically reliant on dealership management technology. This technology allows your departments to interlink. There are generally two types of software that dealerships use to ensure great customer service:

There is software for the sale process that communicates with sales, parts, and finance and a CRM (Customer Relations Management) system that holds all the customer’s information and where they are in the buying process. This system needs to keep a few different departments up to date throughout the process. When the customer wants to upgrade some parts in the purchase of their vehicle, the parts team needs to order the parts and update that the request has been filled, and then once the ordered parts come in, they will be passed off to the service department for installations. The question is – why is communication so important within a dealership?

1. Minimizes costly mistakes.

The communication that happens between the service department and parts department can spell a productive business, or expensive mistakes that can be prevented.

Because there are so many surprises along the way in the world of mechanics, there can be disruptions or unexpected extra fixes. The techs need to update the service department where they are at with their progress. They do this by entering the updates in the dealer management system for the service department to let the customer know and decide if they want to continue the repair or order the necessary parts.

2. Customers appreciate timely and consistent updates

Once the technicians update their status in the dealer management system, the service department can keep the customers happy by ensuring they are up to date with where their vehicle is while it is getting serviced for parts installations, regular service updates, or repair updates. Communication can make or break a customer’s loyalty, which all dealerships rely on!

3. ‘Great communication’ is a top comment for online reviews

Systems like these are integral to running a dealership. If you have a great service department with an efficient software that allows them to shine, the quality of customer service is at a high level and reviews work for you. With top-not communications, customers will give you shining reviews which naturally attract potential customers. Besides sales, customer service is the make or break for a dealership. Getting communication software that ensures this is a massive return on investment.