SERVICE MAYBE YOUR BEST TRAINING GROUND FOR CULTURE CHANGE
Mobility and transportation of the future and its effects on today’s retail industry is finally recognized by growing amount of authorities. Economists, publications, more importantly now even some retail store brokers have started talking about the eminent indicators of the demise of the auto retailing in the U.S. This week I received an e-mail publication from “PERFORMANCE BROKERS”; a predominant retail store brokerage firm indicating the sense of urgency of declining value and no return in the coming years. They advised those retailers who do not want to transform to quickly cash out their assets in order to protect their investments.
We have stated on several occasions that for those who want to take their space in the new world of transportation services; within the next five years, the most important transformation will focus around developing people skills to accommodate the change of focus from product to service. While it is not clear what evolution stages new world of mobility will go through, one thing is pretty clear; ultimately replacement retailers will look like large size fleet operators with significantly large service departments to maintain these fleets. Therefore it is safe to say that service culture and the change in the way service customers are being treated would be the proper ground to start affecting the culture and review the processes that are in place today.
While service departments of the future will have very little to do directly with consumers, transitionally and in the next five years, developing culture and processes in service will improve the quality of employees, promote high level of employee relations and retention and appeal to the behavior styles and preferences of new generation consumers. It will also transform the sales process as we know it today focused on the product and performance to building relationships and providing the ultimate customer service considering that the sale itself will largely revolve around the type of transportation service, its features, benefits and options rather than the style, engine power or brand. In this direction some of the things you may want to start brainstorming maybe as follows:
b- Real time appointment capabilities
c- Repair service status and service history, upcoming service schedules and reminders
d- Real time bill paye- Loan car/ rental car reservations
f- New vehicle model lease, retail and subscription promotions
g- Other Finance and insurance product promotions, accessory sales, maintenance and coverage plans
h- Service real time up sell, service promotions, repair recommendations and price quotes
I- Pickup and delivery services
J- OBD remote diagnostic services via internet and communicating results to clients
h- On site customer accommodations including but not limited to work stations, copy and print office capabilities, food and beverage services, personalized massage and grooming services, light entertainment services.
While all of this maybe only a transition to future transportation concepts, it will provide substantial training grounds for employees, recruit new generation candidates, and transform your organizational culture from a behind ages environment to that of essentially required employee and customer driven behavior styles which are prerequisites to new age of mobility.