Customer loyalty and retention are key to success in any industry. So, what can you do as a car dealership to ensure the customers always return to your dealership instead of using the competition? Loyalty and retention can be harder to come by for this type of business, but there are strategies that you can use to build a loyal customer base to achieve long-term success.
Why is Loyalty Important for a Dealership?
First, it is worth looking at why customer loyalty is so important for a car dealership. All businesses can benefit from customer retention as this is how you build a stable customer base and improve your bottom line. It is often cheaper and easier to retain customers than attract new ones and a loyal customer base can help a business to develop a positive reputation and benefit from word-of-mouth marketing. Buying a car is not a regular purchase, so it is important that dealerships find a way to keep their customers coming back when the time comes to make a change.
Identify Risks & Opportunities
The first step is to identify risks and opportunities. You need to look at the reasons why your customer retention has been successful and unsuccessful so that you can identify the areas that need to be addressed. This is not always obvious, so you might want to use surveys to find out why people have been loyal or gone with a different dealership.
How Can Car Dealers Develop Loyalty?
There are a few ways that a dealer can develop loyalty and ensure that customers return when they need a vehicle and recommend the dealership to friends and family.
Great Customer Service
Perhaps most important is customer service. A study found that excellent customer service can cut lost customers by as much as 67%, so you want to make sure that your salespeople are always friendly yet professional and happy to help each customer.
Benefits & Incentives
As with any type of business, you can always attract customers and keep them loyal with benefits and incentives when they use your company. As an example, Milton Keynes Vauxhall car dealers Thurlow Nunn rewarded customers that booked car servicing with an afternoon tea for two which is a nice touch and will get customers talking.
Regular Communication
In addition to excellent customer service, you should also maintain communication to keep customers loyal. This can include following up after a sale to see if the customer is happy with their purchase, asking for feedback and using email marketing.
Go Digital
These days, dealerships need to have a strong presence online. A high-quality website, social media presence and digital marketing will help both in terms of retaining and attracting customers.
Hopefully, this post will be helpful and allow you to boost your customer retention rates for higher levels of success.