Bridging the gap between sales, service

The walls between sales and service at dealerships can be both physical and metaphorical. Brad Wise, general manager of Ferman Chevrolet and Ferman Mazda in Tampa, Fla., has recognized the divide.

A barrier between the people working in sales and service is common at a lot of dealerships, Wise said. He describes it thusly: Salespeople can sometimes be "all over the place," while the service department operates more "by the books."

Those two dynamics can "sometimes breed some tension," Wise said.

To help unify the departments, Wise about a year ago launched weekly fixed operations meetings that bring in personnel from other departments, namely sales and finance and insurance. Lessons have been learned.

"A lot of the sales guys didn't realize the amount of gross profits that's generated on the fixed side," Wise said.

Seeing that demonstrated in the meetings week to week got the attention of the people working on the other side of the business.

"Too many times, [sales] people just think, you know, what they do out there [in service] doesn't have an impact on their paycheck, which it does," Wise said. "Service advisers play a huge role in whether customers come back again for their next car."

Sales personnel were also not always privy to the volume of repair orders and the controlled chaos that service advisers deal with on a daily basis. Added to that: When people come into the showroom to buy a car, they're generally happy because it's an exciting event. But the same can't always be said for the people taking their vehicles in for repair.

Dealing with unhappy customers day in and day out "wears on you," Wise said.

The fixed-ops-plus-sales meetings double as an educational session, with some motivational reading thrown in. Wise selects relevant material to share. Right now, the group is reading Customers for Life: How to Turn That One-Time Buyer Into a Lifetime Customer, by legendary Texas dealer Carl Sewell. Past readings included The Energy Bus, by leadership coach and author Jon Gordon.

Reading these books chapter by chapter helps salespeople understand both the service adviser's role and what happens in fixed operations, Wise said. And it underscores that the two sides of the business have a shared mission. It's not just to sell cars but to give people a good and lasting product.

Since launching the meetings, coordination between the departments has improved, Wise said, and there seems to be a better understanding of staffers' various roles, Wise said.

Building that understanding with store leaders is also key.

The service department can be overlooked, and "service advisers are underappreciated ... by executive teams sometimes," Wise said.

While dealership executives often get certain perks, such as tickets to sporting events, at Ferman, they make sure they are sharing such perks with the service department, he said. Given the old adage that "sales sells the first car and service sells the rest," service personnel should enjoy any success that the rest of the dealership has, Wise says. He is considering paying service advisers bonuses for exceptional monthly sales performances.

"Our service advisers see our guests more than any other employee," he said.

The service department is also where one of the industry's largest challenges exists: The well-documented shortage of technicians and the ongoing effort to attract new workers to the field.

That means a dealership's technicians "have to have some recruiting talent and expertise, too," Wise said. Some of his fixed ops personnel go to job fairs to meet with young people interested in the trade. "The recruiting aspect of the job is an underestimated thing," he said.

The elevated focus on recognizing service isn't meant to take anything away from the sales department. "New car [selling] really makes it all go," Wise said.

"We all win if sales can be aggressive and make as many sales as possible and service does more than what's expected," he said. "Long term, we should be able to weather just about anything that comes our way."

The Ferman Chevrolet and Mazda stores together sold about 5,000 new and used vehicles in 2018. The Chevy store was the No. 1 dealership for that brand in the Tampa marketplace, Wise said. It's one of the oldest Chevrolet dealerships in the country, having been founded in 1895 as a bicycle company and gaining the Chevy franchise in 1921. Ferman Automotive Group in total operates 15 vehicle dealerships and five Harley-Davidson motorcycle dealerships.