Launching a home service is a real challenge for automotive professionals. This service can greatly improve customer satisfaction but can also be a real nightmare to set up. We explain you, here, the mistakes to avoid to launch a home service!
While the home service economy has been exploding for several years in France and now touches sectors ranging from meal delivery to ironing, the automotive industry is not left behind and is also testing these innovations with its private and professional customers. Not all are equal and several players have already paid the price: from a service that nobody knows to a logistical nightmare, here are the 5 mistakes to avoid.
Faced with a new service that is still unknown about its success rate and cost, most players prefer, and rightly so, to start with a POC: an American acronym that has been imported into France for a few years now, the POC or Proof of Concept theoretically allows new concepts to be tested while limiting the damage before making decisions. In practice, it is used to test a service before asking the right questions.
Many automotive players launch home services rather as a "fashion statement" or to be able to meet the occasional expectations of their customers without any quantified ambition on the number of customers to be satisfied or the expected profitability of this type of service.
It is important to measure the efforts that must be made to launch a home-based service.
First of all, there is a significant need to train the internal staff in advance on the conditions of the service and the way it will be carried out. Indeed, there are provisions to be respected by all teams in order to offer a unique quality of service.
From this point on, a change in the way the workshop operates inevitably follows. It is a question of finding a balance between this new lever and the habits already well established in the workshop or the dealership. The home service solutions offer a gain in productivity and time that requires a meticulous internal organization in order to make the most of this lever.
All these changes may raise some fears internally about the jobs of the staff facing this new service. No need to panic! It is enough to manage and overcome the resistance to change and the anxiety that this newcomer may generate. The main goal is to relieve the employees and allow them to fulfill their objectives in terms of vehicle entries and exits.
This is never intended, yet mistakes in partner selection are more common than you might think. There are three main types of partners to avoid in order to launch your home service.
First, the partner who has no experience in integrating the service into partner teams.
Secondly, today digital is the pillar of the services offered. It is necessary to rely on a partner who has the technology to manage the service from A to Z.
And finally, think big and avoid a partner that is too small and therefore scary and redundant. Aim for the right partner with an efficient hotline.
At Otoqi, we have developed a turnkey solution for dealerships!
The first instinct is often to try to charge for the service with a margin: "It's an extra service, it has to be paid for". It is difficult to sell this service at a profit: 80% of the customers take it if it is offered, but only 10% are willing to pay for it separately. Charging for the service at a markup greatly reduces demand and ultimately results in the permanent elimination of in-home service in your shop or dealership.
Once this condition is well integrated in the workshop strategy, it is enough to take full advantage of this service and the benefits it brings. The very regular use of the service allows us to treat more customers with an unchanged workshop surface and an equivalent number of employees: the benefit of this lever is above all the free service that we can offer to our customers.
The result: new customers in your database and a significant increase in the loyalty of current customers.
You have opted for a quality home service and your partner will bring the expected results to your workshop or dealership without any doubt. However, the efficiency and communication of this service relies heavily on the in-house teams.
Many sales or reception teams forget to talk about service to customers, and yet this is the starting point of a well-operated service. A service that is not offered is a service that is never used and will eventually disappear because it is not applied.
With more than 1,500 vehicles processed every day in Europe, Otoqi is a leader in car moving and fleet management services.
